Ideal external hd / backup scenario for working with FCP on new macbook.

I've not used USB 3.0 drives enough yet to say anything about them. But USB 2 is too slow, and 5200 rpm drives are too slow. FW800, eSATA, or T'bolt are the known formats for video. I'm waiting for some solid feedback on using USB 3 for video editing before I recommend it.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm actually have a hell of a time finding the kind of drive I am looking for (portable, bus powered, at least 1TB, and better than USB 2.0 connectivity): is it really just the read/write speeds that are the bottom line (with the RPMs just serving to inform these values)? If so maybe some of the drives I was able to find are okay.

For example, I was liking the Western Digital 2TB Firewire Passport Studio, but then I saw it was 5400: the read/write speeds are around 55/60 MB/s though, and I think the USB 3.0 version is around 75 read/write: does that cut the mustard? (reference: www.photographybay.com/2012/05/24/wd-my-...e-hard-drive-review/ )

If you still say it must be 7200, than that is fine; but unfortunately the largest portables I am seeing are only 750 GB. If interested; here is the most comprehensive list I could find of benchmarks for portables:

www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-ext...ard-disk,3218-6.html

Thanks!

I only use Mercury On-The-Go drives, ever, on FW800.
eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

750 is about the largest laptop drive made at 7200 rpm, which can be bus powered.

Okay. Dang; I'd really like a TB at least - maybe I'll just wait a little bit and see what happens. If WD can cram 2TB into portable, I would think (perhaps naively) that it's possible to make a 1TB 7200.

Can you shed some insight on my read/write question btw (because I noticed that on that benchmark test some of the better 5400 hundred drives have higher read/write than some of the worse 7200 drives etc, and not sure what this means exactly for Final Cut).

Are those sustained data streams, or burst rates? Two very different measurements. Most tests are burst rates.

They did both; (and they talk about that in the analysis). Basically it seems like the average for the higher end 5400's was 65ish read/write overall.

If that's not good enough I might just end up getting a good 3TB internal 7200 drive and throwing it in a thunderbolt enclosure or something.

I did some more research and it looks like that OWC drive you mentioned may indeed be the best of whats out there (though I couldn't find anywhere citing a read / write speed; which I'd like to know). The only drive that seemed close was www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/818374-RE...mini_High_Speed.html

but the OWC just looks more portable, has USB 3.0 as an option, and they also give you carbon copy cloner which is pretty cool (was gonna buy that anyway).

Just bought 2

Okay I just set up my new Retina Macbook Pro, and put my Final Cut Events and Projects folders on the new OWC external hard drive (see above), and having problems right out of the gate. I figured I'd initially test with all my projects just using original compressed media and playback seems be okay except during certain transitions, where it drops frame and video playback just shows the same still image form then on. I figured that I should render and see what happens, but whenever I try to render (either by background rendering on or trying to selective render) it just stalls at 0% render and then I have to force quit...can anyone tell me why I can not render? Thanks.

Nevermind; turns out that Final Cut was just adjusting to the new retina version update and that was slowing everything down while it was figuring itself out. Now that things are back to normal; the rendering and such actually happens faster than my 2009 desktop working with its internal drive. This is good news