SSD - faster FCPX performance as system drive or scratch disk?

Just ordered a Helios thunderbolt expansion, with a 240 gig SSD
and esata ports

Should i make the SSD my system drive and use esata for scratch disk or
Using my Mac mini (16gig ram, Intel 300) as the system and the
SSD as my scratch ?


Thanks for any advice !

You won't use an external drive as your system drive. Use it for your Events and Projects. There is no more "Scratch Drive" any more, since we can put our stuff on any and all drives at once, as we wish.

thank you so much, again

Ben B your a life savor!

Would using OWC's Drive doubler (to add a SSD) as a way to run my system drive on a SSD
make much of a difference with FCP X? I know it would speed up my system, but is it worth the money for the amount of performance increase with FCP X?


I have the SSD through thunderbolt for my media drive, and 16 gigs of ram,

again, Cant thank you enough

truly the FCP X GURU!

Is it worth the money? Depends on how rich or poor you are. You will see overall system speed and performance increases. As for FCP specific functions, well...

I know folks will argue with me, but my 2008 Mac Pro runs FCP just as well off of internal SATA drives as my 15" rMBP does with an internal SSD drive. It launches faster, there is some snappiness to it, but in my daily editing grind, I don't see tons of difference. Most of what is going on is in RAM, CPU, GPU. Once a Event and Project are loaded into RAM (and my rMBP is "slightly" faster at that), it is totally up to RAM, CPU, GPU, and the GPU in my Mac Pro smokes the one in my rMBP. And the majority of my work is on my Mac Pro, not my laptop. BTW, my Mac Pro handles native REDCODE RAW files much better than my rMBP does, with an external SSD T'bolt media drive. It is all in the GPU.

If this is the only Mac you have to edit with, and you can comfortably afford it, I'd say do it. It will pay off over time.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I can't thank you enough for the help, you always give such clear and detailed responses to a person in need

I just spend about $800 for this thunderbolt expansion, its supposed to be a very fast SSD, and it has two esata ports, which my mac mini lacks,

eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/HELIOS1AE240/

I have been investing and trying to get my film gigs to make the most sense financially, so anything that isnt necessary is something I will have to live without
I appreciate the detail on your experience


I could eventually save up to buy an internal SSD, but your advice will make a huge difference as to whether I will do that

Is it worth trying to upgrade my mac mini with a thunderbolt expansion for GPU? I know this thunderbolt PCI expansion is still fairly new so just curious, because it sounds like I would be better off upgrading my GPU then my system drive
Which makes sense to me

I have a Power mac I invested a ton into, except I was lucky enough to invest in the G5 quad right before the switch to intel, so I primarily use my mac mini for video editing


THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!!!

You really are the man, I wish I could think of a way to help you out but that doesnt meant I wont stop trying to find one

I wouldn't spend too much on the Mini, but rather the money for an iMac. I just a 27' with 2GB VRAM and 32GB system RAM and attached a 6TB LaCie TB RAID (0). That thing smokes with Adobe CS6, FCP X, Motion and Smoke. Even Resolve works fairly well. Happy as a pig in the mud!

I don't know what you are doing, but I doubt you'll get too happy with the Mini in the long run.

Does the TB GPU extension have enough bandwidth? Maybe you are just building another bottleneck into your system. I'm not sure if it is worth it.

First, thank you for the help
Really appreciate the info.!

Your probably right, I don't know exactly how much bandwidth exists when daisy chaining these thunderbolt expansion chassis. The owc mercury Helios says it can daisy chain up to 6 thunderbolt devices but I can't seem to find info on performance with daisy chaining

That's true, yea I bought it about two years ago and it's always been fine for the editing I have been doing
And my plans is to wait for the new Mac Pro so I'm really only looking for minor expansion that can also transfer over to the Mac Pro, which is exactly why I got the owc mercury Helios, it's a real fast SSD with esata expansion ports and thunderbolt daisy chaining up to 6 devices

I am not sure about a TB GPU expansion, I was just asking if anyone knows about them.
Just to be clear, that would basically just be a video card that is used in a TB expansion chassis , right ?


My friend works for apple and he has the same new iMac minus the LaCie TB, and he loves it,
But I figure since the mini works great now that I have a SSD for my final cut events/projects
I should prob hold off for the new Mac Pro


Thanks again!

Yes, the external GPU sits in a TB cage.

If your Mini can handle what you are doing right now, save the money the exteranl GPU ill cost (those TB cages aren't cheap) towards your Pro.

However, if the only issue you had with the Mini was an external drive, then I think the Pro would be overkill for you. The iMac would be perfectly sufficient.

I mean I'm drooling over the Pro myself, but can't rationalize it, as the iMac does what I need. A lottery win might change the rationalization, but...

FCP X and Motion 5 won't use that external GPU, be aware.