FCPX on its own drive?

I have FCPX on its own drive (it's on its own partition of a drive, the other of which contains my raw media). Is this a good practice or not? If it's now, I will move FCPX back to the main HD that contains my system files.

Let me know. Thanks!

The application should be on the system drive in the Applications folder.

OK, does it matter if I made a system bootable drive out of the partition that FCPX now currently resides on? It's not in the Application folder on the drive it's on now, either.

Will performance improve if I move it back to my main system HD?

I've been thinking about getting an SSD to put FCPX on, but if it has to be with my other Applications on the main drive, that would require a 1TB SSD drive. Which is more $.

Thanks for your knowledge, Tom.

Having your raw media on a separate partition helps only in terms of organization and backup purposes but it's better to have it on a separate drive. The fastest drive with the fastest connectivity to your main system the better. This is where you'll reap the benefit you're looking for.
Keep your main drive as lean as possible. Make sure theres plenty of available space. Move video and pics and documents to an external drive. Keep FCPX on the main drive in applications folder as suggested above. An SSD would be better for your media not so much for the program.

I installed a SSD in my iMac and I run the OS, programs, and plugins/templates off of that. All of my media is on an external Thunderbolt drive.

Having all that on an SSD has sped everything up a lot. At work I have the exact same computer except for the SSD and it's just much slower to work with. SSD is the way to go.

OK, so it looks like I could gain some speed on my system as a whole (it's not super slow at the moment, actually it's pretty good) and I could gain some performance gain with FCPX.

Since it looks like I need to put FCPX back on my main system drive... is there anything special I need to do before moving it? I think it's just a matter of closing the program, moving it, and then it'll run fine in the new location. Does it matter if I still have FCP7 on my main drive? I believe that's why I moved FCPX to a new drive in the 1st place - to keep them separate.

It's not a must to have FCPX installed on the boot drive in the "/Applications" folder. It can reside on any other drive or location.
But settings/prefs always will be stored on the current boot disk in the users prefs. Also updating will only work for the version which is located in the "/Applications" folder.
But having FCPX versions both in the "/Applications" and on another drive can help to juggle versions - if you juggle prefs same time.
As mentioned by all the others, keep your boot disk as clean as possible. Media, events and projects should reside on one or more external drives - except you want to have a kind of user management and control.

-Andreas

OK, so here is where I'm at on this:

I've found that I do have FCPX on its own system-bootable drive, but I also have the program on my main system hard drive.

I'd still like to get a SSD for my main drive. Currently, my main drive is 1TB and I have about 880GB used on it. What, at bare minimum, do I need to transfer over to a new drive to make it workable? Obviously, I could put my iTunes and other media on their own drive. When I looked at my Users, System, Library, and Applications folders the total was 290GB. Are these the only folders I'd need to transfer over to a new drive to make it run on its own?

Thanks for the input -

Hi Sean,

I concur with what Julian said. If you get an SSD it would be wise to start clean: install only the OS and ALL your applications on it. Your iTunes media folder, your FCPX Events and Projects folders and any other large media folders should be kept on a fast separate drive to keep your system drive as lean as possible. Running your applications from an SSD will give you faster response when opening applications.

Don't mess with dragging System, Library or Application folders around, that's a recipe for disaster. Just do a clean install on your system drive and if you want to create a bootable backup of your working system on an external drive you can use a backup application such as Carbon Copy Cloner to make this.

- Ronny

Thanks for the advice, guys.

So, a clean install...I have CCC and SuperDuper. What's the most direct way to make a clean install on the new drive once I get it? I'm going with the OWC Accelsior, btw. Getting 2 extra eSata ports in the deal is a win.

The Accelsior has received some great reviews, so it seems like a solid choice.

1. Put the Accelsior SSD card in your MacPro.

Here's an article describing the card and the installation procedure for a MacPro 2009:
www.macobserver.com/tmo/review/owcs_merc..._ssd_blistering_fast

When you open Disk Utility your SSD should show the formatted drive.

2. Install the extra driver.

Although this card is Plug&Play and it does not require any drivers, most people advise to install the extra driver supplied with the Accelsior to ensure a proper power-down management of Accelsior during sleep, restart, and shutdown actions:

macperformanceguide.com/blog/2013/201310...ccelsior-driver.html

3. Turn your SSD into your new system drive.

First an important question: should you really do a clean install or not?

In pre Snow Leopard days the answer was always: "yes". Since SL the answer is: "it depends".

- If you have a clean and good running system and you have experienced no problems whatsoever with your computer before, the fastest way of turning your new SSD into your new system drive is to use CCC or SuperDuper to create a clone of your existing system drive onto the SSD. You will be up and running in no time and you don't need to look any further down this post

- If you have been experiencing issues with your system before, or if you feel like your new system drive needs to be absolutely clean and lean, then a clean install is advised.

Here's how you proceed to do a clean install:

a. Make sure you have a backup of your entire system.

As you still have your existing system drive inside the MP this is no issue.

b. Install the OS on your SSD

- If you want to install Snow Leopard you can just use your installation DVD to install the OS onto your SSD.

- If you want to install Lion or Mountain Lion you will first have to create a bootable USB stick. You can do this manually: arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/how-to-cre...n-lion-install-disk/
or you can use a little app to do this for you: liondiskmaker.com/?page_id=27

Once you have the bootable Lion or ML USB you can boot from it and install your OS onto the SSD:


When the OS has been installed, re-boot your computer from your SSD system drive.

4. Restore any applications, settings, folders, preferences from your old system on your new system drive.

When you boot from the new SSD Setup Assistant will help you to configure your system and to restore any files and settings from your old system drive to your new one. If you want to do this layer you can use Migration Assistant and select your old system drive as your backup source.

6. Test your system.

If everything runs smoothly use CCC or SuperDuper to backup your new system drive on an external drive.

- Ronny

Thanks everyone for your input.

I ordered the 480GB Accelsior PCI card. What I'm thinking about doing is installing this as another FCPX Events & Projects drive to gain the advantage of the drive's speed. I think this is a better use (although it's only 480GB...) of the SSD than using it for my system drive. We'll see. I can at least have 1 relatively small event/project housed on that drive at a time. Excited to see the difference it will make in workflow!