Media Mgt - moving libraries on to 1 drive

Hi All

I got a bit excited with 10.1 and made sure all my projects/events on 3 different hard drives were all updated with the new format.

But, in my infinite wisdom I went out and bought one large external HD yesterday.

QU 1: whats the best practice for moving the libraries so they are all accessed from 1 drive (do i just copy and paste from explorer?)

QU 2: Should I use one of the older external HD as a temporary backup on the new drive?

Thanks

Hi Phil,

1. Yes, moving Libraries from one drive onto another one is as simple as copy/pasting them using the Finder.

- If all your Libraries are fully self-contained, i.e. you have stored all your media inside the Library Events, all you media will be moved to the new hard drive as well and you will only need this drive to work with.

- However if your Libraries are not fully self-contained, i.e. the Events inside the Libraries contain simlinks to media stored somewhere else on your existing drives, you will always need to connect the drives that contain the media as well as the drive that holds the Libraries.

2. It is always a good idea to keep backups of any work you do. Drives fail, and you never know when it's going to happen but you do know it's always going to happen at the worst moment you can imagine So keeping a backup of all your work is imperative.

- Ronny

Thanks for the response Ronnie

Good point, I will have to go through and check there are no simlinks.

I recommend Consolidating your Libraries first.

Consolidating is indeed a good idea. While Consolidating you can choose if you want to keep the media stored inside their respective Libraries, or if you want the media to be stored outside of the Libraries.

Which option works best for you depends on the kind of work you do. If you work alone and every Project uses its own specific media from a specific Library it's better to keep your media stored inside your Libraries. For collaborative workflows or projects that use lots of different media from different media archives or a central storage system, working with external media is the best option.

- Ronny

Oops, wrong post. sorry.

Okay, then I will delete my reply to it as well

Thanks Ronnie

Yep I work alone on many different projects, as of yet am unclear whether to name desperate libraries on clients or some other naming convention ie weddings, sport, music etc..

However I have just bought ripple trainings 10.1 tutorial to see if I can pick up some extra tips

That's a great idea. Also check Ben Balser's excellent Guide to Libraries, which you can find here: www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/fcp-x-...-to-libraries-part-1

- Ronny

Thanks for the plug, Ronny! Appreciate the support. Puzzled why mPV stuff isn't featured here with every one else's stuff. Who knows, not my end of the business.

FYI, this weekend I'm wrapping up a video course at macProVideo on FCP X 10.1 media management. Should be out very soon.

Looking forward to it, Ben. PS...your Libraries article was very well done. Thank you.

I did not know about your tutorial Ben, hence I chose the ripple training one

The Libraries / updating article is free at macProVideo.com/hub, and is a bit different than Ripple Training. They're doing something different than us. Their videos are good. Michael Wohl, former FCP developer for Apple, one of the originals, has also updated his FCP X course for 10.1.

I recommend checking out all the various blogs, articles, and videos. Everyone catches some different aspects the others miss.