FCP 10.1 - internal Fusion Drive editing or external Hard drive?

I have a late 2012 iMac with 3.4 GHz Intel core i7, 32 GB ram and 3.12 TB fusion drive fitted.

I import HD footage into a scratch folder on my internal hard drive and create and edit using the internal fusion drives of the SSD and Hard drive so the libraries, events, original footage etc. stay on my iMacs internal hard drive storage.

Once my edit is finished I export to a Quicktime movie, copy to another external SSD drive and take it to the office, transfer it and pick up new footage to edit.

The old school of thought with non-linear editing was if you edited on the computers internal drives then it should perform better and perhaps a little quicker.

My question is this...

I read a comment recently from Ronny stating that in his opinion it is NOT best to edit internally if you are using a fusion drive set up on your Mac?

Could Ronny or anyone please explain this to me in further detail.

I also have one Thunderbolt and another USB3 external drive that I can use and did use in the early days until someone told me I should edit internally but this information now seems to be have been wrong?

I am having troubles with the Mavericks OS but now I wonder if this may be also playing a part.

Thanks guys, looking forward to your comments.

Jeff

Keep it externally.

I had the Fusion mess up an AFX job. AFX couldn't find the files anymore, as the OS didn't allow AFX direct access.

Hi Jeff,

The old school of thought with non-linear editing was if you edited on the computers internal drives then it should perform better and perhaps a little quicker.

In the "old" days if you didn't have access to fast external SCSI or eSATA RAID storage it was indeed better to edit from a second internal SATA drive (which was NOT your system drive) then to edit from an external USB or FireWire400 drive. It has never been, not in the old days and not today, good practice to store media for editing on your system drive.

The Fusion drive is special in such that it combines a relatively small SSD and a large HDD into one single drive. It is a great combination for many iMac users as it combines fast SSD drive access for handling applications with fairly large HDD storage capacity all in one enclosure. But can you also use it for professional editing without any external media storage?

Of course you can, just like you can shoot a feature film with a GoPro But is this a solution that is at least as fast, reliable and secure as keeping your media on an external TB or USB3 drive? No, it isn't.

I won't go into all the details over and over again, as many others have already tested this workflow and have written down their concerns about using the FD as your only drive for editing. The main issues with the Fusion Drive are limited bandwidth and low file integrity. Here's a view of Larry Jordan, who is extremely positive about the FD but advises against using it as your media drive for editing:

www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2084
www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2033

His conclusion: For me, the ideal situation is the Fusion drive for the OS, and an external RAID 5 for all media.

And here's a decent explanation about how limited bandwidth and low file integrity may lead you to not consider using a Fusion Drive for professional workflows involving large files:

www.zdnet.com/mac-fusion-drive-pro-users-beware-7000006661/

I am extremely positive about the fusion Drive, most of our iMacs have them inside. But we never use them as media drives for editing. Of course your situation will be different than mine, and I guess we can come back to the same "old school of thought": if you don't have access to fast and secure external storage the Fusion Drive will probably be a better choice for storing your media than a slow external drive. But for larger projects and data security the FD is not an ideal option.

- Ronny

Thanks Ronny

I knew you had a solid opinion on this and I am thankful for your speedy reply and links, they were interesting.

I take it when you say 'Media' to be stored on an external drive you are talking 'all media'... photos, music, videos etc.

I have a 3 TB thunderbolt drive that I can use for media and a 2 TB USB3 drive that I will use for back ups.

I can't remember the performance being any better or worse when I used to edit with an external drive before but hopefully I will see a little improvement in overall performance by getting all the media off the internal drive.

I just hope FCP 10.1 doesn't play up when I start moving all my bits and pieces around?, so here's hoping.

Thanks again.

Hey Jeff,

I think most of us here agree that keeping your media stored outside of the drive that handles your applications is still best practice. Wether you will see much benefit from using the external single USB3 drive instead of the HDD part of your Fusion Drive is not really sure. The real speed differences come with using external TB RAID enclosures and not so much with single external drives.

With "media" I mean any media that you are using in your editing projects. You can still have any music, stills and stock video collections stored on your FD and only import pieces of them into your FCPX Libraries on an external drive when you need to use these pieces in an FCPX Project. In this case I would physically import the clips into the external FCPX Library so your Library remains self-contained.

The transition to 10.1 is much easier than you would imagine, providing you understand how the process actually works. Here's an excellent guide to upgrading to Libraries, written by Ben Balser:

www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/fcp-x-...-to-libraries-part-1

- Ronny

Oh Jeez Ronny,

Now I gotta go and fork out $800 bucks for a thunderbolt LaCie RAID drive, "Thanks a lot"

Still... I can stick my other drives on eBay and soften the blow of the 'fork out' I suppose.

I have never worked with RAID drives before but as you and many others say, it's the best way to go even though the initial price can be a bit off putting.

Be prepared for my "How do I set up my new RAID drive" post any day now.

Thanks again

Jeff.

I am glad I have made my weekly contribution to stimulating global economy

There are a few things to be said about "needing" a RAID or not:

1. Data throughput

It is obvious that two or more striped drives will give you better data throughput than a single drive. Wether you need this kind of throughput really depends on the kind of work you are doing. The higher the data rate of your video clips, the more consistent throughput you need. When you start doing multicam work or multilayer compositing, which requires simultaneous throughput of multiple video streams, a single drive will quickly start to choke (unless you use the Proxy workflow, which results in your media having much smaller data rates).

OTOH if you only work with low data rates and fairly simple projects a single USB3 or TB drive will perfectly do the job.

2. Data integrity

Most RAIDs can be configured to multiple levels of redundancy (data protection). A RAID 1 or a RAID 5 system automatically "duplicates" your data over all of its drives (simplified explanation) so if one of the hard drives inside that RAID dies, your data is still safe. Depending on the RAID level you are using, redundancy requires less extra drive space than making a full backup of the media.

OTOH if you work with single drives and you constantly backup this drive you get the same level of file protection. But then you need twice the amount of drive space, which again makes a RAID system a better choice.

- Ronny

It's all about bandwidth. All of those video and audio live streams an NLE needs to do it's work can eat up any single drive's bandwidth very fast. Bandwidth and streaming media.

I think the Fusion Drive is awesome, so many advantages with one concern.

Cutting a stream or two in HD on an FD will work, but if the drive fails, Apple doesn't offer data recovery, so you are limited to Apple authorized repair services who may have a relationship with a data recovery company, which can add weeks to the repair depending on how busy they are.

If you bring it to an Apple store, they pop in a new drive with a fresh install of the OS the mac shipped with and send you home without your failed drives to your time machine backup they know you must have since they made backing up so darn easy.

Jeff, i have the LaCie. It is a great drive. However, it only allows for RAID 0 and 1. However, you want to have 5 for speed AND security, so you better look for a different option.

4 drives or less, RAID 0 or 1, 5 won't give you any advantage, not enough for it to really shine with. Larger RAID arrays can benefit from RAID 5.

Thanks everyone,

I'm now starting to get a better idea on RAID drives and how they work but because I have never worked with RAID drives before I have a couple of more questions you could help me with before I shell out the big bucks.

Most of my editing work is with HD 1920 x 1080p footage, sometimes multi format (Sony Cam EX, Sony NEX, GoPro etc.) and I often use multilayer compositing with plenty of colour correction, retiming, effects. etc.

I don't like to use Proxy in FCP 10.1 as I use a reference monitor as a guide to the final result and I just don't like the low res images of Proxy whilst editing as it is not a good reference image.

I have found that whilst editing optimised media ProRes 422 that FCP will start to choke over time and slow down.

Question 1: Would a RAID system improve the play back smoothness without dropping as many frames on the timeline and overall performance while editing?

Question 2: Promise's Pegasus2 R4 Thunderbolt 2 RAID array has four hard drive slots so what would be the best way to set up the RAID (let's say 4 x 2TB drives) to (a.) improve overall performance and speed of Final Cut Pro and (b.) so back ups can be performed (Time Machine?) on a regular basis.

As I said I am pretty ignorant on RAID systems so would appreciate your wisdom on this so I can make the right decision.

Thank you.

Jeff.

For what it's worth, I've seen a top of the line iMac with Fusion Drive struggle with video editing tasks, and I've seen another do well. It depends on if the system tries to juggle media between the SSD and the spinning disk while it should be helping you to edit, so it's unpredictable, and best avoided. A basic USB3 drive like a Seagate Backup Plus drive can hit 200MB/s, and you can mash two of them together in a home-made RAID 0 if you want faster performance again, so you might not have to spend the big bucks on a Thunderbolt RAID.

I'll be writing about this soon for macProVideo, but for now:

RAID 0 is up to twice as fast, but twice as risky as a single drive
RAID 1 is usually no faster than a single drive (though reads can sometimes be), but twice as safe as a single drive

You can make your own RAID with Disk Utility or use a hardware RAID, but anything less than Thunderbolt will likely limit throughput to about 300MB/s anyway.

I have to disagree, RAID 1 is much faster than a single drive. I've got a couple here in my studio we've been using for a long time.

I'm using a Pegasus2 R4 Diskless. I put 4TB drives in it. With the current 15" rMBP, it screams. Looking forward to using it with the new Mac Pro "tube".

I also have a USB 3 RAID from OWC, which is really surprisingly fast. Very impressive. Just not crazy about how loud the fans are.

RAID 1 can be faster for reads, but it depends how it's set up. Because reading can take place from both drives at once, it can be much faster, but since it's writing the same data to both drives at once, writes probably won't be faster. Hardware and software RAID 1 can be quite different as well — my software RAID 1 was no faster than a single drive for reads or writes.

RAID speed levels will depend on the hardware, infinity more than the RAID level itself. Not all controller cards are the same speed. FW800 RAID will perform much slower than the exact same RAID on USB 3.0. Software RAID can perform a bit slower than hardware RAID. It's not the RAID level, it is the hardware handling it.

Hi guys I hope the New Year is off to a good start for everyone and here's to a bug free 2014.

Thanks to all your expert knowledge and advice in regards to which HDD to edit FCP10.1 with, I went and purchased a Promise Pegasus2 R4 complete with four HD black 2TB HDD.

I am running a thunderbolt cable from my iMac to the Pegasus2 then daisy chaining another LaCie 3 TB thunderbolt bolt HDD to use as a back up drive (probably with Time Machine?).

The Pegasus2 comes pre-configured in RAID 5 format so my question is should I stick with RAID 5 or if not then what would you recommend to improve my editing experience?

Thanks everyone.

Leave the P2 at RAID 5. With thunderbolt you won't really notice any difference in speed. Especially with the really fast controllers Promise puts in their T'bolt RAIDS. Those controller boards are about the fastest on the market, I believe.

Thanks for your expert advice Ben,

I now have my Pegasus2 R4 up and running and according to the BlackMagic speed tests it's running in the red for most of the read/write tests, so I'm happy with that, even though I only have thunderbolt 1 capability.

Setting up was a bit of a chore as the information that comes in the box is not intended for a 'diskless' unit and if you follow the instructions supplied they don't apply and don't work, but fortunately I worked this out early on.

Why Promise can't put in an information slip on how to set up a diskless drive is beyond me (not even a mention on where to download the 'Promise Utility' that comes loaded with the pre-configured units) and to be honest the website and downloadable instruction manual isn't much better.

Promise Utility is an application that can be downloaded from their website (if you can find it) and that makes the whole RAID set up (It is an essential program for further configurations and settings) much easier in my opinion as a person with a little bit of confidence and ability.

I found Disk Utility sometimes used terminology that I wasn't familiar with so I would be left with dubious confidence that I was doing the right thing so I wouldn't commit to a setting.

Running four WD black 2 TB HDD the unit is a little noisier than I expected but still with two fans and four disks running, I'm not complaining.

Overall I'm very happy so far and thank you, Ronny and everyone else for helping me through this process.

Thanks

Jeff.