External Drives

Hello

Can you edit a project directly from an external hard drive without importing the clips on to the computer on FCP X?

Thanks!

Yes, although the ease of the experience will vary based on rotational speed of the drive, the way it connects to the computer, and the format of the clips.

Do you have any external drive suggestions for editing HD 1080p/i video? Is a Thunderbolt drive the best/fastest option?

Thanks for your help!

Well, if possible, you want 7200rpm drives connected via Thunderbolt instead of Firewire. Some people can get by with USB 3 drives, but I've not tried that. It might depend on the clips - prores or other lightly compressed things might be OK, AVCHD or other highly compressed clips might not work as well. So much of video editing is based on repeated access to media on drives that it's important to not let that be too much of a bottleneck.

My current set up is using an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Performance RAID 0 via USB 3.0. Before that I was just using a 7200 RPM HDD via USB 3.0 and was able to edit just fine on my late 2013 iMac. The RAID 0 is a lot faster but as you know there is no redundancy. IMHO Unless you are doing some heavy hitting USB 3.0 with 7200 RPM HHD's will do you just fine.

Dave

Villalobos wrote: Can you edit a project directly from an external hard drive without importing the clips on to the computer on FCP X?

Not only can you do it, but it is preferred that you work that way. It is best to NOT work on your startup drive but have dedicated fast external storage video editing. Mainly because your startup drive is best to keep fast and lean instead of being hit hard by large blocks of video data. In a pinch you can put a library on your startup drive (like traveling), but it is best to find a fast external solution.

It mostly depends on your level of work. For me, 90% of my material is Canon DLSR, so low data rate and I'm not a renders. So, I'm just fine with a Thunderbolt Lacie to esata adapter with a 6TB OWC RAID 5 (about 250 MB/Sec). However, when I'm on the go I use a Firewire 800 drive (50 MB/sec) or a USB3 (110 MB/sec) for simple h264 and AVCHD projects and it works just fine. I'm helping with production for some of my students film (the size of a modest studio feature), shot AVCHD 1080, but working in Proxy in FCPX , it is all on a Firewire 800 7200 rpm LaCie drive.

Others editors will be working with higher data rate ProRes, and then would recommend a Thunderbolt RAID, like a Promise RAID (500 MB/sec or more).

Also, besides just pure speed, the more complicated your project, the better performance you are going to get with FCPX in general.