If I buy a SDD HD do I need to have the clips, projects and events on that drive?

Hello,

I'm thinking about buying an SSD HD and an extra 8GB memory (to have 16 GB) because my FCPX sometimes runs slower or crashes.

If I buy an SSD hardrive do I need to have the clips I'm editing in that drive in order for it to be faster? Or can I have them in an external HD?

And what about the events and projects?

Or all I need is to install FCPX on that SSD drive and that will make it run faster?


Thanks

Never put Libraries on a boot drive.
Having clips on an SSD via USB 3 or T'bolt would help performance.
Having the boot drive be an SSD drive helps, also.

Where you using this as a boot drive or secondary drive?
What Mac model?

Hello BenB.

My mac is MacBook Pro 15.4" (A1286) (i7, 8GB RAM)

I don't have the SDD yet but I want to buy one to improve performance.

So the best option would be to have the Mac OSX installed on the SSD correct?

I'm going to remove my optical drive to insert the SDD drive, so I can keep 2 internal hard drives (this is a good idea correct?)

So you say that I should never have the Events and Projects folders on the hard drive where the OSX is installed?

What about the original video clips I'm editing? If I use the SDD to have the OSX and FCPX, where should I have the original clips and the Events and Projects?

Doesn't it slow the editing process to have them in an external hard drive?

Thank you

Anyone?

So the best option would be to have the Mac OSX installed on the SSD correct?

- Yes

I'm going to remove my optical drive to insert the SDD drive, so I can keep 2 internal hard drives (this is a good idea correct?)

- Not necessarily. If you replace the optical drive with a large conventional drive you might use this drive to store your media on. If you replace the optical drive with a second small SSD drive this operation is useless.

So you say that I should never have the Events and Projects folders on the hard drive where the OSX is installed?

- Yes

What about the original video clips I'm editing? If I use the SDD to have the OSX and FCPX, where should I have the original clips and the Events and Projects?

- On a fast external drive. As Ben said: Thunderbolt or USB3. Not necessarily an SSD drive, these are not any better than spinning drives for storing media and they are more expensive.

Doesn't it slow the editing process to have them in an external hard drive?

- No, actually having them on a fast external drive (or on a second internal drive) speeds up the editing process.

The reason why your current system is slow or crashes is BECAUSE you store your FCP X Libraries and your media on the system drive.

- Ronny

Thank you very much Rony!

You explained everything I needed to know!

I'm going to replace my optical drive with this: www.amazon.com/Drive-Unibody-MacBook-Sup...1-1&keywords=Optibay

And insert my current 750GB HDD there.

Then I'm going to buy a 250GB SDD and put it where I had my current HDD.

I will then store my libraries and events in the HDD.

That's what makes sense correct?

One last question, is it okay to have the Libraries & Events on the internal HDD and have the original media clips in an external HDD?

Thank you!

Yes, that makes sense.

If you only work with short and simple projects (home videos) you can keep your Libraries on the system drive, even it's an SSD.

But as soon as you want to do anything serious you will need to move everything off the system drive. FCP X constantly writes information to the Library database and this can kill an SSD system drive (and slow down any system drive for that matter), even on a new MacPro. We recently had a topic about this: www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...-for-the-new-mac-pro

- Ronny

I'm already doing something serious with videos so I want to do it the right way

I have another question that maybe you can help me.

I have a Macbook Pro 15" (Early 2011), Core i7, 8GB RAM (Will upgrade to 16GB) and I currently have Mac OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and FCPX 10.0.7

After I do the upgrade with the SDD and the 16 GB RAM should I update to Mavericks and FPCX 10.1.2 (I guess that' the latest version?)

Thank you again!

Some would say the MBP 2011 is a bit limited for working with FCP X, but that's exactly what we have been using for on-the-field editing with FCP X during the 2012 Olympic Games.

Yes you will see much benefit when updating to Mavericks 10.9.3 and FCP X 10.1.2 as soon as you have your hardware updated, especially when you are coming from 10.0.7.

Just remember that when you perform such a big update it is always best to wipe your system drive completely clean (backup any media you have on it before you do this ) and to do a fresh install of the OS and all your applications and plugins on the empty drive. When you do this DO NOT use Migration Assistant to transfer any old settings into the new user account. This will prevent many headaches that can be caused by conflicting preference files and .lock files in the old OS and in your old user account. Nothing runs better than a clean, lean and mean system drive

- Ronny

Thank you very much Ronny!

That's exactly what I'm going to do!

Have a nice day!

You are welcome, my friend.

Have a nice day!

- Ronny