Using bus-powered USB 3 drives for editing

I personally never do this but the question often arises. If the media is on exFAT-formatted bus-powered USB 3 drive, does anyone edit from that? Are there potential issues with exFAT not supporting certain FCPX features? This assumes the library is on the HFS+ main system drive -- only the media is on the USB 3 portable drive.

What if the bus-powered USB 3 drive was formatted HFS+? Does anyone edit from those?

Some USB 3 bus-powered drives are pretty fast, so (for H264 1080p) it's not really a performance issue but whether (a) exFAT presents any problems to FCPX for media-only access, and (b) whether any other unknown issues exist.

I have done some limited testing on this. Yes, ExFAT does work. You can put a library on an ExFAT drive and edit with it. One feature that ExFAT does not support apparently is hard links. So duplicating a library is actually duplicating a library and the media.

Isn't HFS+ what's now called OS X Extended? I use USB3 pretty regularly, but most of my media is HD H.264 with some ProRes.

Tom Wolsky wrote: ...Isn't HFS+ what's now called OS X Extended? I use USB3 pretty regularly, but most of my media is HD H.264 with some ProRes.

Yes HFS+ is what Disk Utility calls Extended (Journaled). I always copy all media to a Thunderbolt HFS+ drive array and only use exFAT USB portable drives for media interchange with PCs. I always use "leave files in place", except for the few items we have on AVCHD.

However I am trying to determine the best recommendation for our other editors as they switch to FCPX. Namely, whether to say:

(1) Don't ever edit from exFAT portable drives. The downside is this requires a lot more local space since all media must be copied before editing. Ideally that should be backed up, so it's really 2x the space. The media can be excluded from backup (assuming the originals are backed up) but that's more complexity and introduces possible mistakes. OR --
(2) Media on exFAT is OK if your library is on an HFS+ drive. OR --
(3) Media on NTFS is OK, just not exFAT (our Macs all have Paragon NTFS). OR --
(4) Editing from a portable drive is OK if it's formatted HFS+. But that means our Windows PCs would need Paragon HFS+: www.paragon-drivers.com/hfs-windows/

We now shoot exclusively H264 4K, but our archival material is H264 1080p. Just trying to figure out what the common practices are in the FCPX community.

I have edited from a bus powered USB3 drive formatted with OS X Extended (and even USB2 in some cases) with no problems, Just be sure you have enough speed for your needs, I measured the speed of a toshiba 1TB portable HD and got ~80MBs which means that 4k multi-cam and/or uncompressed anything (except SD) is pretty much out.

I cant help with the widows bit though, because anytime I've shared files with a Window user I've just copied them to a flash drive and then they've copied the files to their computer. (obviously not an enterprise level solution :lol: )

hope this helps,
-Mark

I always recommend to format to OS Journaled for work in FCPX, why invite problems. But as noted, Macs can R/W to Ex-FAT. IFAIK Time Machine does not work properly unless you make a Sparse image. ??? So if TM is part of your back up scheme, please check it out or provide other SOP for backing up.

Most bus powered USB3 drives are 5400rpm disks, but there are 7200rpms out there like the Touro 'S' models. {I think Amazon US has a 1TB S model on sale currently for $60.00USD}
You can also get USB3 ssd drives or install a bare ssd drive into a USB3 enclosure. These will give you up to 4X speeds. More than enough speed to handle 4K or multicam HD.
It takes around 3/4 ssds in RAID 0 to saturate a USB3 bus.
The other issue with USB3 is that most just use Bulk Only Transport (BOT) while others are USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) which dramatically increases the speed of the unit. I recommend to always buy external USB3 that support UASP. I have a couple Inatech USB3 UASP enclosures I like.
Google "BOT vs UASP" to see all the differences.

Hope this helps, Greg

I came to this thread because I am having problems with an ExFAT formatted external HD, USB 3, wall powered. Formatted like that by client, and loaded with media (and Library). I soon discovered that I cannot save backups on exfat, moved Library out. Time Machine will not include it, so as I add more media, there is no backup.
Now, I am having dropped frames on playback and beachball loading clips (1080 ProRes).
I am going to take this drive to my friendly neighborhood Apple specialist to get the media copied and drive reformatted.
I have never used a USB for editing because of the old 'packet transfer' (BOT?) vs. streaming.
I will check this drive for UASP support.
Would rather be editing from Tb.

Hi Greta
Yes Time Machine really wants GUID Mac OS Journaled format. You can use a Sparse Image, but that just invites problems. You should not have any issues copying the media files off that drive onto a different drive that is formatted to GUID.
For any SINGLE drive, USB3 is AS FAST AS a TB drive. The bottleneck is in transfer speeds of a single drive, not the I/O port. Only when you introduce multiple drives in a RAID configuration can you exceed the transfer speeds of a USB3 port.
Yes, UAS can significantly increase the speed of a drive over USB3, but mostly for ssd drives, far less for 7200rpm hdd and very little difference for 5400rpm hdd.
Here are some Black Magic Speed Test results for a brand new (empty) EVO 500GB SSD formatted to MacOS Journaled in a Inateck USAP enabled enclosure vs a Seagate USB3 BOT only enclosure.
UASP




Here is the same drive attached via a Seagate USB3 BOT only connection…





While this is far from definitive, it is representative of the differences between UASP and BOT on USB3 devices.

Hope this helps, Greg

Sorry Greta
Having issues with fcp.co not letting me add jpeg attachments. Not sure why.

Difference between UASP and BOT almost 2X faster when using UASP with an empty Evo 850 ssd empty drive.

Will try to post images later

Hope this helps, Greg

I don't think anyone mentioned this, but on the Mac, the USB ports share the same bus. Meaning each port doesn't have an independent connection speed. However, Thunderbolt does.

I think it's 12 Mb/s. But if you have all ports connected to an external HDD, that isn't 12Mb/s each even though they're connected to separate ports.

I ran into this issue while setting up a 3 camera shoot using Blackmagic's Intensity Shuttle. I had to use one USB 3.0 shuttle and two Thuderbolt shuttles.

This may not be a problem with HDDs though. Cameras are a constant stream of data. HDDs most likely aren't.