Hard drive for 6K project

Hi All,

We are on a production break at the moment, and I would like to find a way to "speed" up the editing of the project, it is shot in 6K, using an Red Epic camera, the producer edits on the old Mac Pro using final cut 7, my laptop is the MacBook 11,1 late 2103, 8GB RAM, and the internal hard drive, I would like to try and edit off an external hard drive, I don't know what to get.

Spending more than $150 is beyond my budget at this point, what would I need in terms of speed, the idea I have is to edit using the new external hard drive as a "scratch" drive, using USB or thunderbolt, I am not sure what is better, USB or thunderbolt.

It really would help so much if anyone had a used drive that they would not mind donating, it really would help me to get more work if I could prove I had a reliable fast editing laptop, I lost out on the project once before as the 8GB MacBook Pro was too slow, I have until May to get things working, I have been given data from a shoot to edit, and right now my laptop is struggling, freelance work does not pay very much here in South Africa, and drives are more than my rent.

Can anyone help??
Thanks

Hi All,

Can anyone help? I really would love to figure out the editing project, and at 6K, my laptop is just battling way too much, and I really cannot afford to spend buying a new hard drive. Work has been very slow over the last few months.

I have time, just not suitable equipment, please can someone donate a used suitable hard drive, it does not have to be huge, just fast enough to allow editing 6K video on a 8GB retina 13inch MacBook Pro laptop, please?

An external hard drive will not help you at all, unless it's a fast Thunderbolt RAID. And even then it's mostly your computer that needs to do all the heavy lifting. I presume you have created proxy media? If not, that would really help you with this project, much more than an external drive.

- Ronny

Hi Ronny,

Yes I tried that, and it was slow, slower than frozen molasses, using my internal SSD, I thought FCPX would be ok, the producer uses classic Final Cut, and I use X, he has not problems.. This is the 2nd laptop I have, upgraded from the 4 gig to the 8gig model.

Thanks, no idea what to do next, so frustrating!!!
Justine

This has nothing to do with the software. Your producer uses a MacPro, and with RED footage it's the computer that does all the heavy work debayering the clips in realtime. I can play 6K RED RAW with FCP X In full resolution (using better performance) on my 2015 MBP without any issues, but that's a maxed out machine with 16GB RAM, an i7 processor and a 4GB GPU. So I'm afraid the real cause of your issues is that your computer is not really fit for a project like this. Adding an external drive won't change much to this.

Thanks Ronny, I was hoping it was not as you explained, my laptop just cannot cope, slows down, gets so hot, such a pity.

Thanks for the great reply!!
Justine