Am I editing through my external drive or my iMac?

Hey there all,

So I've been editing a few videos here and there for the past two years. I have a 27" 5K iMac 3.4GHz with 40gbs of memory. The external drive I have is a 6TB G Drive with thunderbolt 3 connection. My workflow is to save all video clips from my SD cards directly to the external drive, then I import my clips from the external drive into FCPX. I know its not ideal and I have no redundency if the drive fails, but hey its what I had enough money for.

My question is how do I know if Im editing off the external drive VS editing off my MAC??. The reason I ask is because after importing from the drive and I start editing, I can hear the drive working and it is warm to the touch when I start adding effects and what not.

Obviously I want to be editing off this computer that I spent 2k for plus 300 in memory vs a 400 dollar external drive?? I guess the media managment thing is rather confusing to me.

1- By default FCPX makes the first, original Library on your system drive, in the Movies folder. Do NOT use that Library. You want to create your Libraries on the external drive, NOT the system drive. If you're already using the one it the Movies folder, copy it to the external drive.

2- To verify, inside FCPX, highlight the Library in the Browser, right-click it and chose Reveal In Finder (or Show In Finder, something like that). Then you'll know where the Library is. If it is on the system drive, MOVE (don't copy) it to the external drive.

3- You paid for CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD, etc, not storage. You purchased a Thunderbolt drive for storage. Always keep media and Libraries on your external drive. The OS and apps use hidden working files, LOTS of them, to do their work. Those are written to the system drive. All the video data streams FCPX needs to use eats up the limited bandwidth to a drive. This can potentially cause the OS and apps to not have fast access to those hidden working files.

4- This is also why you need to be sure all drives, ESPECIALLy the system drive, have at least 15% of their total capacity left as free space, or you'll be risking data loss and see wonky behavior for sure.

jeremiah.smith wrote: ...how do I know if Im editing off the external drive VS editing off my MAC??...

What FCPX.guru said will show the physical location of the library. However that library might use internal or external media -- it depends on how you configured it, and how each media file was imported.

Part of that you can check by clicking on the library in FCPX, then in Inspector look under the heading "Media". If it says "In Library", then media copied TO the library during import will be stored inside it. If it says some other location, then media copied TO the library during import will be stored in that external location. If the library storage location was changed after some media was already imported inside the library, then media could be stored both places. The setting only defines storage locations for subsequent imports -- it doesn't change the storage location of media already imported.

Separate from this is the ability to import media using "leave files in place". In that case, whether library media storage is set for "In Library" or some other place, no additional space will be occupied -- the imported media files will be imported and subsequently accessed "in place" on the disk.

You can see what disk volume(s) are being used for media storage by clicking on the library in FCPX, then looking in Inspector toward the bottom, under the heading "Storage Used for Media and Motion Content". However this is only what disk volumes are being used for media storage, not where within the volumes the files are stored.

If you have imported multiple files or folders from various disk folder locations, it's not possible using only FCPX to determine where those are stored -- as a single report. You can inspect each file within FCPX using "Reveal in Finder", but that's not practical if you have hundreds or thousands of files.

There is a free tool written by Andreas Kiel which can do this: www.spherico.com/filmtools/X-Files/X-Asset

Also the latest version of Final Cut Library Manager can make a spreadsheet which shows the storage location including pathname of each file in a library: www.arcticwhiteness.com/finalcutlibrarymanager/

If you have accidentally imported files from multiple locations and want those all on a certain hard drive, you'll have to create a library there, set it for "In Library" media storage, copy the media files to it within FCPX, then consolidate the new library.

For more information see Ripple Training's Media Management tutorial: www.rippletraining.com/products/final-cu...-final-cut-pro-10-4/

Okay great, thank you for the valuable advice I really appreciate it!

So just to be clear on the first part you said to copy the library to the external drive, but on the second part you said not to copy but to(MOVE). So I'm going to move it, not copy it correct?

I would suggest to always copy a library, verify it, then delete the original.

jeremiah.smith wrote: ...on the first part you said to copy the library to the external drive, but on the second part you said not to copy but to(MOVE). So I'm going to move it, not copy it correct?

Within FCPX it's always a copy not a move. FCPX never, ever deletes external media (which would be required for a move). I don't even think the files are opened in "write" mode.

FCPX media management on the surface is very simple. The original model for internal-only managed libraries was straightforward. The problem is it wasn't scalable. With proxies, external media, then "external managed" media, proxy-only libraries, etc, it becomes very complex. Even Ripple Training in their excellent media management tutorial say "you'll have to watch this several times to figure it out". This is an excellent tutorial and well worth the modest price.

If you want to know where your media is (from the standpoint of FCPX), click on the library and look in Inspector. If you want to consolidate that to a single drive and folder tree, create a new library, in Inspector click "modify settings" and place that on the desired hard drive and folder. Then drag/drop the clips, projects or events from the old library to the new one. Then consolidate.

If you want to query the library and find the pathname for each media file, you'll need to use the previously-mentioned X-Asset Manager (XAU) or Library File Manager.

To move something from one drive to another, you do a copy, then delete the original.

Set the Library's media to be stored in the Library, then Consolidate, you'll be good to move it to a secondary drive and off the system drive.

This will help you understand how Libraries work.
www.bbalser.com/downloads/LibraryManagment.zip