How would one Backup FCPX Events and FCPX Projects while editing

Does anybody use Retrospect any more? We used to use it to backup to tape drives back in the day when 9G RAIDs were $5000.

Thanks Ben that's exactly what I needed to know.

It was just confusing, as it was aid earlier that you should let FCPX copy files and folder structures to make backups.
I guess that was meant when you wanted to duplicate or move Event's or Projects.
And not necessarily actual backup practices.

Does anybody use Time Machine to backup the files? Seems like it would be a pretty easy solution. I guess it's the same as any other backup software, no?

Well, first, you do NOT want Time Machine running while you're working in FCP. Drains resources, FCP changes things too quickly, it's a mess. Second, Time Machine is going to back up only your OS drive, and back up all of it. I won't touch it. Overly simplified resource good for some, but not video editors. Carbon Copy Cloner is free, been around for ages, bullet proof, proven. Did I mention "free"?

I do use Time Machine but controlled by a little App called TimeMachineEditor this makes Time Machine do just one back up every night at 9pm. Of course I only back up Projects.

But Carbon Copy Cloner is a great way to go and used throughout the industry.

I actually use Time Machine and it backs up my external drive as well. It's good to know to disable it while editing, but it's always been reliable for me otherwise. Is there something I don't know about it? Why is it worse than other backup software? Great - something else to worry about!

I agree with the backup programs recommended here since they help to automate what you want to do. I also use the time machine built into mac osx lion and have it pointed at my scratch drive, since this is where I keep my events and projects. I try to offload completed jobs from there to other offline storage to prevent gigantic backups from time machine, but using this method I can also go back a week or so if I need to find a project that worked at that point but since has been corrupted.

I use Time Machine too. I have it set to back up parts of my system drive and my external raid. I have it set to exclude all system files and folders from the system drive and a few other bits and pieces that aren't important for me to be backed up.

It runs once an hour making a back up, only of any files that have been changed, and normally this can take anything between 30 seconds and a minute or 2. If I've done any reasonable amount of capturing or rendering it can obviously take longer, but it has never affected my editing and I was fine with the autosave in 10.0.2 combined with it before the 10.0.3 addition.

I'd also like to hear reason why I shouldn't use it or what would make Carbon Copy Cloner better for me.

Partially correct. Some backup software only backs up the files that have changed, e.g. time machine.

If I have a folder containing 10 GB worth of data and I drag that folder to another drive I will get a backup of the entire 10 GB. If I change one small file in the folder and I again drag then folder to another drive it will again backup the entire 10 GB. That may be what I want. Or not. Some backup software is smart enough to only backup the (possibly small) data that changed. It sounds to me that backing up only the portion of the data that changed is what is being asked.

have also a look at tr-backup or chronosync. with these applications you can program a simple script to do a incremental backup. you can even add the option to keep temporary deleted files - sometimes we make mistakes... and/or keep multiple versions of the files.
You can also make filters, so to backup only certain files types- tri backup will recreate the filetreestructure - good for fcpx as the its always the same name CurrentVersion.fcpproject.
You can also exclude certain folders - render files for example.
If you would use diskimages, incremental backups of the image file will not work. it will backup
the complete imagefile each time, even if only 1 thing is changed.
Also as for now, we cannot force a target folder for the renderfiles, which could be a problem, as this folder can become big and will be in the diskimage.
This is the biggest problem for using network attached storage in FCPX. You can put the moviefiles on this storage, but no eventfolders or projects. Moviefiles can be referenced to the networkstorage, but you still have local eventfolders with renderfiles. you could use diskimages on the network, but beware if another user opens the same image file over the network at the same time... things will go bad..
XSAN is better for working with shared projects in fcpx, but still has big limitations, much morenthan in fcp7 for using the same project at the same time by multiple users. XSAN shared storage is also much more expensive than networked storage.
i hope that Apple will make some kind of middleware to manage multiple users and multiple projects over the network - as with a Avid unity of FCPserver, checking in an out.
This is really needed for postproduction facilities that will use fcpx.

The database platform that FCP X is running on top if actually is the Final Cut Server db engine. Thus, there is HUGE potential there for advanced networking operations. Crossing my fingers it'll come soon. I really, really miss Final Cut Server, it was about 50% of my business (installing, training, customizing).

I've ran into a back up problem, it relates to the need to use "Event Manager X" to deal with FCPX issues.

I've been aware of this for some time and have been thinking of ways round it. Whenever I move events from the "Final Cut Events" to the "Final Cut Events Not in Use" folder "Time Machine" creates a new backup taking up unnecessary time and space.

At first, as a temporary measure, I deleted them occasionally from the backup to take less space, but then it's just time machine backs them up, I delete them, back and forward.

At the moment I have a second back up drive plugged in, I've excluded the 2 Final Cut Events folders from time machine backup and have them copied up to the second backup drive, where I manually put any relevant "CurrentVersion.fcpevent" files in periodically.

I've been meaning to get a chance to look into Automator to see if taking care of this (and the Project folders) action can be taken care of with a "Service", I'm assuming it would be possible but I've never used it before.

Does anyone know if any of the previously mentioned backup solutions could make this easier/more straight forward, if there's another solution or if I'd be waisting my time with Automator?

Also..

I'm thinking to set automator to put anything in the "Final Cut Events" and "Final Cut Events Not In Use" folders into a single "Final Cut Events BACKUP" folder and the same for the project folders.

I know as much that if I create an automatic folder action in Automator it will put anything added to the proper Events/Project folders into the backup versions, but will it do the same for any files that are already in the Events/Project folders as they are updated?

I'm assuming that even if it does having them overwrite the previous backups won't be so straight forward.

Hi, NocoDave...

I have discovered the same issues you point out with using time machine.

Almost any backup software such as Carbon Copy Cloner would allow you to backup specific files on a schedule and not perform the backup if the particular file exists. Automator could also probably be programmed to execute on a schedule and I'll bet you could also have it compare file creation dates (although I never tried this) to determine whether or not to back something up.
Whether using automator or a specific backup program, system resources would obviously be used, so either solution performed while you are editing may decrease FCPX or Motion performance. Depending on your system speed, this may or may not be a concern to you.

Also, since the inception of FCPX 10.0.3, there are automatic project backups in the backup folder. This is on the same drive as the original FCPX project, so if the drive fails, that is of no use.

Here is my philosphy, given the above.
I never edit in the field, so for those who do, this may not be optimum, but for my purpose, it works.

Whenever I begin a new project, I am either using footage that I already have archived on three external storage drives, or I am importing new footage (and immediately archiving to at least two external drives).

So now, my raw footage is backed up and safe. Then I begin importing from one of the backup drives into FCPX (and optimizing) so I have prores footage in the final cut folder. As I edit, I rely on the fcpx backup to protect my project and if it's a complicated project, I will periodically copy that via the finder to another location. At the end of an evening or long period of editing, I may choose to duplicate the entire project and referenced events and move them to a storage location.

As for time machine, when I retire for the evening or need to take a long break, I turn it on and let it copy my media scratch drive (which I try to keep as small as possible with number of projects at any one time). So, if it copies an event in the "final cut events" folder and next time that file is in the "final cut events not in use folder", I don't worry about it. It eats the time machine capacity a bit quicker, but using a 1TB drive still retains quite a bit of info that I can always get back to.

Anyway, that seems to suit my workflow. Maybe that gives you a few more thoughts on the whole process.

Having "Time Machine" run while working isn't a problem, I just let it run every hour and work through it. it's only after importing that it takes any noticeable time and has yet to be an issue.

Even after moving stuff back and forward through "Event Manager X" once it's all done, it's all done. Just leaving the obvious issue of having the 2 complete backups on the same drive being pointless and a waist of resources. The hourly backups then just update the smaller files.

Now that I wrote it down and thought about it more the only issue really is getting what ever is being used for backup to ignore any movement between the main and not in use folders.

An hourly/manual option backup that takes care of this to a FCPX dedicated backup drive would be a great update to "Event Manager X".

I'm going to see what I can do with Automator, I'll do some experiments tomorrow to see if a folder action deals with files as they are updated and not just added, even if so the backup files look like they will need dealt with differently.

If it does it should just take time when importing and as with any backup solution, then updating the CurrentVersion and backup files are quick and regular. Thanks for bringing the backup files to my attention, I had forgot about them.

By the way, Automator can be set up to operate on an iCal event, which can be scheduled.

I forgot that around 2 years ago I discovered that spotlight was indexing my external Firewire drives which had a real impact on Final Cut 6 and 7. I removed my external drives from the scan, feeding the v100 database is not hugely profitable with these devices. Not sure how spotlight plays in Lion and with FCPX. Just another possible speed tip:)

It never taken long looking around the web to find a simple backup workflow in Automator, so I tested it out. It looks like this.



This alone takes all the event files and creates a back up maintaing the folder structure for each individual event on the backup drive. When ever it is run it replaces any updated files including the back up files, and deletes any files from the previous backup that were since deleted from within the FCPX Event Library, which is ideal.

But it copy's/overwrites all the files every time it's ran, which is far from ideal.

As a temporary measure, while finding a solution, it's better than what I had yesterday and I can run it every night.

But when I try to clean it up adding a "Filter Finder Items" based on "Date Last Modified" it doesn't filter properly. It's the first time I've used Automator, so maybe I'm missing something and I'm hoping if anyone knows they can point it out.

Also, given that FCPX needs the events and projects to be at root level it looks like a separate workflow for projects and events is necessary.

Carbon Copy Cloner is free and would save you a ton of needless work does what you want.

www.bombich.com/index.html

It was going to be next step if I couldn't get anything going here, but I've been wanting to get the chance to learn a bit about Automator for a while now, so it's good to be getting my head into it.

Are you able to tell me if Carbon Copy Cloner could definitely deal with the constant swapping of files between the "Final Cut Events" and the "Final Cut Event Not In Use" folders without a duplicate backup?

In the long term I'm looking for a completely automatic backup solution that ideally runs every hour.

Yes, it can. Very flexible.