Linking media & location

Having read through the manual on media management I thought I would ask where people are putting there media (rushes) I still have a good few projects on a separate internal drive on my MacPro which was used, and still is, as my FCP6 scratch disk.
Previous to FCPX it was always suggested to store your media on a separate drive to help efficiency. Is that the same with the FCPX or because the Event & Project folders are on your system drive by default has that now changed?

Project folders should be on the media drive as well as Events folders. Render files are stored with and play back from the project folder. The default, as in legacy FCP, is to assign a common system drive location, but normally you want to select your media drive to store projects and events.

hmm. In FCP 7, the practice was to store the project file on the system/internal drive and to have the media on external drives (or additional internal arrays.) I'm no expert but conceptually that makes sense for FCP X as well—project on internal drive, event on external/non-system drive, yes?

Wouldn't having the project and the media on the same disk reduce performance?

Thoughts?

The project folder now contains media unfortunately, ProRes render files, which you really don't want coming off your system drive. It's unfortunate, but that's the way the app is set up. I'm not sure how much performance you lose on a modern computer with having the project file on the media drive, assuming you aren't running with a ton of other apps open at the same time.

Yes, that is the default. However, in the import preferences you can definitely select where/what drive you want to park your transcoded media or proxy files. On my last two X projects, I went with the external drives under the assumption that would help performance. (Plus, internal system drive would get filled up fast).

Yes, project file is on internal system drive, but transcoded media is definitely on external drives, similar to the old 7 paradigm.

Wonder what the performance benefits would be in also having the project file on an external drive, although I thought I recalled reading that project files MUST reside in the Movies folder at the root level of the User.

Yes this brings up two interesting points. The render files being on the system drive could/will be a problem as time goes on with disk space but there is always the option to delete the render files for older projects. There is also the question of backing up. I know there is a 'backup' folder but I'm used to backing up my system drive very frequently and that is where my current FCP6 project folder is so I'm quite safe in knowing that I have a backup of the projects. I manually take other projects of the raw media (rushes) which are stored on separate drives. My concern in having the project folder on an external drive is that I would be a pain in manually backing that up.

"I thought I recalled reading that project files MUST reside in the Movies folder at the root level of the User."

This is plain incorrect. The project folder, like the event folder, can either be in the user's Movies folder or at the top level of any drive.

Yes, I see you are right. I thought you were suggesting in your earlier remarks that the Event Folder had to be on the system drive. My mistake if I misunderstood.

That said, anyone have any experience with parking their projects on a non-system drive? Does that help performance? A moot point?

I've moved my Events folder to an external drive and deleted the one on the system drive but when I started to import footage into the newly created Events folder a new Events folder appeared on my system drive in the old location and had a sub folder called 'camera render files' Why has that appeared because all other sub-folders in the new Events folder seem to be intact, i.e Analysis, backups,original media etc

I use a dedicated scratch drive for both my projects and events located at the top root level of that drive. Placed anywhere else on any drive and they won't be recognized by fcpx.
My system drive contains no events and no projects. I do use the movies folder of the system drive only to keep my effects per the fcpx hierarchy.

Thats what I've done with the Events folder but it FCPX has created another on my system drive

That's normal and those folders are installed by default when you install FCPX. But you can create them elsewhere at the root level and as long as you create your projects and import your events to the new location, the folders on your system drive won't contain anything. Just leave them there empty. Just be sure to select the correct drive in your project and events browsers when you're working in FCPX.

Ah didn't realise a new folder was created in that location after I moved it. As already mentioned there was a sub folder created that was called 'camera render files' but I would assume that was created because I didn't specify or change the location of the render files/optimized files?

Thanks for the replies on this!

Project files in legacy FCP were very different from the Project Folder in X. There was a common system in legacy FCP for organization where you'd have everything in one of two places. The Capture Scratch folder FCP made and kept stuff it ingested via Log & C/T. Then a Project folder you'd create yourself to put all the other stuff you manually imported into your project. Larry Jordan use to teach folks to put the Project folder on the OS drive, as he once told me, only to avoid confusing new users. But best practice always was to put both folders on the same media drive.

In X the Project Folder is way more complex, has it's own render files, etc, and should be on a secondary drive. I have never put anything on my OS drive, ever. It's all on my media drive, period.

The bandwidth of one drive isn't enough to really handle both the data streams of the OS and open applications, PLUS the audio/video streams from your media, all at the same time. So we separate them out.

Interesting. So: project folder on external drive—that's a new concept for me. But the logic makes sense. With X, do you now put Event folder on a separate additional external drive or the same one as the project folder. (With 7, always kept the media on a separate non-boot drive HD).

This new paradigm complicates making back-ups of the project folder. With 7, I kept project files on internal system and backed that up with time capsule. My media drives (or now, Event drives) are Raids (either 1 or 5) but I always like dto have my project files backed up on a separate disk. What are your thoughts here?

Thanks.

Read this entire thread from the beginning if you haven't already and then check out this thread:

fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/3963...ojects-while-editing

This topic is discussed in some detail.

Thanks! Yowza, that Disk Image concept looks pretty awesome. Also seems to settle/confirm the issue of having the Project and the Even on the same drive. Thanks again.

I've never heard of the concept of putting the old FCP projects folder on a different drive then OS drive. I will be keeping my projects folder on the system drive purely because of the efficient backup system I have and because I always backup my media as soon as I get them I will fell way safer with Superduper smart updating my system drive.
Good comment s and thoughts in this thread!

Yes, I have always kept my FCP 7 project files in the Documents folder of my boot drive, with all media on external Raid 5 drives.

But X is a new paradigm in more ways than one I'm learning. The Disk Image concept sound quite useful. We often have a producer do a content cut/selects on a laptop and then hand over the media and project file to our desktop system for fine cut/grading/mixing. The DI process would make that even easier.

The other advantage to the Disk Image process is that you can have a client with you to review their work, and never see the names of your other clients stuff.

Also look in to "Event Manager X".
assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/

And my shameless self promotion of my "Media Management In FCP X" course.
www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/finalcutprox204-managing-media