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FCPX working of two 4t SSD drives?

Hello and thank you for reading. If I need more space for my project and I like SSD drives, can I work off two of them (4T each)? I chatted with an Apple specialist and he said no, they don't advise that. I guess because the Library will be confused??? Can it be true?


What do people do if their project needs more than 4T? Go back to not SSD drives? I found the 6T external drive but it looks funky, I would rather buy two 4T.


Thank yo so much for advice,


Irina

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Oct 1, 2024 12:45 PM

Reply
6 replies

Oct 1, 2024 1:35 PM in response to ipatkaniannyc

The library is a single bundle and has to be in a single location. The important thing to make sure there is as little as possible in the library bundle and that all media original, optimized, proxies, and everything else used by the library is on external drives. Make sure you delete all render files and switch off background rendering in settings.

Oct 1, 2024 1:54 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Thanks again.


So... I have a folder with all the assets (original media). I have an FCP Library. When I click on the Library and scroll down to SHOW PACKAGE CONTENTS, I see the Original Media folder that contains aliases to my original media, RENDER folder and Transcoded Media / High Quality Media. My understanding was that when FCP transcodes media / i.e. creates an optimized copy it becomes part of the Library. So I cant remove it to another drive, correct?

Can I move my assets folder onto another drive since it is outside of FCP Library? I do periodically delete UNUSED render files from within FCP (File/delete generated library files).


Thanks,

Irina



Thanks,

Irina

Oct 2, 2024 12:54 AM in response to ipatkaniannyc

As Tom said, do NOT mess with it in Finder, you can bork everything if you don't know what you are doing.

Sorry to say I am puzzled as to how you can handle such a large project and not be aware of how to manage your media for FCP. Putting everything inside the library is ok for small projects but you need to learn about managed (i.e. all inside the library) media vs external media.


You should never have a library that large.

When there are TB of media, it should be kept in place, outside the library.

The library would be small, and all the media could be in separate SSD, one, two or three, no problem.

But once you put everything inside, you get an immense monolythic entity that needs to be all in the same place - and for which a small disk error could cause it to be corrupted and cease to work.


You should start by deleting the generated media: select the library in FCP (not the Finder!) and do

File->Delete Generated Files. Check everything.

Quit FCP. Your library should now be significantly smaller. Perhaps so small that you don't need to split it.


From here on, you could decide on a way to organize your media.

The process is not difficult but you could choose a location, and consolidate to that location, leaving stuff outside the library.


I'd strongly recommend that you learn about media management for FCP if you want to be productive and safe with such large scale productions. I suggest rippletraining, as they have excellent material.

FCPX working of two 4t SSD drives?

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