SSD scratch disk?

I don't think the speed of a hard drive will have much effect on rendering as that is mainly dependent on the processor.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

… effect on rendering as that is mainly dependent on the processor.

… and the GPU.-

for sure, if you try to work on and off (final export and Events) a single slow ext. harrdrive, that could be a bottleneck too …

but, as I'm not getting tired to say: is 'speed' really an issue (outside the 'News'-room)? When your rendering is 20min instead 25m - what do you do in this 5min extra life time? 😉

SSDs are usually smal and expensive compared to regular drives.

I'd be more inclined to use an SSD for the system drive and get a firewire 800 for the Scratch disc, up to 3 terabytes these days.

I don't think that model MBook has thunderbolt but Thunderbolt raises the speed bar quite a bit.

Al

therealDJKING wrote:

Just bought myself an SSD. Orignally I was going to start fresh and use my SSD as my OS drive but just reinstalling all my programs will be a hassle so I was wondering what if I was to keep the OS on the standard HD and have the SSD set as the scratch disk?

Assuming your SSD is large enough, you don't need to reinstall anything. Just get an external box for your HD.

Use SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner or Disk Utility's "restore" option to make a perfect copy of your HD onto the SSD. You may either put the SSD in the external box first, or you can do the swapping, and start up your mac from the HD in the external box.

Your mac will be way faster with an internal SSD. Use an external HD for your events and projects in FCP X.

I don't really know what you mean by scratch disc in regards to FCP X.

Put your events on the SSD. FCP X will be much more responsive if it can load up the media from SSD. Turn off "render in the background" in preferences.

Hi Scot,

I agree with you about schratch disc. FCPX does not use a schatch disc the same way it did FCE.

Let me ask why do you suggest to turn off background rendering. Is it specific to SSD drive ?

I understand that if you do not render in background the mac could be faster but at the end you need the time for rendering at the end of your editing. I think the background rendering is deactivated automatically during your editing work: you can set the "waiting time" from few seconds. As I understand it should not slow down your work but use the time you leave free during your work.

Rendering your footage is a waste of hard drive space because your Mac with SSD will be capable of playing it just fine without rendering it. If you let FCP X render in the background, it creates huge ProRes versions of all the media you are using and puts it on the hard drive your project is located. If your project is located on the SSD, you are eliminating gigs and gigs of space for no reason. SSDs tend to be small. If your project is located on a slower drive, you are making the SSD moot because FCP X is now playing all the timeline media from that slower drive and not even using the SSD drive.

This is precisely why FCP X's method is idiotic.

The only places I've seen where I need to render are areas where I have keying. So what I do is just "render selection" on those clips that have keying or something complicated that isn't playing smoothly.

Background Render is turned on by default. You have to turn it off.

I had 900 gigs of hard drive space on my main drive and I noticed that it was down to 500 gigs and I couldn't figure out why. Well, my project is located on that drive and FCP X rendered all my media used (located on an SSD) and put it on that main drive. Ugh.

After you turn off the background render option, go into the Finder and go to the Final Cut Projects folder your project is located and delete everything in the Render Files folder. From that point on, it should only be reading your media from your events on the SSD.

Thanks Scott, great explanation. I understyand you do not need to render unless you are ready to export or share, and this can be days after you start working on a project.

I will go and deselect background render and delete the content of the RenderFiles folder. May I do this anso for project alredy finished and shared ?

I am a little bit afraid about Finder use: I did some mistake with finder on Events and Projects... but this is a different matter and I'll start a new discussion about this problem. If you will find it later I would appreciate your comments. Thanks for your time.

Yeah, go ahead and delete the Render Files in the Projects folder. When you Share the project (render it out for disc, etc.) it puts those files in the Shared Items folder inside the Project folder. The Render Files is simply for playing back the timeline in FCP X.

I have found that the unrendered footage playing from the SSD is faster and more responsive in my timeline than the rendered stuff located on a project folder on a slower drive.

Of course, you can put the project itself on the SSD with the media and this is optimal if your SSD has enough hard drive space. You have to keep an eye on the remaining space on that SSD, though, because project folders get bigger over time as it renders the thumbs, Shared items, etc. It's not like a simple XML project file we are all used to with other applications (like Motion). So if you Share a project as Blu-ray, there is a 24 gig folder of that (for a 2 hour project). If you Share it as a DVD, you got another 4 gigs, etc. It all builds up.

Because of that, I put my project file on my main hard drive with a ton of space and then my events on the SSD and keep background render off. The only footage that is playing off the slower main drive is the stuff I keyed that is rendered, but it's not much because my project isn't a lot of keying.

Actually, use the SSD for your system drive. Use the HDD for your Events and Projects. Why? Because SSD drives use severe data compression that is a huge latency for audio and video data streaming. You'll get better performance out of apps and the OS working off the SSD, Events and Projects that need constant data streaming will respond better off of an HDD.

I have a 2 hour feature I cut with about 450 gigs of media and my SSD was lightning fast with the event on it compared with any of the hard drives. Just my experience.

Done. Deleted the render files.

I did it starting on a test short project and the first play was with a lot of dropped frames, but 2 minutes later was everything OK.

I have to point out I work with standard rotational external drive. Connected with FW800 or now with eSata (Sonnet Thunderbolt converter and eSata express card). Very happy.