just bought FCP for my MBP—should I work with a portable hd or is my SSD internal all I need?

Question

just bought FCP for my MBP—should I work with a portable hd or is my SSD internal all I need?

Hi there,

Am new to FCP and want to start a project in the right way. I will be importing four finished 10-minute videos (that I edited in another NLE) for the sake of adding subtitles. Final Cut Pro, I've learned, will be much better at this than the other NLE. Each video is about 12GB in size, but I've got lots of room on my MBP's internal SSD drive, so space isn't an issue (and there won't be any more media I need to deal with). But good working FCP practices are an issue, I suspect.

When I import these four videos, should I tell FCP that I want to locate my Library on my internal drive, or on an external USB3 portable drive?

Anything else that I need to know at this stage, when I'm just starting a project?

I'm planning to learn how to actually create and add the subtitles by watching some video tutorials. I looked at a few tutorials to find an answer to the question I'm asking above, but everything I saw had to do with much more complicated situations... editors with many projects on the go, who have to share them with other editors, etc. My situation is simpler in most respects, I think.

Thanks so much for any advice,

Malcolm

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Jan 22, 2016 1:22 PM

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Answer 1

Alchroma

Level 7

23,918 points

Jan 22, 2016 2:51 PM in response to Malcolm Hamilton

I would use an external drive every time such as USB 3 or Thunderbolt.

This method relieves your system drive of work.

Also, the external should be dedicated to your FCP X Libraries.

Drives are fairly inexpensive these days.

Most users think Terabytes rather than Gigabytes, it's the age of HD vid and 4K............

Al

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Answer 2

Jan 23, 2016 7:14 AM in response to Alchroma

Thank you so much for this advice, Alchroma. I've just set my storage location to my external USB3 drive (which I will only use for FCP). Should I also set my Cache file for this same external drive... and also my Backups?

Malcolm

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Answer 3

Alchroma

Level 7

23,918 points

Jan 23, 2016 2:10 PM in response to Malcolm Hamilton

Malcolm Hamilton wrote:

Thank you so much for this advice, Alchroma. I've just set my storage location to my external USB3 drive (which I will only use for FCP). Should I also set my Cache file for this same external drive... and also my Backups?

Malcolm

The Backups are the Data Base of your Libraries, there is no media attached.

Backups (small Files) are best IMO going to the System drive. By default they go to your System>Movies folder.

A good spot because if your external goes down you have the backups on another drive.

If a Library with its Events and Projects are very important it's even wise to have a separate unattached external drive that can backup the complete Library.

Complete means media files as well. It's like having a spare car in the garage in case your regular one breaks down.

Maybe you won't need it but if you do.................

Al

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