Where to keep libraries on Internal or External drive?

1. It may be a valid option to store library on an SSD – particularly if you're traveling and working on a laptop but I'm not hearing people saying that it's best practice. And you're right that media can fill up drives pretty fast. Which developer recommends this?

2. Yes. I assume your connection to the FW drive is via a Thunderbolt adaptor. So you'd actually be best off choosing a Thunderbolt drive.

3. Possibly. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

Russ

You can keep the libraries in the SSD and the media in an external drive. Media does not have to be stored inside the library. Whether you store it inside (what is called "managed media") or outside the library ("external media") depends on your particular workflow, and the same person can use one and the other for different productions.

For very small productions it can be better to have the media inside the library and all that in the internal SSD. Great for working on the road, and the internal SSD in recent macs is bleeding fast. But space can fill up real fast, so this is not an option for large work.

I use one of these for adding additional gear:

http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F4U055/

There is a newer model out now and other manufacturers have similar items.

Al

To add on to what Al posted, my experience:

I've had this USB-3 Hub from OWC for quite some time -

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Tripp%20Lite/U360007/

It has performed flawlessly with various combinations of USB-3 drives, USB-2 drives, printers and scanners.

For me, the USB-3 speeds are fully adequate for FCP X use.

"We would rather recommend keeping your libraries on the internal SSD disk and only copying them to the external storage for backup purposes or when switching between different workstations.

Not only is reading from an internal disk a lot faster in most cases, it's also proven to be a lot less problematic - FCPX (as reported by several of our customers) has issues with libraries stored externally and OS X doesn't handle aliases/links well."

If the last sentence were true, we'd all be in serious trouble, but fortunately it isn't. We all use thousands of hard and soft (sym) links every day. FCP X in particular depends on those heavily. I say OS X handles them very well.

Girshon Rutstein wrote:

... quote an email exerpt, I received from MotionVFX:

…FCPX (as reported by several of our customers) has issues with libraries stored externally and OS X doesn't handle aliases/links well."…

Hard to believe, that is Szymon's actual opinion.

since v10.1, the whole concept of FCPX' Libs/Events/clips is based upon hard links/symlinks/aliasses..

.. what Luis said - we'll all be doomed if FCPX doesn't handle that well...................... 😁

FCPX references four locations: Library, Media, Caches, and Backups. If the Media and Caches are stored outside of the Library, the Library can be quite small. Its location might as well be on your internal drive. Backups can be FCPX-generated, by Time Machine, or other automated means.

Personal experiences: I use a 7-port USB hub from "Pluggable" and been very happy with its speed and reliability. First on a non-USB3 Mac with a Thunderbolt<>USB3 adapter and later as an expansion of a USB3 port on a newer iMac. My external disks are inexpensive WD models with two or four TB capacities. Observed throughput often averages 100MB.

The Media typically has low volatility. Once imported in-place, the static files hang around for a long time. External drives are great. Backups should be created as needed/valued.

The Caches may be volatile and have a huge variability in size. Transcoded (huge) and/or Proxy (smaller) files can be recreated. Render files can also be recreated. These can be on an external 'scratch' disk.

You mention that you don't "work on the road" but I'll add that some Road Warriors will put their Caches on the internal drive (either inside or outside the Library). Proxy files are created when they import the Media or after a quick review. Then the Media drive may be left 'at home' and work commences on their laptop. If space becomes filled, extraneous Render files can be deleted in part or entirely.

I hope this is helpful. Cheers.