The new iMac for video editors

frozi · Nov 29, 2012

I will be purchasing the 27 inch iMac when it becomes available to use with Avid. I am tossing around between which hard drive I should be getting. I have a g-raid external for all my video so I don't feel I need more then 1tb of internal storage.

Which route would you guys reccomend me to go? I feel fusion might be to gimmicky for professional use? Or am I wrong. I'm leaning towards 1tb 7200 rpm hard drive unless someone feels I should go another route?

Fantola · Nov 29, 2012

Get the 27" with 680 mx and i7 + 1 tb fusion. SSD for launching programs, HDD for footage!
That's what i'm getting, and i'm video editor as well!
It will hopefully hold for many years of editing!

THOPMedia · Nov 29, 2012

Fantola said:
Get the 27" with 680 mx and i7 + 1 tb fusion. SSD for launching programs, HDD for footage!
That's what i'm getting, and i'm video editor as well!
It will hopefully hold for many years of editing!

That's exactly what I am doing as well. I'm a bit upset that they are charging so much for a 128GB SSD but it is what it is. I believe the fusion drive will serve video and film editors really well.

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

frozi said:
I will be purchasing the 27 inch iMac when it becomes available to use with Avid. I am tossing around between which hard drive I should be getting. I have a g-raid external for all my video so I don't feel I need more then 1tb of internal storage.

Which route would you guys reccomend me to go? I feel fusion might be to gimmicky for professional use? Or am I wrong. I'm leaning towards 1tb 7200 rpm hard drive unless someone feels I should go another route?

Fantola said:
Get the 27" with 680 mx and i7 + 1 tb fusion. SSD for launching programs, HDD for footage!
That's what i'm getting, and i'm video editor as well!
It will hopefully hold for many years of editing!

Both of you should be using an external drive for the video footage and other resources.

Internal drive for the OS and applications.

Do not put the videos on the internal drive, this will slow it down as it will have too much stuff to read/write.

Doesn't matter which internal drive you get, just get one that suits your needs; Fusion Drive for faster load times, regular HDD to save money.

Fantola · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
Both of you should be using an external drive for the video footage and other resources.

Internal drive for the OS and applications.

Do not put the videos on the internal drive, this will slow it down as it will have too much stuff to read/write.

Doesn't matter which internal drive you get, just get one that suits your needs; Fusion Drive for faster load times, regular HDD to save money.

How can it slow the rest of the system down when a fusion drive is "two" seperate drives? The second HDD is like a build in external drive.

xgman · Nov 29, 2012

Maybe money is better spent on a Thunderbolt drive enclosure and plug a better SSD into that and boot from there.

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

Fantola said:
How can it slow the rest of the system down when a fusion drive is "two" seperate drives? The second HDD is like a build in external drive.

You don't have control over what goes on which drive, and adding video to it will probably slow it down even further because it'll be constantly trying to move files across to each drive.

You need an external Thunderbolt/FireWire drive, not USB, because USB works differently.

You can't plug FireWire into the new iMacs though, you need an adapter, but a FireWire drive + adapter is probably cheaper than a Thunderbolt drive currently.

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

Fantola said:
How can it slow the rest of the system down when a fusion drive is "two" seperate drives? The second HDD is like a build in external drive.

Because there's a bottleneck at the hard drive...it would have to access both the very large, incompressible files video files as well as launching and performing tasks of the program (avid, anything else you have open). If you have several jobs lined up, you'll have to come close to filling the internal hard-drive, editing and finishing the project, then deleting the files, then start over with a new job.

Every pro Post house has the video files somewhere else other than internal hard drive, on either a large SAN or a external drives. The computer should be left for computing things and storage devices should be left to storing things. It's better for organization, better for longevity for the computer and the storage device...just better all around.

frozi · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
You don't have control over what goes on which drive, and adding video to it will probably slow it down even further because it'll be constantly trying to move files across to each drive.

You need an external Thunderbolt/FireWire drive, not USB, because USB works differently.

You can't plug FireWire into the new iMacs though, you need an adapter, but a FireWire drive + adapter is probably cheaper than a Thunderbolt drive currently.

I planned on getting the g-drive USB 3.0. You'd reccomend firewire 800 over USB 3??

lucasfunkt · Nov 29, 2012

i make movies said:
Because there's a bottleneck at the hard drive...it would have to access both the very large, incompressible files video files as well as launching and performing tasks of the program (avid, anything else you have open). If you have several jobs lined up, you'll have to come close to filling the internal hard-drive, editing and finishing the project, then deleting the files, then start over with a new job.

Every pro Post house has the video files somewhere else other than internal hard drive, on either a large SAN or a external drives. The computer should be left for computing things and storage devices should be left to storing things. It's better for organization, better for longevity for the computer and the storage device...just better all around.

So we're better off getting the 1TB fusion drive? I was going to get the 3TB one.

But I'm still not sure I totally understand, final cut pro saves projects on the program as well as where ever the hard drive is I think. Performing the tasks of the program I didn't think affected the hard drive any more than the space it takes up, but even if it did, that coupled with a project or 2 surely won't come to 3TB or even 1TB?

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

frozi said:
I planned on getting the g-drive USB 3.0. You'd reccomend firewire 800 over USB 3??

Yeah, definitely.

It's not entirely about the speed of the protocol, but how it works. USB sends data in packets, and sometimes the editing software could interpret these packet bursts as dropped frames. Whereas FireWire/Thunderbolt sends a continuous stream.

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lucasfunkt said:
So we're better off getting the 1TB fusion drive? I was going to get the 3TB one.

Get whichever drive you like, as long as you use an external one for the video files and other resources.

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

lucasfunkt said:
So we're better off getting the 1TB fusion drive? I was going to get the 3TB one.

But I'm still not sure I totally understand, final cut pro saves projects on the program as well as where ever the hard drive is I think. Performing the tasks of the program I didn't think affected the hard drive any more than the space it takes up, but even if it did, that coupled with a project or 2 surely won't come to 3TB or even 1TB?

THe Fusion drive is a nice, fast hard drive, so the apps should launch much quicker than a regular spinner drive.

A FCP save file is not the same as video files. You can keep as many save files on the internal hard drive, as they're small. The big point is the large incompressible files should be stored on a separate drive. The hard drive will fail much earlier if you keep filling it up and emptying it.

Also, you can change the settings in FCP, for example, to have save files on the interal drive and send render files and cache file to the external drive. You can make it do pretty much anything you want if you know where to look.

lucasfunkt · Nov 29, 2012

i make movies said:
THe Fusion drive is a nice, fast hard drive, so the apps should launch much quicker than a regular spinner drive.

A FCP save file is not the same as video files. You can keep as many save files on the internal hard drive, as they're small. The big point is the large incompressible files should be stored on a separate drive. The hard drive will fail much earlier if you keep filling it up and emptying it.

Also, you can change the settings in FCP, for example, to have save files on the interal drive and send render files and cache file to the external drive. You can make it do pretty much anything you want if you know where to look.

Thank you.

Ok, so in this case it may be a better idea to save money buy just getting the 1TB fusion drive instead of the 3TB and spend that money on this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Thunderbolt-Adapter-GoFlex-Portable/dp/B007PJN57E%3FSubscriptionId%3D0SS63947Z47JATV0JD82%26tag%3Dlioswebsit-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB007PJN57E

And perhaps a further 3TB Seagate Plus external HDD to back up the one I have currently.

Does this sound like a good idea, at what stage in the work flow is it most vital that I make sure the the largest files are saved on the external drive? I do mostly time lapse so that can tend to be particularly large uncompressed but also complicated in terms of at which stage it becomes an uncompressed large video file.

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

lucasfunkt said:
Thank you.

Ok, so in this case it may be a better idea to save money buy just getting the 1TB fusion drive instead of the 3TB and spend that money on this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Thunderbolt-Adapter-GoFlex-Portable/dp/B007PJN57E%3FSubscriptionId%3D0SS63947Z47JATV0JD82%26tag%3Dlioswebsit-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB007PJN57E

And perhaps a further 3TB Seagate Plus external HDD to back up the one I have currently.

Does this sound like a good idea, at what stage in the work flow is it most vital that I make sure the the largest files are saved on the external drive? I do mostly time lapse so that can tend to be particularly large uncompressed but also complicated in terms of at which stage it becomes an uncompressed large video file.

I think that Amazon link looks like a good idea.

And ALL the project files (Video files, picture files, project files) should be saved on the external drive.

All the application files and OS files should be saved on the internal one.

lucasfunkt · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
I think that Amazon link looks like a good idea.

And ALL the project files (Video files, picture files, project files) should be saved on the external drive.

All the application files and OS files should be saved on the internal one.

Even for photo editing? I honestly didn't think that using the internal drive for editing was such a problem.

Should I not store anything on the internal HDD not even for back up, I suppose this might be less of a problem with a 3TB drive but you guys are making it sound like I may as well get the smaller one and just use it for the programs as the rest of the space will need to be accessed when using those programs? I thought this was done with RAM?

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
I think that Amazon link looks like a good idea.

And ALL the project files (Video files, picture files, project files) should be saved on the external drive.

All the application files and OS files should be saved on the internal one.

Yes. All of the key project files should be saved on the external drive....preferable in one folder for organizational purposes.

That dock would be good. Although for flexibility, I'd go with something like this.

http://www.belkin.com/us/thunderbolt

It's just a thunderbolt breakout that has esata, fw800, and many other super-useful connections. The only issue with the dock you posted is it's only limitied to naked drives....which is fine, but then you're *also* limited to that naked drive's read/write speed. With the belkin dock, you could throw on a g-raid drive with higher read/write speeds than a regualr spinner drive.

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lucasfunkt said:
Even for photo editing? I honestly didn't think that using the internal drive for editing was such a problem.

Should I not store anything on the internal HDD not even for back up, I suppose this might be less of a problem with a 3TB drive but you guys are making it sound like I may as well get the smaller one and just use it for the programs as the rest of the space will need to be accessed when using those programs? I thought this was done with RAM?

You're 1st post mentions used Avid.

It's not a problem. In fact, many people do this. But after filling and emptying the internal hard drive over a thousand times in 3-4 years with video files from different projects isn't good for the life of the HD. What would you rather fail, the internal drive with OS, expensive programs and save files, or an external drive with just video files?

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

i make movies said:
Yes. All of the key project files should be saved on the external drive....preferable in one folder for organizational purposes.

That dock would be good. Although for flexibility, I'd go with something like this.

http://www.belkin.com/us/thunderbolt

It's just a thunderbolt breakout that has esata, fw800, and many other super-useful connections. The only issue with the dock you posted is it's only limitied to naked drives....which is fine, but then you're *also* limited to that naked drive's read/write speed. With the belkin dock, you could throw on a g-raid drive with higher read/write speeds than a regualr spinner drive.

That Belkin dock is $300 and I'm not sure it's even available yet.

Honestly I think he should just buy a Thunderbolt drive or get a FireWire drive and use a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter.

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i make movies said:
You're 1st post mentions used Avid.

It's not a problem. In fact, many people do this. But after filling and emptying the internal hard drive over a thousand times in 3-4 years with video files from different projects isn't good for the life of the HD. What would you rather fail, the internal drive with OS, expensive programs and save files, or an external drive with just video files?

Using an external drive (Or at least a drive separate from the one holding the applications/OS) applies to all video editing software.

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lucasfunkt said:
Even for photo editing? I honestly didn't think that using the internal drive for editing was such a problem.

Should I not store anything on the internal HDD not even for back up, I suppose this might be less of a problem with a 3TB drive but you guys are making it sound like I may as well get the smaller one and just use it for the programs as the rest of the space will need to be accessed when using those programs? I thought this was done with RAM?

Just pick whichever one you want; 3TB or 1TB.

As long as the resources (Video files, pictures, project files) are on a separate drive and using Thunderbolt/FireWire.

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
That Belkin dock is $300 and I'm not sure it's even available yet.

Honestly I think he should just buy a Thunderbolt drive or get a FireWire drive and use a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter.

It's still not out yet? Bummer.

I always try to max out the connections...that's why I like that belkin thing because it has eSATA. The problem with the thunderbolt hubs/docks out now is they only do one connection...there's a Lacie hub that's only Esata and others that are only usb3 and other that's are only fw800. Options are great.

FW800 will be fine, especially for Avid where most editors use DNxHD 36 which is heavily compressed. But if you're editing these small proxies and you're source material is 4K, conforming back to the 4K is going to *suck*.

THese are only towers, but it gives an idea of what other people strive to build.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/User_Guide/en269631

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

i make movies said:
It's still not out yet? Bummer.

I always try to max out the connections...that's why I like that belkin thing because it has eSATA. The problem with the thunderbolt hubs/docks out now is they only do one connection...there's a Lacie hub that's only Esata and others that are only usb3 and other that's are only fw800. Options are great.

FW800 will be fine, especially for Avid where most editors use DNxHD 36 which is heavily compressed. But if you're editing these small proxies and you're source material is 4K, conforming back to the 4K is going to *suck*.

Yeah, my FireWire drive has loads of ports...but the Thunderbolt equivalent only has two Thunderbolt ports :S

Bet Apple paid the manufacturers to only put Thunderbolt so it gets used more.

I'm gonna wait another year or so before I get a Thunderbolt drive. See how the prices go and what other accessories come out.

I really like the idea of getting that LaCie 2big Thunderbolt disk and putting a couple of SSDs in it for RAID 0. But I'm not paying full price to get two HDDs that I'm gonna remove. Gonna need to consider it more, maybe get it and sell the HDDs, or try and look for a used one that doesn't have the HDDs.

Atisha · Nov 29, 2012

The idea of Fusion drive just sounds bad to me.

I got a 512gb SSD in my rMBP, I also video edit. That is plenty of space for 1 full HD project (up to 3 maybe) and all other resources on the comp. Everything is super fast. Then when you finish the project, move it to an external drive -- no problem.

Why external drive? Because automatically it should be RAID 0+1. No Time Machine BS. There should be .0001% chance of losing data. There are plenty of 6tb external thunderbolt HDs you can reduce to 3tb with a true RAID 0+1, and have a very reliable editing drive. This Fusion crap, sounds like a magical way to have a hard disk fail, the SSD sinking with the ship. It's a cheesy gimmick to save money which will be obsolete in 2 years. If it saves someone money though then that's fine.

The 768gb SSD actually is ideal but I just couldn't afford it.

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

Siderz said:
I really like the idea of getting that LaCie 2big Thunderbolt disk and putting a couple of SSDs in it for RAID 0. But I'm not paying full price to get two HDDs that I'm gonna remove. Gonna need to consider it more, maybe get it and sell the HDDs, or try and look for a used one that doesn't have the HDDs.

If only Lacie or the Pegasus Raid Arrarys were sold with no drives...

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Atisha said:
Why external drive? Because automatically it should be RAID 0+1. No Time Machine BS. There should be .0001% chance of losing data. There are plenty of 6tb external thunderbolt HDs you can reduce to 3tb with a true RAID 0+1, and have a very reliable editing drive.

For clarification, any RAID is *not* a true back up.

http://blog.macsales.com/12401-take-it-from-a-tech-raid-≠-proper-backup

lucasfunkt · Nov 29, 2012

i make movies said:
Yes. All of the key project files should be saved on the external drive....preferable in one folder for organizational purposes.

That dock would be good. Although for flexibility, I'd go with something like this.

http://www.belkin.com/us/thunderbolt

It's just a thunderbolt breakout that has esata, fw800, and many other super-useful connections. The only issue with the dock you posted is it's only limitied to naked drives....which is fine, but then you're *also* limited to that naked drive's read/write speed. With the belkin dock, you could throw on a g-raid drive with higher read/write speeds than a regualr spinner drive.

----------

You're 1st post mentions used Avid.

It's not a problem. In fact, many people do this. But after filling and emptying the internal hard drive over a thousand times in 3-4 years with video files from different projects isn't good for the life of the HD. What would you rather fail, the internal drive with OS, expensive programs and save files, or an external drive with just video files?

No I've never used Avid.

Filling and emptying the internal hard drive thousands of times, is this what happens when you're video editing, please excuse me ignorance but I thought that was the purpose of RAM?

I understand having free space on your hard drive allows your computer to run faster but I didn't think the impact would be this great in the sense that when editing it uses up all available space (if I've understood what you're saying here). In this case perhaps a 3TB drive would see some benefits above having a 1TB one (besides the obvious).

i make movies · Nov 29, 2012

lucasfunkt said:
No I've never used Avid.

Filling and emptying the internal hard drive thousands of times, is this what happens when you're video editing, please excuse me ignorance but I thought that was the purpose of RAM?

I understand having free space on your hard drive allows your computer to run faster but I didn't think the impact would be this great in the sense that when editing it uses up all available space (if I've understood what you're saying here). In this case perhaps a 3TB drive would see some benefits above having a 1TB one (besides the obvious).

Sorry, the OP mentioned using Avid or wanting to use Avid.

Please refer to Adobe White Paper on CPU, GPU, RAM, and Storage. They explain much better and in much greater detail than I ever could.

http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Ad...dfs/adobe-hardware-performance-whitepaper.pdf

yoak · Nov 29, 2012

Just a pointer, I think the project files should never be stored on the external scratch disk. If that fails, you not only use your footage (and have to copy it over from a back up to the new one you are getting) , but ALL your work at the same time as th eproject file will be lost too.
Always save your project file to the computer you are working on, then at the end of a day (or during) copy your project files over to the external.

If you do it like this, after you have copied your footage to a new scratch disk, you can just open the project file that was save to your computer and you are good to go. IF you had it on the scratch disk, you would have to start from scratch

Just my 2 cents

Siderz · Nov 29, 2012

yoak said:
Just a pointer, I think the project files should never be stored on the external scratch disk. If that fails, you not only use your footage (and have to copy it over from a back up to the new one you are getting) , but ALL your work at the same time as th eproject file will be lost too.
Always save your project file to the computer you are working on, then at the end of a day (or during) copy your project files over to the external.

If you do it like this, after you have copied your footage to a new scratch disk, you can just open the project file that was save to your computer and you are good to go. IF you had it on the scratch disk, you would have to start from scratch

Just my 2 cents

I reckon that's a decently good suggestion.

Could simply have a USB stick to save the project file to. The only problem is that it will take a bit of extra time saving the file (You should save regularly) but it's not too big of a deal.

The new iMac for video editors

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