Edit video external or on iMac SSD?

[MiniD3]

Hi guys
new to video with a new camera, old D700 didn't have video, so I'm a greenhorn again

With stills, all my images are on external drives and all the software is on the mac which has a 750GB SSD and 32GB ram
For example, with LightRoom, the images do take a little while to load but once loaded, the editing is super fast

Now, with video, (running FCP X trial at the moment),
If I do the same, import the video to external drive, edit with FCP which is in the Mac, will the editing/rendering still be fast?
Or should I do the whole project on the Mac and then export to and external and when competed, then delete the project from the Mac?
.......Gary

 

[Unami]

depends on the speed & connection of your external drives (e.g. an external ssd via thunderbolt 2 might be faster than the internal drive) and the type of video you're working with (many layers/multicam or simple timeline with 1-2 streams). just give it a try from the external hd. if playback is smooth then you won't need the internal ssd - rendering could be a little faster on a faster drive, but usually it's more likely that the cpu is the bottleneck here.

 

[MiniD3]

Tks Unami
Will give the external HHD a go then, just want to start on the right track
....Gary

 

[kohlson]

depends on the speed & connection of your external drives (e.g. an external ssd via thunderbolt 2 might be faster than the internal drive) and the type of video you're working with (many layers/multicam or simple timeline with 1-2 streams). just give it a try from the external hd. if playback is smooth then you won't need the internal ssd - rendering could be a little faster on a faster drive, but usually it's more likely that the cpu is the bottleneck here.

I think you have a nicely optimized set up for performance in the iMac. If you are connecting the external drive through slower I/O (like USB2 or FW) then you may see slowdowns if trying to work from this drive. I think the experience for video will be similar to your photo editing. After all, a large amount of photos is probably much smaller than 15 minutes of HD. And any work (editing) done to the clips is probably more resource intensive. But as suggested, give it a try and see what happens.

 

[e1me5]

Using the internal SSD or an external HDD doesn't have any difference performance wise, but you should edit on an external HDD, as FCPX renders everything in ProRes and it's taking quite a lot of space that might fill up your internal SSD very fast if you are working with big or multiple projects. Just make sure that the project file (or the library file, as it is call in FCPX) it is stored on the external drive. FireWire, USB 3 and Thunderbolt are all capable for HD video most cameras record, and USB 3 and thunderbolt can also play back 4K video if it is compressed. You won't have any hiccups during playback when you are editing on an external, as long as your clips on the timeline have just a few effects. If you add a lot of effects just let FCPX to render (it never renders when you are playing back the timeline) and then it will play back smoothly again.

 

[MiniD3]

Tks Guys,
Will try the next shoot out on the external HDD, my externals are USB3 HHD's
Thank you for your advice, much appreciated
......Gary