External Hard drive set up HELP!

[kingjereme]

Thanks anybody for taking the time

I bought the latest/greatest 27" iMac last Spring. 32GB Ram 3.5GHZ i7 chip. Really wanted and needed something fast without getting the MacPro. I edit Video professionally with Final Cut X. Everything edited is Prores422 files....1920x1080 60p

My set up seems to make sense to me, but the computer just doesn't seem like it is as fast as rendering/exporting/displaying than it should be. I get the beach ball quite a few times when I hit play on my timeline.

Here's my external HD set up. HOW SHOULD I DO THIS?

My final cut libraries are on a USB3 drive connected straight into the iMac
My final cut video files (all the pro-res files) and connected thunderbolt to a laCie eSATA break-out box...then eSATA to 7200rpm LaCie D2's
My Final Cut project elements (music, stills, anything that isn't video) is thunderbolt to firewire 800 to 7200rpm LaCie D2

I know ideal would be a thunderbolt drives....but until then...

Any Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks anybody for taking the time

I bought the latest/greatest 27" iMac last Spring. 32GB Ram 3.5GHZ i7 chip. Really wanted and needed something fast without getting the MacPro. I edit Video professionally with Final Cut X. Everything edited is Prores422 files....1920x1080 60p

My set up seems to make sense to me, but the computer just doesn't seem like it is as fast as rendering/exporting/displaying than it should be. I get the beach ball quite a few times when I hit play on my timeline.

Here's my external HD set up. HOW SHOULD I DO THIS?

My final cut libraries are on a USB3 drive connected straight into the iMac
My final cut video files (all the pro-res files) and connected thunderbolt to a laCie eSATA break-out box...then eSATA to 7200rpm LaCie D2's
My Final Cut project elements (music, stills, anything that isn't video) is thunderbolt to firewire 800 to 7200rpm LaCie D2

I know ideal would be a thunderbolt drives....but until then...

Any Help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's what I did with my setup:
1. Move whatever you need to the internal SSD and use the SSD as a scratch space.

2. Once you're done with it, then only move back everything to the external drive.

External drives (5400rpm) are about 7 times slower compared to the internal SSD.

 

[kingjereme]

I could use a little bit more feedback. My internal HD is 1TB(fusion) I have close to 10 projects going at any given time. some are 200gigs of video…one is 2TB of pro-res video, so moving all onto internal HD is not a practical answer for me.

Anyone else?

 

[Consultant]

The Mac is not slow, it's your external drive.

USB3 means nothing. It could be a "green" drive that's slow.

Get a RAID. Professionals use Thunderbolt RAID.

 

[macthefork]

The spinning drive is the bottleneck. Even two 7200 drives configured RAID 0 would be huge improvement. Best through thunderbolt, but still fast through the USB3.