Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

External HardDrive for Video Editing

M

mengus28

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 1, 2006
4
0
Hi,

I was doing some research on a external HD for MBPro as I will be doing some video/audio editing. I am a bit confused as how this set-up would function, do I save video/audio files onto the external HD rather than the internal to reduce cpu load and or can I edit video files from the external HD?

Its obvious more disk space = more speed, however I have video/audio editing software on the internal HD, do I keep my apps on the internal HD and other (audio/vidoe) files on the external HD, is this a practical approach?

Another term I have been (confused) reading about is partioning a drive, what exactly does "partioning" a drive do? :eek:

Thanks,

Newb. lol
 
Basically, all your apps are stored like normal on the internal os drive.

You store all of your clips on the external firewire/esata/fiber channel drive because they are able to give a more constant and fast stream of the video clips on the drive. (I think)
 
mengus28 said:
Hi,

I was doing some research on a external HD for MBPro as I will be doing some video/audio editing. I am a bit confused as how this set-up would function, do I save video/audio files onto the external HD rather than the internal to reduce cpu load and or can I edit video files from the external HD?
Click to expand...

What software are yu using?

Most people would put the media files (audio and video) on a large, fast external drive and have all their programs stored on the internal drive.

The system will run faster that way too because the disk activity is spread over two drives.
 
Thanks,

Using Final Cut Express.

I had a feeling apps go internal, media files to external. Had to ask as I was a bit unsure/confused. I see, by spreading data/software on two HD's computers work more efficiently, got it. :)

Thanks again!
 
Mengus,

For several months I've been using an external FW800 harddrive for my HDV footage.

Tip: partitioning your internal HD will not increase your speed. Technically it will remain ONE drive. Reading data on one partition and writing on the other partition will not "fly". The head of the physical HD can only be in one position at a time.

If you need performance for simultaneous read/ write you must use different physical drives.

I use the Iomega UltraMax 1Tb connected via FW800.
The UltraMax contains my imported footage from my HDV Cam.
The Internal MPB HD contains the FCS applications.
The Internal MPB HD is set as location for Rendering.
You can set these defaults in FCP via System settings > Scratch disk.

When attaching more than one FW external HD to your Mac, do note that the FW bus will limit the throughput. That is why previous post mention the Fiber channel cards.

Regards,
Coen
 
Although some would argue, I like to format my external drive as PC format. It works fine with any mac.

This also means that I can plug it into a friend's PC and access my files. That option would be impossible with a Mac formatted drive.
 
skimaxpower said:
Although some would argue, I like to format my external drive as PC format. It works fine with any mac.

This also means that I can plug it into a friend's PC and access my files. That option would be impossible with a Mac formatted drive.
Click to expand...

True, but it can be annoying when working with video (especially high-bitrate formats) as FAT32 volumes cannot store individual files larger than 4GB.
 
Rumour has it, that Leopard supports read/write to NTFS - which would be nice...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back