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FCPX external drive TB vs. USB 3.0 new rMBP

L

loewendan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 19, 2012
8
0
Waiting for my new rMBP and trying to decide what drive to get for a large volume harddrive for video editing, want to know whether I should go Thunderbolt or if USB 3.0 will be enough for video editing in FCPX.

I know TB is quicker/better, but in a single drive setup (not raid) I'm not sure if I will notice any difference in speed between the two drives, assuming both are 7200rpm. USB 3.0 is a lot cheaper so if they are the same performance I'm fine to go with that.

Also not sure if the issue of USB being 'burst packets' is still an issue in usb3.0 and whether that alone makes it worth it to go with TB.

Does anyone have any experience editing video with USB 3.0 drives on the new rMBP?
 
I'd like to shoot for around 200 dollars max.. and get something like 3tb... but of course if I need to get TB I'd make it work... I think min that would be 300 - 400.

I'm pulling in video from a DSLR and would optimize it to PRORES.
 
Any one tried video editing in FCPX with a USB 3.0 drive? Don't want to buy one and regret not getting Thunderbolt.
 
loewendan said:
Waiting for my new rMBP ...
Click to expand...

Unless you use the SSD in USB3.0 or TB, then you should worry about the speed. A single drive SATAII, or SATAIII 7200rpm, none of the HDD able to deliver more than 120MB/sec or (roughly 1.2Gb/s). It is way too slow for both USB3.0 (5.Gb) and TB (10Gb/s)

If you need over 230MB/s with USB3.0, then eBOX-R5.
It's a quite, fast but pretty big, you can have a RAID5+HS :)
 
Well since I haven't found a lot of responses online, I'll give you an update. I recently received my Retina Macbook Pro and purchased a Seagate Backup Plus Desk 3TB usb 3.0 hard drive. Seagate does not give any specs on the spin rate of their drives because it's proprietary I guess or something. I was able to read a response from Seagate on an Amazon review stating that the 3TB drives were 7200... either way, a black magic speed test gave me read write speeds in the 120's... which is great, that would seem correct for a 7200rpm drive. I've used it in Final Cut Pro X and with optimized media, had no problem running a 1080 multi cam clip with 13 different angles.

So in case anyone out there is doing video editing for weddings, or music videos etc and your not using 2k or 4k footage, seems to me that USB 3.0 is easily good enough to run media off of and edit in Final Cut Pro X.
 
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