Is it better to have FCPX on a 6g SSD, or the Video files on the 6G SSD? (6Gvs3G SSD)

[Korican100]

Here's my situation. I have a Mac Pro 3,1 with FSB.

I have a 3g SSD, and a 6g SSD with Velocity X2 solo(PCIe).

I want the most optimal setup here. Do I house my video editing software on the 6g SSD and store the video files that I edit on the 3G SSD?

or Do I install FCPX on the 3g, with the videos on the 3g?

What would give me the fastest experience with editing, adding effects, skimming, tracking etc?

 

[mBox]

I would always keep the Events/Project on the fastest drive.
Now space you have to be careful with.

 

[marshzd]

For optimization, the 3g should be hosting FCPX. You're still going to get pretty great speeds, but the software takes more advantage of the processor and RAM (you should have a good chunk of RAM, MORE THAN 8GB).

When you run Blackmagic disk test, it tests the hard drive speed to see what footage you can handle. The 3g can't handle the same footage that the 6g can. It should be a free download on the App store, try it out.

So for optimization, you want the video footage on the faster drive. But if you aren't editing in 4k resolution, it really doesn't matter. The 3G will handle 1080p just fine.

 

[ChrisA]

Here's my situation. I have a Mac Pro 3,1 with FSB.

I have a 3g SSD, and a 6g SSD with Velocity X2 solo(PCIe).

I want the most optimal setup here. Do I house my video editing software on the 6g SSD and store the video files that I edit on the 3G SSD?

or Do I install FCPX on the 3g, with the videos on the 3g?

What would give me the fastest experience with editing, adding effects, skimming, tracking etc?

For BEST performance place everything on the faster drive and don't use the slower drive at all.

For second best performance place the video event and project folders on the faster drive and the software on the slower drive

Before there were SSDs people always used to recommend placing the system software on one drive and the media on an second drive. The problem they were solving was call "head contention" That is were the read/write head had to move between two locations (the media and the software would be on e different tracks) The the slowness was caused by access time, not read speed.

But now with SSDs there is no read/write head. Both can go on the same drive without causing head contention and what matters now is read speed. So use only the fastest drive.

OK there is one way to go even faster. You need a hardware based RAID controller and set up "stripping" or "raid-0" and use multiple SSDs. But this solution is kind of expensive and over kill and is less reliable.

 

[Korican100]

For BEST performance place everything on the faster drive and don't use the slower drive at all.

For second best performance place the video event and project folders on the faster drive and the software on the slower drive

Before there were SSDs people always used to recommend placing the system software on one drive and the media on an second drive. The problem they were solving was call "head contention" That is were the read/write head had to move between two locations (the media and the software would be on e different tracks) The the slowness was caused by access time, not read speed.

But now with SSDs there is no read/write head. Both can go on the same drive without causing head contention and what matters now is read speed. So use only the fastest drive.

OK there is one way to go even faster. You need a hardware based RAID controller and set up "stripping" or "raid-0" and use multiple SSDs. But this solution is kind of expensive and over kill and is less reliable.

thanks for the input. I actually did do that. I have 2 x 120gb ssd's 3g speed set in raid 0 for my application/boot drive, and the 480gb 6g ssd as my scratch/media disk.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Miguel Cunha]

I advise you to use both SSD in your setup.
Install FCPX in the slower and put your media the fastest.

 

[RCAFBrat]

I have 2 x 120gb ssd's 3g speed set in raid 0 for my application/boot drive, and the 480gb 6g ssd as my scratch/media disk.

I am very much a newbie and may be off base on this, but using 2 x SSD in RAID 0 for your OS and applications just seems wrong.

Perhaps my reasoning is faulty, but I assume that booting up / launching applications will involve predominantly read operations. Why then, aside from the fact that the capacity is doubled in a RAID 0 setup, would one not use RAID 1 instead? This would give you the same boot up / launch speeds while minimizing the risk associated with an SSD failure, even if the likelihood of either SSD failing is very low.

Using a single SSD as a reference, a RAID 0 setup is almost twice as likely to experience a failure. I say "almost twice" because there will still be some failure modes that are common to both drives, such as voltage spike if there is adequate protection.

On the other hand, again using a single SSD as a reference, using a RAID 1 setup should provide unmatched reliability (not immune to common cause failure modes but otherwise completely redundant) while delivering the same speed for read operations.

Agree totally with putting the project files on the 6g SSD.

Cheers

 

[Korican100]

I am very much a newbie and may be off base on this, but using 2 x SSD in RAID 0 for your OS and applications just seems wrong.

Perhaps my reasoning is faulty, but I assume that booting up / launching applications will involve predominantly read operations. Why then, aside from the fact that the capacity is doubled in a RAID 0 setup, would one not use RAID 1 instead? This would give you the same boot up / launch speeds while minimizing the risk associated with an SSD failure, even if the likelihood of either SSD failing is very low.

Using a single SSD as a reference, a RAID 0 setup is almost twice as likely to experience a failure. I say "almost twice" because there will still be some failure modes that are common to both drives, such as voltage spike if there is adequate protection.

On the other hand, again using a single SSD as a reference, using a RAID 1 setup should provide unmatched reliability (not immune to common cause failure modes but otherwise completely redundant) while delivering the same speed for read operations.

Agree totally with putting the project files on the 6g SSD.

Cheers

Raid 1 setup is slower than Raid 0, specifically in write speeds. Anyways, Raid 0 is only bad if you don't backup. I have a dedicated time machine HDD I backup twice a week. My system is also hooked to a 1500va UPS, so I think im ok if failure occurs with one of the SSD's.

 

[RCAFBrat]

Raid 1 setup is slower than Raid 0, specifically in write speeds. Anyways, Raid 0 is only bad if you don't backup. I have a dedicated time machine HDD I backup twice a week. My system is also hooked to a 1500va UPS, so I think im ok if failure occurs with one of the SSD's.

Agreed.

Given reliability of SSD failure is unlikely. Plus the fact that the RAID 0 setup will not have significant changes from one week to another (ie not like content) the risk of data loss is very low given the fact you are backing up the drive.

Just saying that if the storage capacity is not an issue and if there aren't significant write operations to the drive except during initial installation, there would be an improvement in reliability, albeit an improvement that is not worth it to you.

Cheers

 

[Korican100]

Agreed.

Given reliability of SSD failure is unlikely. Plus the fact that the RAID 0 setup will not have significant changes from one week to another (ie not like content) the risk of data loss is very low given the fact you are backing up the drive.

Just saying that if the storage capacity is not an issue and if there aren't significant write operations to the drive except during initial installation, there would be an improvement in reliability, albeit an improvement that is not worth it to you.

Cheers

I totally understand what you are saying. Thanks for the input. Your interest to help is very appreciated.