Scratch disk drive what to look for?

[Drew n macs]

I will be buying final cut x when it comes out. What should I look for specs for a scratch disk? Can I use a portable 2.5 hdd through firewire? should it be buss powered or external power supply? in the near future i will be buying a new computer with Thunderbolt port should I buy ssd or is it necessary for a scratch disk.

Also do I want to store my video and edit it on the same drive? (I am talking external, as I have read that it is not good for performance or drive to edit video on same drive as program is stored)

how about once the project is done should it be moved to a different drive for storage?

 

[Repo]

Thunderbolt or FireWire (USB2 works fine if necessary). I store everything on the external, so it's easy to find, and it doesn't degrade performance.

If you're going to be on the move, get a bus powered 2.5". When the project is done, just leave it where it is.

 

[hsilver]

Thunderbolt drives will be coming out soon and should handle anything you do for the next few years. Be sure that the actual drive you put in the Thunderbolt enclosure has a spin rate of 7200rpm. Keep media on external drive and projects on internal drive.

 

[Drew n macs]

Keep media on external drive and projects on internal drive.

so I assume what you mean by that is once the work is complete transfer it to my internal drive?

do I only keep my editing projects on a scratch disk? my reason is are you going to be "pushing" scratch disk and chance of failure will be high? another reason I could get a small hd for scratch disk if i am only editing my project on the scratch disk.

are 2.5 as good as a 3.5? I have read mixed things on this through mroogle and it seems like some of the new 2.5 drives seem as good as a 3.5.

 

[hsilver]

Don't know about 2.5 v. 3.5 drives.

If you want portability then 2.5 drives are good enough. You may want a large scratch drive if you shoot a lot. SSD drives don't make sense cost-wise yet for scratch drives but standard drives are so reasonable cost / capacity. ProRes takes up a lot of space. Even if with FCPX you can edit natively, best work-flow will probably still be ProRes.

You may want to have finished videos on more than one drive as back-up.

 

[Repo]

Keep media on external drive and projects on internal drive.

There's no need to do that, and really doesn't make sense. If you have the project (.fcp) file on your internal drive and accidentally open it without the external drive connected, you'll have to relink all your media. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying.

When you create a scratch disk, FCP generates all the folders you need. Just add another folder along with the ones FCP generates for your project files.

And of course, backup your data.