Scratch Disks & External Drives

[bluap84]

This is both for the photo & video section. Just a query really?

How do you guys have your scratch disks and external drives set up? I have 3 USB ports and 1 Firewire port left on my mac, one USB is for my iphone charger.

So theres a potentially a lot of space there. But what do you have plugged into those ports? Do you have SSD or normal HDD, how big should a scratch disk be and should that be SSD?? Can SSD be firewire (sorry new to SSD) Do you have a RAID set up for your external drives?

I have just bought a GOPro which ill use on a regular basis, i am also looking to get back into photography.

Photoshop and Premiere both require scratch disks. So should there be two seperate ones?

Oh i also use Time Machine. So would it be advisable to have partitions too?

How do you guys have your setups?

sorry for all the questions. But my mac is still kinda new, and i would love to keep it as tidy as possible when it comes to data.

 

[arjen92]

Most people have their os and software on one disk, and then the footage on another. So that when you edit video/photo's the load is shared between two drives instead of one (one handles software, the other the footage).

You could use an SSD. But most people (I believe, I could be wrong) use a raid setup. So they have someting like 4 HDD. 2 for backup, and 2 to write too. The computer will see this as one hard drive. But because you're writing to 2 drives at the same time, it takes half the time.

SSD is also fast, but still very expensive and not a lot of space. So you could (if you have the money) install your os and software on an SSD, and then get a raid setup for your footage.

Firewire 800 is faster than USB. It depends on the case you get whether it uses USB or Firewire 800 (+ plus USB, but they don't work at the same time)

 

[grooveattack]

i use final cut and premier etc. personally i have an SSD for my apps and OS, 1tb for my files and a 1tb fire wire 800 drive as a scratch. that set up does just fine for me. i have seen people with crazy RAID set ups but i just dont need that right now.

 

[sarge]

Personally I like to keep dedicated drives for each of my archives. Photos live on one drive, video on another and back ups of both are stored off-site.

I find it's easier to manage backups when they're physically arranged like this. As for scratch drives I have one drive dedicated for both PS and FCP.

EDIT:
Timemachine and my music each live on separate drives as well.

 

[bluap84]

Personally I like to keep dedicated drives for each of my archives. Photos live on one drive, video on another and back ups of both are stored off-site.

I find it's easier to manage backups when they're physically arranged like this. As for scratch drives I have one drive dedicated for both PS and FCP.

EDIT:
Timemachine and my music each live on separate drives as well.

THATS alot of external Drives. eeeeek...i feel a cha ching moment coming on.

Do you advise having a scratch disk for each program, i was hoping to either have a 1tb drive and use it for both, or partition it 500/500

 

[sarge]

ha ha ha. Yeah it adds up that's for sure.

For my music I just bought a couple of seagate portable drives for $65-79, using one for backup. I spent a lot of time ripping and organizing lossless or uncompressed audio files and I don't want to have to do that work all over again if the one drive fails.
For photo and video work I like to pony up for more reliable units. I have had good experience w/G-technology but am looking at Caldigit too.

http://www.macworld.com/product/685274/caldigit_av_drive_1tb.html

I just use a single TB drive for my scratch disk for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Final Cut. You could partition and put FC on one half and Photoshop on the other.
My video projects are all personal - I don't have to worry about a client wanting to re-visit a project so I usually re-format my scratch disk at the end of the year which wipes out my render files.

(FWIW, I also format my CF card after every download and I've been using the same one for 3 years w/o a hitch. Have shot about 20,000 raw photos and hours of video on it and it's still going strong)

 

[bluap84]

cool man thanks

I currently have one of these split 500/500 one half for time machine and another half for space. I might demote that to a scratch disk, then invest in something from the G-Tech range for my data drive, then i can go firewire.

you think one of these could handle being a backup drive (eg: time machine) as they are powered via usb, saving plug space As im limited on that. Also do you know if you can buy longer cables for those drives? or is it any usb mini cable? Because id like to hide them under my desk