Using the SSD for FCS projects faster? (iMac 27)

[GreatDanton]

Hey guys. When I get the money saved up I intend to buy an iMac 27' with both the 2TB HD and 256 SSD.

I'm just inquiring as to weather I'll get a performance boost by, for example, dragging a current projects media (say for a wedding video I'm working on) onto the SSD and working from there until I'm finished that particular project.

Basically what I'm asking is, is the SSD faster than the serial ATA 2TB, 7200 rpm HD for video related work (Final Cut Studio)? A colleague today informed me it might not even have a benefit and would depend on the SSD.

If not, I might save the £600.

Anyway, I'm a hardware newb so all recommendations welcome guys.

 

[spinnerlys]

An SSD is up to three times (and sometimes more) faster than a regular HDD, but unless you plan to play lots and lots of videos at the same time in one sequence (five plus tracks) all the time, an HDD will suffice, unless you edit completely uncompressed, which is doubtful with wedding video footage.

S-ATA HDDs are fast enough to sustain 75 to 105 MB/s, uncompressed SD footage will have a data rate of 22MB/s, SD footage using the DV codec will have a data rate of 3.125MB/s, ProRes encoded HD footage will be up to 27.5 MB/s (422 HQ), uncompressed ProRes footage will be 166 to 280 MB/s, but you wouldn't use uncompressed ProRes footage for wedding footage, unless you do heavy, heavy colour grading and post production stuff and use RED or D21 or film footage.

http://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/docs/Apple_ProRes_White_Paper_July_2009.pdf