Multiple Drives/Partitions on a Single Hard Drive

I was wondering whether it's OK to edit a project using 2 partitioned drives that are mounted from a single hard drive. The reason I would want to do this is I started a project 6 years ago when 400GB hard drives were the largest available. My project grew over the years to span 3 drives for the main project and other drives to hold 10 bit and HD outputs. What I'd like to do, is put all the contents of 2 or 3 drives on a single drive and partition it, but wasn't sure if while using FCP whether the drive would freak out trying to read it's data. I'm editing on a laptop and having 3 external drives always ready can be a hassle. I'm not doing hardcore editing, but don't want to regret making the move. Any info would be most appreciated!

Thanks,
Alexander

It's okay to do that, but what's the point? Partitioning a single hard drive does nothing but give you more, smaller hard drives.

You don't really need to do the partitioning. You can just use folders on the same drive if you need to keep things separate. Shouldn't be a problem with the partitions though.

OK, the reason I would do partitioning would be I don't want to change the folder structure at all as this project is 6 years old and reconnecting the media once the root structure changes will be a nightmare. What I'm trying to do is consolidate media on 3 external hard drives onto 1.

Reconnecting media in FCP shouldn't be that hairy. It's an in-built function of any good NLEs and FCP's quite reliable at it, provided you didn't mess up your media management. If you did mess up your media management and you're afraid you won't be able to reconnect... Yea, by all means, partition it. But of course, you could pop your stuff over, and try to reconnect, if you can't, then partition it.



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Just use folders. It's the same thing to FCP.

I think the OP's concerned about changing media paths which occasionally can happen especially with illegal characters, although FCP has gotten quite reliable over the years with that, so it really shouldn't be an issue.

Partitioning your drives will ensure that you keep the same media path. However, when you're done with the project, the only way to un-partition the drive is to format the entire drive.



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The project is a 6 year old documentary with thousands of files. I want to play it safe as going from FCP 4.5 to 6 has introduced several bugs in the project already. Plus, if I want to open older project files, I'll have to reconnect them every time which would be a big headache. I've juggled with so many drives going back and forth over the years that I'd rather play it safe. Unless anyone can give a strong reason why I should NOT partition the drive, then I'll probably just do that. I will probably still keep the 3 drives, but keep them in storage just in case and use the consolidated 2TB drive (backed up of course) as the working drive. Thanks for the input guys.

hi, alex.

FCP is a bit better at reconnecting than you think.
but it's good to be wary.

older versions were worse.
and i do remember having some problems with Multiclps just refusing to reconnect
this was back in FCP 5

so a few quick questions:
what version of FCP are you using now?

do you have any multiclips?
any merged clips?
multitrack audio (BWF)?


how much media in all?
do you want to replace your old drives,
or keep them as back up?

my guess is it would be fine to collect all the media into the one new drive.
reconnect should be easy enough.
i'd then suggest you re-organize the media so it's NOT in three separate folders each with capture scratch etc, etc,
but to really rationalize it.

THEN
if you want a safety back up, get another new drive and copy it all across.

OR get a fancier drive with multiple drives inside it, Raid protected.
for recommendations ask others here, i wouldn't know.


cheers,
nick

Hi Nick,

I think FCP is quite good at reconnecting, but my concern is I have thousands of media files but even worse have even more render files that are all over the place. The project has been through several editors and I've done a lot of the media organization which as time passed by got more and more messy. It's gotten to the point where it ain't broke and I don't want to even mess with it, you know?

I'm on FCP v6.0.3. I could buy FCP 7 but don't want to upgrade again yet as I don't want to introduce any possible corruption to this project. I will upgrade for my next project. I know a post house that keeps partitions of FCP versions so I guess I'm not the only one who's cautious.

To answer your questions:
-No multiclips. No merged clips. No BWF audio.

What I do have is Nested Sequences which turned out to be a glitchy nightmare, especially when copying a Nest in a Nest. Plus my subtitles as I went from system to system over the years got all bugged up.

I have less than 2TB of SD 24p media spread over 3 drives. That's not including the "cuts" with 10 bit 90 minute cut weighing in at 110GB. HD is about 650GB. I believe a large part of the 2TB is taken up by render files for my sequences. I thought about deleting them but decided to leave well enough alone just in case. As you can see I'm kinda superstitious, perhaps because I'm ignorant of FCP's inner workings as I'm self taught. I may consider getting rid of render files but this is an unknown that kinda worries me.

I'm thinking this 2TB partitioned consolidation should work, I'm not gonna be doing any major editing, just minor tweaks to an already finished work.

Thanks!

hi, Alex.

i hear you.

render files are pretty disposable. IMO,
but if you want to keep them, then by all means do.

you probably know this, but the real trick to seamlessly opening your projects after the move is to give the new partitions the SAME NAMES as the original drives,
once the media is copied over.

it's lucky for me i don't live over there.
i'd be tempted to come around and untangle it al!


all the best
nick

Good to know. I think I should start getting rid of them as they are taking up hundreds of GB of data.

Yes, thank you for the partition naming reminder :-)

Shane Ross gave me his FCP Organization DVD. I should really sit down and take a look! :-p

Thanks again Nick!

Yeah there's really no compelling reason why you shouldn't partition except that it's kinda messy. Editors hate messy lol. I'm with Nick - I would revel in going in there and making it all make sense again. I'll do it for you if you like. Just pay my airfare and find me some accommodation, and I'll sort it right out

That's very sweet Jude

I hear what you guys are saying though. If I properly reorganize the project now, then all reconnects in the future should be relatively painless. I will sleep on this...

Thank you for all the advice guys, I really appreciate it! Learned several new things today

You might not think it's so sweet when you see what the airfares from Australia are

With that, you could just find your accommodations on the couch...



www.strypesinpost.com

Yeah, I've heard the airfares have gone up. I've also heard that it's a brutally long flight to LA. You Aussies are so generous with your time! ;-D

Ah well, what's 20 hours in business class?

A damn sight better than the 16 hours I had to spend in coach the last time I flew back from Oz. QF11, seat 72K. I'm never gonna forget that one.

Wait a minute, wait a minute--

[ea, by all means, partition it. But of course, you could pop your stuff over, and try to reconnect, if you can't, then partition it.]

But I keep hearing partitioning slows drive access down. What's the story here?

I can fly coach from Boston, but I expect the presidential suite when I get there.

With a hot tub. And hot and cold running... oh, never mind.

- Loren

Today's FCP keytip:
Invoke your Opacity/Audio Levels Adjust dialog with
Command-Option-L !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

I honestly don't see the difference in the hard disk accessing data whether it's on different folders or different partitions. It'll still be different areas of the disk that it will have to access. This is from MacNN:

Partitioning does not affect the hard drive's access speed.

More detailed answer:

Mechanical hard drives (as opposed to Solid State) are fastest at the beginning (outer tracks) and slowest at the end (inner tracks). The first tracks are usually ~2x as fast as the inner tracks. People who own servers sometimes partition their drives in half, then use only the first partition - this forces the hard drive to always be in it's upper speed range.

So if you partition, earlier partitions will be faster than later partitions. But you haven't changed the speed of the hard drive at all - you're only mapping to different speed zones that were already present.


So whether I have folders on the inner and outer tracks, or folders on 2 or 3 partitions I will still have to access the disk randomly if I fill it up. Have you guys actually had any real world experiences where partitions slowed everything down significantly, or are we talking theories here?

I've personally never seen any performance difference either way.

I can fly Air Asia, as long as I get a bus load of supermodels dancing hula girls and a good bottle of Southern Comfort, I'm cool...

It's really not a big deal whether you partition or not. The issue is that when you need to un-partition the drives, you can only do so by formatting it. Partitioning is really just a virtual allocation of your drive, in a way similar to having a folder, except that it's permanent, and that it's allocated during formatting, therefore, the outer edges of the drive will be the first partition, the next partition will be on the inner part of the drive. It slows down performance in that way. Just make sure you leave about 15% of each partition free, should you decide to partition.

Basically if you can work without partition, more power to you. The points have already been covered- if your media management is a total mess and FCP is unable to reconnect to the clips, or if you are working with subclips or multiclips and FCP can't reconnect to the clips without you losing sync, by all means partition.



www.strypesinpost.com