File Management

I've searched and found some great previous posts on file management, but here's a question I couldn't find an answer to: How to keep track of the various Audio, Render, Autosave, etc files that FCP creates for each project. Do most people create a folder and keep all such files, along with the project file in it? Or is it better to keep such files with the media (which I keep on an external drive)?

Thanks
DK

FCP places these files in a folder at the location you specify in your system preferences. Generally speaking I only back up files that take considerable human intervention to create which often require extremely long renders, so occasionally I'll back up video render files with the project.

If for some reason you need to reload a project it doesn't take long to render audio so I never back up audio render files, I delete them when the project is finished.

For the Autosave vault its a good idea that you keep this on a different drive than either your media or project files. Chances are that if you need to restore from the Autosave vault its because something happened to your system disk and the Autosave vault could be accidentally deleted during a re-install of FCP or the OS.

Much of this advice depends on the type of editing your doing, if your editing HD for example which requires a lot of bandwidth, storing render files on the raid can significantly reduce the RAIDs overall performance. RAIDs are designed to provide high speed access to large blocks of contiguous data, render files are generally written in small bites which at some point will cause the RAID to thrash.

So I keep my autosave vault on a (third) separate disk from my system and media, both my audio and video render files in the same location as the capture scratch folder and rarely back them up although if I needed to its easy to do.

Audio and video render files should go where the clips are. However, never, ever, ever put your Autosave Vault anywhere close to where the clips and your active project file are. Never on the same drive. The point of Autosave Vault is so you can restore your work if something happens to your project file. If your entire media drive dies and your Autosave Vault is there, you've just lost your backup as well.

Do manual backups of your project file on a regular basis (I recommend every three hours or so) and put those backups in a location that isn't active -- such as a USB flash drive that you plug in only for the backup operation. Then I'd recommend putting your Autosave Vault into your computer's internal Final Cut Pro Documents folder. That way you have routine backups in three locations, which aren't likely to fail at the same time.

Waveform Cache and Thumbnail Cache can go wherever you find convenient.


www.derekmok.com

I am going to take this opportunity to pimp my Getting Organized in Final Cut Pro DVD:

[training.creativecow.net]

Explains how FCP organizes captures and renders and how it deals with audio and pictures, and gives tips on how to organize things so you know where they are.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]