upgrading to new drives and moving media

Hi,

I am working on FCP 6.0.6 on a doc that is 85% complete. I have three separate G-Tech2 drives - 2 x 1.5 TB and 1x 1TB. They are daisy chained and renders can be slow. Since we are going out in the field to shoot some additional footage - we decided to UPGRADE to an eSata G-Speed eS Tower with 6TB capacity which I intend to use in Raid 0.....since I already will have the media on my original drives as back up! The new footage will be backed up in the field on external drives as they are shooting on P2.

Since I already have a complex cut - I want to be certain that when I copy the media to the new drives, NOTHING gets "lost". I would love any suggestions on the MOST reliable, efficient way to move my media....
what are the pros and cons of drag and drop from the desktop OR using the media manager tool.
Please advise?

Thanks
Sherril

A file copy program like SuperDuper might be the way to go.

Andy

Hi, Sherril.

my feeling is that a manual move is the best way to get where you want to be.

for the smoothest transition of all, you want the new drive/s to match the old ones EXACTLY.
naturally you'd want the same folder hierarchy and structure.
manually copying the folders will give you that.

and for NO RECONNECTING AT ALL, you'd want to have the same "drive structure",
that is: three drives, or volumes, with the same names as the originals.

it should be possible on your new drive to create 3 volumes.
i'll leave it to others to suggest if thats a good idea or not.

if you opt not to go with three volumes that match your current setup,
then you could just have three FOLDERS inside the new drive that reflect the old set-up.
there will be reconnect process, but it *should* be relatively straight forward.

render files may or may not reconnect.
historically, reconnecting to render files has been very hit and miss.
last time i copied some render files, i was able to reconnect to them,
so maybe FCP is better in that regard than it used to be.

if for some reason you then need to work of the original drives (maybe you get a second editor on, or give some tasks to an assistant)
then you'll again have a reconnect process to deal with.

if you use matched volumes, then there should be no reconnect issues ever
(until you have added the new media to the new drives, of course.. and "new media" includes any new renders)



MEDIA MANAGER
will gather up all the media used in your project, and plonk it into one new folder on the new drive.

captures, audio files, graphics, music etc, etc.
all will be bunched together in the one folder.
to me that seems messy,
and if you had a sound recordist shooting multitrack audio,
then you could have potentially many thousands of files.

you would get Media Manager to create a new project that references the new media,
so there'd be NO reconnect issues UNTIL you try to connect back to the media on the old drives.
because of the difference in folder structure, that could be a little painful

once it's there on the new drive, you could re-organize the media back into the original folder structure,
but that seems like a lot of wasted energy.



cheers,
nick

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I have three separate G-Tech2 drives - 2 x 1.5 TB and 1x 1TB. They are daisy chained and renders can be slow.

Just a note on G-Tech drives and Daisy Chaining = DON'T. The performance takes a big hit making them USELESS for video. CalDigit RAID units on the otehr hand DO NOT suffer a performance hit when Daisy Chaining.

I would Media Manage (Copy) the whole project and all associated files over to the new RAID in one shot...period.

Curious...why G-Tech? Have you looked at CalDigit RAIDs? Customer Support is WAY better and everything is thoroughly tested. You should at least be asking what the units are INSIDE the enclosures. Stay away from Seagate 1.5 GB. There are still wacky units out there and you will have to MANUALLY update the firmware on (pain in the arse on a RAID enclosure).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks guys -- I had posted this same question on another forum and got minimal feedback...you are all most helpful!

Actually Nick - as I lay awake in bed pondering this question I had thought that the workflow you describe would be best....I like the idea of putting everything in folders that match the names of the drives they came from.....so that everything is traceable back to it's original drives.

Joey - thanks for the heads up on the drives - will definitely explore further.

Best,
Sherril

Quote

I had posted this same question on another forum and got minimal feedback...you are all most helpful!

That's 'cause every time we answer a question correctly, Mike buys us pizza and beer.

...and by the time mine gets to the UK its grown a fur coat and legs.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

whatever it takes!!

Quote

That's 'cause every time we answer a question correctly, Mike buys us pizza and beer.

Mine must be on backorder...haven't seen a slice in 3 + years

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Its in the mail.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Mike, Mike, Mike. Don't you know how to run a proper Ponzi scheme? You're supposed to tell us that you took the pizza-and-beer you owed us and invested it in a high-rate-of-return offshore pizza-and-beer futures account, and that the dividends from that will start rolling in any day now.