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Portable or Mini Harddrives Good for Editing with FCP?
Posted by nlittrell
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Re: Portable or Mini Harddrives Good for Editing with FCP? February 03, 2014 09:22AM |
> i'm wondering if the newer portable or mini drives (2 TB) are a good match for editing with FCP X?
> i'm looking at the lacie "rugged" portable drive and also WD mini/portable drives.
They're not unworkable, but they won't perform well. They're slow and unreliable, they overheat (no fan), and anything more than one stream of ProRes and they start to choke (that's provided you use FireWire 800 -- USB will do even worse). I did a few projects on a Western Digital portable and I had to waste quite some time with the low read/write speed and playback stutters, because the company decided to save a few bucks instead of buying the proper equipment. Whatever they might have saved on the drives (and since we're talking about 2TB drives, we're talking about $50, not even $100), it was nothing compared with the extra time and hourly billings it took for me to do the work. Even dumber is the fact that you don't save money on portable drives -- you lose money, because you are paying extra for the portability and bus-powered capability.
Don't skimp on equipment. Buy right and save money in the long run. If you don't want to buy the more expensive drives like CalDigit or Promax, look at OWC's drives.
> i'm working with a client where i may have to shuffle off the drive via mail or move it around to different shooting locations.
You're thinking about it wrong. Consider this: Why would you want to edit on a drive that's constantly being stuffed into bags, taken in and out of boxes, put into car trunks, and shuttled to different places? And why would you want your entire editing project -- converted media, masters, sync audio, graphics creations and so on -- being moved around and exposed to multiple computer systems, often being operated by people of varying and unpredictable experience and ability?
Get portable drives for transportation if you need them. But don't edit on them. A master editing station's storage should stay in one place and be as secure as possible, and backed up frequently. And if you need to edit on the move on laptops, use a different drive from the one you use to transport material.
www.derekmok.com
> i'm looking at the lacie "rugged" portable drive and also WD mini/portable drives.
They're not unworkable, but they won't perform well. They're slow and unreliable, they overheat (no fan), and anything more than one stream of ProRes and they start to choke (that's provided you use FireWire 800 -- USB will do even worse). I did a few projects on a Western Digital portable and I had to waste quite some time with the low read/write speed and playback stutters, because the company decided to save a few bucks instead of buying the proper equipment. Whatever they might have saved on the drives (and since we're talking about 2TB drives, we're talking about $50, not even $100), it was nothing compared with the extra time and hourly billings it took for me to do the work. Even dumber is the fact that you don't save money on portable drives -- you lose money, because you are paying extra for the portability and bus-powered capability.
Don't skimp on equipment. Buy right and save money in the long run. If you don't want to buy the more expensive drives like CalDigit or Promax, look at OWC's drives.
> i'm working with a client where i may have to shuffle off the drive via mail or move it around to different shooting locations.
You're thinking about it wrong. Consider this: Why would you want to edit on a drive that's constantly being stuffed into bags, taken in and out of boxes, put into car trunks, and shuttled to different places? And why would you want your entire editing project -- converted media, masters, sync audio, graphics creations and so on -- being moved around and exposed to multiple computer systems, often being operated by people of varying and unpredictable experience and ability?
Get portable drives for transportation if you need them. But don't edit on them. A master editing station's storage should stay in one place and be as secure as possible, and backed up frequently. And if you need to edit on the move on laptops, use a different drive from the one you use to transport material.
www.derekmok.com
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Re: Portable or Mini Harddrives Good for Editing with FCP? February 12, 2014 06:42AM |
> and in my case it was fine, 1.5yrs approx traveling/commuting with the drive and editing off it, trains, subway, planes, with no problems what so ever.
> Guess I got lucky (?).
Just because yours lasted 18 months doesn't mean all of them will. Eighteen months is not that long for a drive, either.
Not that the above is a mistake. Bus-powered drives are the only practical solution for that kind of mobile, on-the-run editing. Just don't take them for granted. Backup scrupulously and often, and keep track of the backups.
www.derekmok.com
> Guess I got lucky (?).
Just because yours lasted 18 months doesn't mean all of them will. Eighteen months is not that long for a drive, either.
Not that the above is a mistake. Bus-powered drives are the only practical solution for that kind of mobile, on-the-run editing. Just don't take them for granted. Backup scrupulously and often, and keep track of the backups.
www.derekmok.com
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