capturing/storing media?

[Talking Eyes]

I am obviously a novice FCP user and I don't think I've mastered the most correct and safest way to set the scratch disks and store media. For my project, I have one external drive called Sheila. I set the Scratch Disk to Sheila, the Waveform Cache to Sheila, the Thumbnail Cache to Sheila, and the Autosave Vault to the Macintosh HD. If something were to happen to Sheila, does that mean I've lost all of my captured media? If so, what is the function of the autosave vault? What is the best way to do this (store media and set scratch disk, waveform, thumbnail, and autosave)?
Thanks.

 

[oneinfiniteloop]

Autosave only saves your project, doesn't back up your media. If "Shelia" crapped out on you, your project, timeline, effects, bins, etc. would be in tact, but when it looked for the media it would be missing.

Creating a back up system for your media is always a good idea.