Separate drive for capture scratch?

Cory Braun

Cory Braun

Well-known member
I have always been confused by this. I have read in a few different places that you should have your capture scratch on a separate disk, but a separate disk from what? From your OS? From FCP? From the rest of the project files?

Right now my current set up is:

1. SSD Drive: OS X, FCP
2. Internal HD: Project Folder > Save Files, Final Cut Pro Documents (which is where I keep Capture Scratch, Waveform Cache, Thumbnail Cache, and Autosave Vault), Exports, etc.

Should the capture scratch be kept on a separate disk from the rest of the project folder? Or a different drive than the Waveform Cache, Thumbnail Cache, & Autosave?

Thanks for any help.
 
Is best to keep your scratch disk on an external hard drive. Almost every editor would tell you the same thing. If your computer craps out and you have everything saved on the computer's hard drive then you're screwed. 9 times out of 10 having your project on an external drive is best.
 
I think the OP's wanting to know more about performance. I always understood that one should keep their files on a drive seperate from the OS (which could be a second drive, external hard drive etc.).
 
Yea sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm more concerned about performance. Also, I don't have esata on my iMac so I'd rather not use external for editing. But you bring up a good point, and I'll definitely periodically back up all my files to an external. And if the computer breaks down, worse comes to worse, I can remove the hard drive from the computer and it shouldn't be affected because it's not the main harddrive for the computer, the SSD is.

So Ian, you keep everything related to the project on one hard drive?
 
cory, if you don't mind - is your SSD with the OS and FCP (and other apps I suppose) in Bay 1? What size (50 GB for example) is your SSD? I've been looking to upgrade my Mac Pro 2,1 (late 2007) and browsing through the Apple Support forums, it seems many are installing their OS and Apps in an SSD installed in the 2nd optical bay, which I was actually looking to install an internal blu-ray burner. As for your questions, for myself, the OS and Apps on an hard drive in bay 1. The hard drive in bay 2 is for my original, unedited video files (in my case, P2 and 7D files). Then, the FCP project file and the subsequent edited exported file are saved to hard drive in bay 3, while the fourth hard drive is used as a scratch disk, which holds the files as you described in line #2 of your original post, except the Export files. This might be old school, as I said, I've been looking to improve performance as well. By the way, back ups are to external hard drives.
 
Hey Mikey. I've got an iMac, so no customizable bays, everything is just in the back of the monitor. I believe my SSD drive is 128gb, but I'll have to check when I get home from work. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
 
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