Final Cut Studio 2 question

Loud Orange Cat

Loud Orange Cat

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I have an issue.

Recently, I dropped $3400 cash on a new 17 inch MacBook Pro notebook. On it, I have Final Cut Studio 2 installed and running (quite well).

However, the full install of FCS2 is around 60GB. The hard drive I installed in it is the 100GB 7200RPM drive (the largest 7200RPM drive they offered at the time I purchased the Mac).

Doing a bit of depressing math here, the 100GB drive formats out to 92.84GB. The OS takes up a large (~20GB) of this leaving me with around 72GB free. After the installation of a few essential applications (Quicktime Pro, NeoOffice, Audacity, Gimp, X, World of Warcraft...) I'm left with 60GB.

After installing FCP2, I'm left with... zilch. I've added a 200GB USB HD and formatted it to MacHFS+ Journaled (so there's no FC issues). This is where all my scratch disks and data will be. This is not the issue. The issue is that I would like to reinstall FCS2 to a separate directory on the USB drive to save that 60GB I so desperately need (I need to listen to my iTunes during the day at work or I'm going to go apeshit).

Many over at Apple say that FCS2 CANNOT be installed on a USB drive. I think they're wrong (Please tell me if I'm incorrect). It's just an application. I've installed many other apps to the drive without issue. Why can't FCS2 be installed there?!

Any and every idea is highly appreciated.

Okay, Spatula, you can let loose now. :D
 
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Loud Orange Cat said:
The issue is that I would like to reinstall FCS2 to a separate directory on the USB drive to save that 60GB I so desperately need (I need to listen to my iTunes during the day at work or I'm going to go apeshit).

Many over at Apple say that FCS2 CANNOT be installed on a USB drive. I think they're wrong (Please tell me if I'm incorrect). It's just an application. I've installed many other apps to the drive without issue. Why can't FCS2 be installed there?!
Click to expand...

First off, I don't think you can install FCP on any other drive besides the Macintosh HD. Try it... I think you'll get a red exclamation point decrying your efforts.

Second of all, never never never install FCP on the same drive you'll be capturing too. It will bog down your resources and slow rendering down as well as future capture attempts. Always keep your footage separated from the OS and the App drive.
 
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Thunderclap said:
Second of all, never never never install FCP on the same drive you'll be capturing too. It will bog down your resources and slow rendering down as well as future capture attempts. Always keep your footage separated from the OS and the App drive.
Click to expand...

...this is what I did and you know the problems I was having with the dropped frames and timecode errors. Besides, whatever you want to do will eat up the little bit of space you have left on your hard disk anyway. I have so far put in about 6 hours of footage, I have about 3-1/2 to go and it already is about 50ghz...

LOC, do you have a good external hard drive?

-- spinner :cool:
 
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I agree, but in this case, that shouldn't matter. I'm not putting any data on the USB drive, just the application.

The app will load into RAM and the data will save to the local Mac drive.

I honestly don't forsee any issues with this config... but then again, I was thinking "Do I really need a FULL install of FCS2?" I mean really, all I'll be using will the Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. I'll investigate a partial install...
 
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but the drive itself will be faster than the drive in your laptop (7200RPM vs. 5400RPM). Firewire 400 (regular firewire) is "technically" slower than USB2.0...firewire has better sustained data transfers which is what video relies on. Slower FW is faster than fast USB2.0 at sustained reads and writes. Hook the external drive up FW400 if it allows you to do so rather than USB2, put the app on your HD, put WOW and your footage on the external.

or

Get another External for doing games and stuff and strip everything but final cut studio over to the second external.

or

Get a Wiebetech Drive Dock that supports FW800 and connect that to bare internal drives (which are cheaper than external drives with enclosures)...this is the route I went. I've got 1.5 TB of Hard Drives on my shelf full of footage, when I need more, I just plug in a new drive. The old ones are used as project backups as well. When I need to work on them, I just unplug the current one and plug in the old one.
 
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After some investigation, I've found that the essential portions of FCS2 (just the apps I need minus all the crap I'll never use) will install in just under 10GB.

I think that I'll just install the essentials on the Mac hard drive and use the USB drive for data. I don't want to risk losing frames or experiencing corruption by mucking around with dropping apps on other drives.

Oh well, it was an idea...

Thanks for all the input!!
 
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If you're looking just for the essentials, I've installed on my main desktop fully, but on my laptop, I've removed all the dvd templates which saved a ton of room...to save even more, remove the apple loops from soundtrack.
 
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knightly said:
...but on my laptop, I've removed all the dvd templates which saved a ton of room...to save even more, remove the apple loops from soundtrack.
Click to expand...
It's exactly all this 'filler' that's the real problems. I wish there was an installation option like a check box to install the application to the local drive and all the loops, templates and other assorted crap to a separate drive.

Okay, I've decided. Just the bare apps get installed on the notebook HD which is <10GB. Not bad.

Other than Final Cut Pro, do I need any other app installed to do chroma keying?
 
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Loud Orange Cat said:
What?! And mess up my chocolate motherboard?

That'll never work...
Click to expand...

There was a time, long ago, when I uttered the same words in the presence of another. He scorned me greatly, before going on to become the inventor of the Peanut-butter Cup (Which was originally the peanut-butter-and-chocolate-motherboard, or PBCM, later sued and attacked with nuclear weapons by the makers of ICBMs). He now owns a yacht. I own a picture of a yacht. I drew that picture myself, in peanut butter and chocolate. It's moldy now and smells.

In other news, I'm a ninja.
 
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