My Hard Drive is Full ☹️ Now What? 🤔 How To Archive Your Final Cut Pro Projects

[@kernzilla]

this comment isn't specifically for this video, but i gotta say of all the YT vids I watch, you're prop in the Top 5 of the channels I actually look forward to watching. Always relevent content, no horrible click-baity titles/thumbnails, useful topcis for noobs and pros alike, and of course its produced/edited well. just wanted to say thanks again and cheers to the new year!

[@matthewTobrien]

Thanks so much, Ryan! Not gonna get too much flash and pizzazz from my channel - just some slower-paced, in-depth looks at workflows that take quite some time to teach. I think I can get *_a little_* crazy with a few titles in my attempts to win the click, but ultimately I'm just trying to help everyone master FCP _and_ understand how truly awesome it is. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@djepodjepo]

Agree

[@SimonHollandfilms]

As a YT creator, I don't often need access to FCP old timelines. all I keep are the finished films and dump all the A roll media, render files etc. I do keep archive and library stock shots on a back up drive, as they might be re used in future films. This keeps my 2tb SSD drive available for the next film. i copy camera media onto it, edit, output finished film, delete media. brutal but realistic for YT. long form docs or broadcast edits....need backing up and 100% archiving... but thats another story. love your content Matthew....Dump those old render files and keep chopping.

[@matthewTobrien]

I think this is absolutely a great way to manage data and reduce costs. Some creators just have no need to keep all that media - especially their a-roll - and getting rid of it keeps the stress of managing it at bay. For whatever reason I really like keeping all of that stuff (especially the b-roll I shoot) because I access old projects often. And I've worked the cost of storing all of this data into my pricing for client work and sponsorships, so I don't get annoyed when I need to drop another $300+ on a large capacity archive drive. Chopping away, Professor Simon! 🔪🥦

[@dylanjohndickerson]

Your organization and tidiness when it comes to your media and files is truly admirable, Matthew. I'm over here looking like a bomb just went off in my hard drives.

[@matthewTobrien]

Well let's get it sorted out, friend! Making this one got me inspired to make a few more videos (that are much shorter) that go over some of my methods for managing data. Managing all this content is a full-time job for editors and content creators!

[@dylanjohndickerson]

@@matthewTobrien I'll be the first one to watch those videos. I series would be so helpful.

[@matthewTobrien]

I'm on it!

[@MANaboutTOOLS]

Thanks for yet another detailed fcpx tutorial! Do you have a workflow for freeing up space by deleting any unused media? Sometimes it's hard to clean up any unused takes etc...

[@matthewTobrien]

I don't and that's mostly because FCP just doesn't have the media management tools a lot of us data savers would love to see.

[@ScottSalvi]

I literally JUST bought my lic tonight for FCLM finally! Good timing! I've been watching you use this for a while now! I saved over 400GB.

[@matthewTobrien]

That's great! It's such a great app in the Final Cut Pro ecosystem - and well worth it when you can reclaim 400GB of space.

[@LifeGQ]

I love your content, thank you so much for sharing .

[@matthewTobrien]

Greatly appreciate that! Thanks for watching!

[@rfh1234]

Extremely well done. Good pace, clearly presented.

[@matthewTobrien]

Thanks!

[@chicagobob]

That’s why I paid the premium for 8Tb. Don’t want to mess with running out of drives. Your tips however on managing the drive was helpful

[@matthewTobrien]

Oh how I wish I could've justified the $2,200 for the 8TB internal. Someday!

[@chicagobob]

@@matthewTobrien I agree Matthew, but when I considered I needed a min of 4TB in a new computer (I was already over 2TB ) and looked at the increase speed and cost between 4 and 8 TB The Apple option seemed a little more viable. External fast TB 4TB drive isn’t cheap either. Putting all of my sound files on an internal also had a lot of benefits

[@matthewTobrien]

Absolutely. Sounds like you've got your workflow dialed in! Also, I miss Chicago / Chicagoland (I grew up there and lived in Chicago after undergrad for 3 years).

[@chicagobob]

@@matthewTobrien if you ever get back to chicago let’s connect

[@muralibalaraman]

After I am done with a project for my KZbin videos , I don’t end up going back to my project files. I just backup a final copy of my video, with and without the background music. I use a similar workflow, but I edit off of a 4tb ssd to maximise the life of my Mac Studio SSD and keep it only for system and apps. Backups happen from my external ssd to my backup drives. If I need any icons, b rolls or images, I flag them off inside of a folder which is also zipped so that I just have to double click and create a new instance. All my automation is synced between Streamdeck and keyboard maestro so one button press creates my FCPX folders currently.the cool thing is that the backup will only happen after I tag the file as done. And Hazel does the rest for moving the file then

[@matthewTobrien]

Sounds like YOU should be making videos about your workflows, Murali! I love that you have the creation of your FCP folders set to the press of a button. I had a viewer create an automation for me using Automator that would do that with the press of a button, but I regret to say I haven't taken the time to implement it. But I know I should!

[@JohnKuehne_SF]

Love seeing other editors who are as pedantic as I am about storage. I have been using FCLM for about 3 years and really love it. I did find one limitation which is using FCLM to manage things on a Synology NAS drive. For some reason it won't give you consistent readings on the total space of the library. I've been working with the Arctic Whiteness folks but haven't been able to find the fix as of yet.

[@matthewTobrien]

That's good to know, John! I haven't gotten a NAS because I don't have multiple editors in my studio and I haven't ever felt the pain of not being able to access my data remotely. As my channel grows, though, I want to learn how a NAS factors into post-production workflows for content creators specifically so I can better inform my audience about the products and workflows that work best for me.

[@BrensyLosanto]

Thank you so much, this was veeery helpful! I absolutely love how you explain everything. You've answered all questions that I had as I watched your video, even the ones that came to mind as you were explaining things. Amazing content!

[@matthewTobrien]

I appreciate that! So glad it was helpful. Plenty of in-depth workflow videos on the channel. Never hesitate to tell me what other workflows you're struggling with - might have to make a video about it!

[@thefilmalliance]

This is what I needed! Love the explanation of your "Deep archive" Thank you so much

[@matthewTobrien]

You're welcome! Hope some of these apps can help your workflow, friend. 💾👨‍💻

[@YuraStephen]

I'v been using this since 2018 and it's awesomeness! Wanted to do this as my first youtube video, I'm yet to start! Good video BTW.

[@matthewTobrien]

Isn't it great? Such an essential app for any FCP editor. Glad to have it in my arsenal!

[@PatrickvanderStoop]

Matthew. I use the library manager for a long time.. its great

[@matthewTobrien]

Agreed! Love it.

[@wearetrackclub]

Really clear and helpful!

[@matthewTobrien]

Thanks!

[@joyoffilming9500]

Another great storage video from you! Even with working with Davinci Resolve, I followed your advice about the deep archive and using NeoFinder to create offline catalogs from all those external HDDs as well as of any connected NAS-storage. And, DR has a nice feature called Create Project archives that packs all used) footage and other media plus the project file into one folder that can easily shred on any drive, allowing to free up memory on your working file. Ultimately, I am doing pretty much the same as you, now.

[@matthewTobrien]

Final Cut Library Manager has been a HUGE time saver for me in my data management workflow - what are the major pain points in YOUR workflow? 💾👩‍💻

[@calebmadan]

That app seems brilliant, gonna be my next purchase Gonna plug all my old hardrives 😅 and clean it up

[@matthewTobrien]

Let me know how much space you recover!

[@youtubedavidprice]

Matthew -- It might be useful to keep a log of the date you access your deep archived videos. If you find that you hardly ever access it then you may be putting in too much effort for little gain. Also, I'm surprised your deep archive is located in your house. Shouldn't it be offsite in case of a disaster?

[@matthewTobrien]

Ideally, yes. My most important client projects from the past are stored at a family member's house. I've always wanted to get connected with Backblaze but my home Internet is a bit slow AND the ISP caps our data every month. And I access older KZbin videos surprisingly often - especially when I need to harvest b-roll or grab my Affinity Designer project file for the thumbnail to repurpose it for a new thumbnail.

[@ProCoderIO]

I have Carbon Copy Cloner as my copying tool of choice. It's quite handy.

[@matthewTobrien]

Yup, that works just like Chronosync. Great for content creator workflows 🤘

[@RaymondParkerPhoto]

Second that. CCC is excellent.

[@RaymondParkerPhoto]

Excellent. Similar to my workflow but I stopped using RAID.

[@matthewTobrien]

I could see moving away from having a big RAID if I continue editing off of my internal drive and want to use something less expensive and high-ish maintenance to back it all up. Could just be a simple large-capacity plug-in external drive.

[@RaymondParkerPhoto]

@@matthewTobrien That's what I use -- a big G-Drive, backed up. I also have the older Pegasus R4 I've used for archiving but, strangely, the Mac Studio stopped recognizing it. Can still access with my 2020 Intel MacBook.

[@matthewTobrien]

Have you updated the firmware/software on the R4 via the Promise Utility app? My Mac Studio couldn't see it until I updated its software and now it works perfectly fine.

[@RaymondParkerPhoto]

@@matthewTobrien Thanks, Mathew. I'll check that. I think I did. Thing is it worked initially, then stopped working, so I suspect some Mac OSS update. Apple support couldn't figure it out.

[@bertodemesa]

Love this! Very useful content as usual!

[@matthewTobrien]

It’s long and in-depth, but it should help you level up!

[@bwilesuk]

Tempting to get FCP library manager. Would have been useful over the past few years when I'm out of space and hunting through lots of ext HDDs.

[@matthewTobrien]

It's such a great companion app. It'd come in real handy if you could convince your employer to ditch Premiere and go with FCP!

[@calebmadan]

Ideas this really isn’t a fcp one but what do you do for your photos library mine is over saturated from 14years of pictures also with iphone backup I like having a backup on my computer but wish I could just back it all up to an external drive

[@youtubedavidprice]

My Photos library is on a 2TB SSD named Photos. That's the only thing I store on that drive. Every night Carbon Copy Cloner backs up that drive onto a 2TB hard drive partition named BU Photos. My Photos library is not set up for iCloud Photos. For sharing photos I use SmugMug because of their excellent privacy controls.

[@matthewTobrien]

I just keep mine on my Mac with all the iCloud settings enabled which means my library size is always relatively small but I can access all 20k+ photos I have on all of my devices.

[@nicolev_portfolio]

Cool video and thanks for explaining your process. My mystery that needs solving is what to do with all of my old projects. There’s not a lot that I’d ever really go into again. Also wondering why you have your projects stored directly on your internal memory instead of putting them directly on an a hard drive to work of off (my current method).

[@matthewTobrien]

Great question! I'm kinda done with external drives when it comes to my KZbin content and more basic videos. The 2TB internal SSD on the Mac Studio is so incredibly fast, that it only makes sense to take advantage of those read/write speeds for data transfer, media playback, and export times. What sold me on investing in a larger internal SSD was Peter Wiggins article on his site FCP.co where he showed how exporting to his Mac Studio's internal SSD was significantly faster than exporting to his external RAID. When I saw the numbers, I said to myself, "Yup. Okay. I'm done with portable external SSDs." If I encounter a project that requires more than 2TB of storage, I'll rely on my 24TB Promise Pegasus2 R8. And I of course still use portable external SSDs to transfer footage on set or to deliver a project to a post-production collaborator (Colorist, for example).

[@nicolev_portfolio]

@@matthewTobrien thank you! That’s a great explanation and something I’ll now consider when I get ready to buy a new mac

[@RhythumBoyMusic40]

How can you copy a library from a one external hard drive to another external hard drive using Final Cut Pro x?

[@matthewTobrien]

I don't believe you can using any of the menu options in FCP. I just go to Finder and drag and drop to the destination folder (with FCP closed).

[@davidlevin2504]

Can chronosync sync with, say, a dropbox drive?

[@matthewTobrien]

If the Dropbox folder is stored locally, it can. But I'd pause syncing any time I did a Chronosync to or from it. I'm not sure if it can sync to Dropbox when Dropbox isn't stored locally - I have my doubts that it can.

[@aim.1]

Very helpful. Thank you!

[@matthewTobrien]

You’re welcome!

[@DavidOakleybloke]

Thanks for this Matthew, always good to see how others are managing their media and I see that I’m doing things fairly similar. One issue I have is that if a client comes back to me for a change after I’ve archived, I may not have the space to restore the project and associated files back the internal drive. Working directly off the archive presents its own problems of broken links to files and I have to go through the process of ‘find missing files’ each time. Do you know if there is a setting in FCP to make these links to external media relative to the library file, rather than it referencing their absolute location from root level?

[@matthewTobrien]

I don't know that you can do that, David. When I pull a project from the archive I always have to Relink Files, and I point it to my custom folder system so that FCP can search through there and relink all the media. It usually only takes me a minute or two to do so, and I'm back up and running. But you're right, my archive drives can't support working on a project, but I always have free space on my 24TB Pegasus2 R8 to bring a project back. In the rare instance where I didn't, I know there'd be a project or two that's old or in a holding patter that I could transfer off my main work drive to make room. One feature request pro's have been making for years now is a better media management system within FCP, not only for archiving but for reducing the overall data footprint of projects that have a ton of footage that will never be used.

[@heyesfan]

I have my rendered files saved outside the library (in the MOVIES location on my desktop, although you can save it anywhere, including to an external drive), and then simply delete it from my MOVIES folder, empty trash, boom, voila, gone!

[@matthewTobrien]

That's a great workflow - I know a lot of editors who do it that way. Definitely saves time when it's time to delete all those render files and caches.

[@british31]

You edit off the internal SSD? I avoid that at all cost, goes back to the days when internal disks weren't that great, and risk of lost media would be a looming threat. Now editing off a NAS for instance, something that has redundancy, that is the ultimate in storage and backup. That and you don't have to spend the time moving large files over after you are done with them. Anyhoo, we have had that discussion before.

[@british31]

I also don't render or background render my timeline anymore, I have the MBP MAX and that processor is so efficient that you hardly need to render anymore. Talk about a further time saver. If there is a spot that needs rendering, I can render the individual clips in that area I need to play back on, but like I said, I hardly ever have to do that. Love these SOCs!

[@matthewTobrien]

Yeah, for KZbin videos I’m gonna take advantage of the ridiculous speeds of my Mac Studio’s 2TB SSD. I have zero concern about degrading the SSD due to heavy use. Read this article from Peter Wiggins about what he discovered with export times to the internal SSD vs an external RAID. fcp.co/final-cut-pro/2585-a-week-with-the-new-mac-studio-m1-ultra-and-studio-display I’ll take the speed increase for exporting videos any day. Now that being said, if I have a massive documentary project I won’t be editing from the internal SSD. There’s just not enough room. And when I take my MacBook Pro to edit remotely, I’m just tired of dealing with an external drive. I don’t need one to store my YT videos, and my battery lasts that much longer without having to power a drive. I almost NEVER use my charger when I’m editing out in the world at a hotel or a coffee shop or visiting with a friend out of state. It’s glorious. And I will never go back to editing from external SSDs on any project that’s up to 700GB in size (I have a 1TB internal SSD on my MacBook Pro and the next one will be at least 4TB). Love the conversation!

[@matthewTobrien]

I only render when effects are taxing my M1 Max or M1 Pro. And I do layer several intensive effects (including audio effects) on my videos and it can - at times - get a little laggy. So I’ll render to reduce that.

[@british31]

@@matthewTobrien If I am going to work off site, I have a dual 4TB NVMe drive, again, raided in a TB3 box. It gets hot hot hot! Basically, I CCC my files to that drive and off I go. I don't care that the drive needs its own power as I don't edit in locations without power and or in coffee shops. I find they are too distracting for me where I need to focus. Pro tip, I just picked up an Espresso display for that 2nd screen for playback, I found that the real estate on even my 16inch MBP wasn't enough, I needed something so I can detail my edits on instead of a tiny screen. I know I could go fullscreen and flip back n fourth, but I like to not have to do that. The screen is only the 13inch model non touch (wish I got the touch, oh well) but it fits in the go back with all the stuff I need to support the system with.

[@british31]

@@matthewTobrien Same here, thank you for taking the time to respond, I think the whole edit off drive thing like I said, goes back to an older era as I explained before, from what you are saying that just isn't the case anymore. I believe you however, I have the 2TB drive as well, and I am using half of it for all the support apps and sound libs that I use or want to use. I also intend to do some sound production with Ableton Live SeratoPro (I have a killer controller) and Reason but I never get around to it. Some day, I just need to make the time. ;p

[@mmlips]

JIFF is a peanut butter 😁

[@matthewTobrien]

Haha - I'm sticking with that pronunciation, Mark!

[@123vanheesch]

"so we got about 600GB to copy and it will take about 22mins... " me coughing in my coffee while I copy 500Gb atm and it says 4hrs 2Omins...😅

[@matthewTobrien]

Gotta love Thunderbolt 2 speeds! (my Pegasus2 R8 is a little "old" but still fast!)

[@garryentropy]

wow complicated, but clever, my mini only has 250gb so i do all my edits on a ssd, when that gets full then i just dump it all on to cheaper hd backup drives

[@matthewTobrien]

Definitely complicated... Is any of this post-production stuff simple and straightforward? Haha

[@garryentropy]

@@matthewTobrien and there is never enough storage;)

[@matthewTobrien]

Never - haha