Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 219)

This chapter covers the following:
• Working with Scratch Disks and Hard Disk Drives (p. 219)
• Data Rates and Storage Devices (p. 219)
• Determining How Much Space You Need (p. 221)
• Choosing a Hard Disk (p. 223)
• Types of Hard Disk Drives (p. 224)
To make the most of your Final Cut Pro editing system, you need to make appropriate
choices about hard disk selection and maintenance.
Working with Scratch Disks and Hard Disk Drives
By default, Final Cut Pro uses the hard disk on which the application is installed as your
scratch disk to store captured and render files. Ideally, you should use a hard disk other
than your main system disk as your scratch disk. Depending on how much space you
need for your media, you can have up to 12 scratch disks in your Final Cut Pro editing
system.
Important: If you have multiple hard disks and partitions, make sure they do not have
similar names, or you could encounter problems during capture. For more information,
see
“Using Multiple Hard Disks.”
Data Rates and Storage Devices
The data rate of the video you capture depends on the format of the source video and
the codec you use for capture. If you are capturing low data rate video, chances are you
can use more inexpensive storage devices. If you need to capture extremely high data
rate video, you may need a faster hard disk. Here are some examples of data rates for
common capture formats:
Typical data rate Format
Varies between 300 and 500 KB/sec. OfflineRT (using Photo JPEG)
219
Determining Your Hard Disk
Storage Options 13