Change of editing workflow?

[Ifti]

From the original FireWire 800 days, I have always worked under the assumption that its best to have a separated setup - so your system, scratch disk, and media disks.

I have a M1 Max MBP on order and my plan was to continue to my current setup, which includes several OWC ThunderBlade drives as my scratch/project drives, and a NAS connected via 10GBe as my archive/backup.

I wonder if my approach has been long updated due to the super fast on board storage nowadays? I know it would be much faster for me to move projects back and forward to onboard storage now thanks to the super fast speeds, but my editing is nothing intense, so I question whether I would see any actual benefit over my current setup.
Having everything on the system disc just feels a little 'wrong'?

 

[ColdCase]

How large is your working library?

In theory, editing and real time rendering will be much faster on the internal drive, and it generally is.

Unfortunately the OS is getting in the way, being more and more quirky. Snapshots and backup are suppose to be smoother/transparent, but every once in awhile many are seeing annoying several second slow downs/stalls while the OS finishes a background housekeeping task. Moving large files can also be subject to a pause. It may just be me, but there seems to be a lot of chatter about stalls. These stalls seem to come in bunches, with a dozen one day and none for a month.

Using a separate SSD for media libraries seems to minimize, but not completely eliminate these slow downs. How well the enclosure and SSD play with the OS makes a big difference however. If you run into memory issues, its a lot easier to replace an external drive.

If I were buying a MBP today, I wouldn't spend a lot of money loading up internal storage. If you don't like carrying a portable TB SSD for your media and library, buy just enough you need for when you are not tethered.

So everything has changed but there still seems to be similar compromises in practice. If the OS had fewer bugs, I'd say loading up with onboard storage makes a lot of sense.

 

[satcomer]

From the original FireWire 800 days, I have always worked under the assumption that its best to have a separated setup - so your system, scratch disk, and media disks.

I have a M1 Max MBP on order and my plan was to continue to my current setup, which includes several OWC ThunderBlade drives as my scratch/project drives, and a NAS connected via 10GBe as my archive/backup.

I wonder if my approach has been long updated due to the super fast on board storage nowadays? I know it would be much faster for me to move projects back and forward to onboard storage now thanks to the super fast speeds, but my editing is nothing intense, so I question whether I would see any actual benefit over my current setup.
Having everything on the system disc just feels a little 'wrong'?

Maybe a NAS should be near future for archiving! If you go with a modern smart NAS is like having a Home sever in your setup too!

 

[Ifti]

Maybe a NAS should be near future for archiving! If you go with a modern smart NAS is like having a Home sever in your setup too!

I already have a NAS connected via 10GBe for backups and archiving

 

[SpittingImage]

I use Capture One for my post processing and I have my libraries split into years. On importing new files C1 allows me to view full size images to cull any before transferring them to a drive. On import it reads the metadata and puts the files into a sub folder of the date the image was taken (or various other options). For instance Nikon 2022/2022 04 11. You can also designate a Backup Drive so you have a backup of the same files. I started using a LaCie 1 TB SSD as the primary drive but it took a dump so now I write the working files directly to the Mac’s internal 1TB SSD. As it’s only a years worth of files so it doesn’t take up that much room. The backup files are sent to a local 8TB WD MyBook and periodically I transfer the files to a Synology NAS with 4TB in a Raid configuration. I need to upgrade this at some point soon as the drives are getting full. The NAS itself is backed up daily to a WD 4TB which I switch out occasionally and keep it elsewhere. I don’t often revisit files from previous years but if I want to I use FastRawViewer to quickly locate the file from previous years and move to an Old Photo library.

This works for me.