Keeping same Events and Projects on 2 external HD - Best Practice

I would like to receive your suggestions on this working flow. (I am also interested to get some confirmation that I am doing the right way).
I use FCPX since few weeks. Coming from iMovie and FCE.
I import videos from external drive "C" on 2 different external drive "A" and "B" with settings to copy the files there.
In this way I hope orignals remain on "C"
I edit using "A" or "B" and the resulting Projects remain on the same drive.
I copy Events and Projects between "A" and "C" to keep them uptodate after some work. I do all copy with FCPX with both drives connected.
Will this workflow let me to keep Events on both drives according the latest editing ? (If I reopen each project on the same drive of its events A with A and B with B).
Then I like to group projects under folders (move not copy) again working only inside FCPX. This removes the project form the Project folder and let me to save a new version of the next editing workflow with the same project name. But if I try to save the same project again it will be renamed with extension (fcp1).
This way will bring me to a serie of projects instead of replace the previous with a new version. I would prefer to limit this to a few versions: any way ?
Last: I like to keep also a copy of projects on the main HD. Only Projects with its Render files without Events.
Will it be possible to use this Projects moving them to one of the 2 HD "A" or "B" and go on ?
Thanks for your time.

Hello Zebber28.
I do exactly as you propose doing in terms of having a 500GB Western Digital elements portable external HD which I simply connect up every three months or so on a top up basis. I don't disconnect the primary external HD while I do this as I don't need to. I simply plug into the port in the keyboard.
Just make sure you properly eject the new HD each time you use it, otherwise it's all pretty basic.
Message was edited by: seventy one

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I was planning on manually backing up my external to the time capsule - but is there a way to set it up to back up automatically instead?
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I tried moving one additional file (not folder) from within iMovie, but it won't let me click and drag it to the external - it only highlights it, along with any other folder that gets in the way. Why is this happening?

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As I can't see what you are doing, I can't tell you what you might be doing wrong.
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Many weird things happen as a result of corrupt preferences which can create a vast range of different symptoms, so whenever FCP X stops working properly in any way, trashing the preferences should be the first thing you do using this free app.
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/
Shut down FCP X, open PreferenceManager and in the window that appears:-
1. Ensure that only FCP X is selected.
2. Click Trash
The job is done instantly and you can re-open FCP X.
There is absolutely no danger in trashing preferences and you can do it as often as you like.
The preferences are kept separately from FCP X and if there aren't any when FCP X opens it automatically creates new ones . . . instantly.

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Hi Tom,
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When working in FCPX, I have been getting an alert that my (laptop) startup disc is nearly full, and I should delete files to make more space.
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I have already copied the folders Final Cut Pro Events and Final Cut Projects to a LaCie 2T drive, but I hesitate before emptying the trash on my laptop, afraid that FCPX will not be able to see my projects/media.
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In that version, as I recall, you can simply move the projects and events from one mounted drive to another working from within the FCP UI. Since you've already copied the files, see whether they open. You may need to use the Organize (or Consolidate – can't remember) command if your files are not all within the moved event.
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Hello.
I've searched in the FCP X User Manual, on this forum and in Google, but have found no explanation of how to do this, so I'm posting this here in hopes that someone in our community will be able to help.
I've previously stored my FCP X Events and Projects folders on an external 3TB hard drive, because there is more room on it than on the internal 1TB hard drive, but, since then, I've worked with other media apps, for video, photography and audio, the files for which are also stored on the external hard drive, and this has created a bit of clutter with no folder structure to keep it tidy.
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Thank you.

Ludio wrote:
I'd be grateful if anyone could advise me on whether or not it's possible to move FCP X events and projects from one place to another on the same hard drive with the app's compliance.
I
Message was edited by: Russ H Apparently mis-read the questions.

My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has crashed: how do I restore the events from another source?

My external hard drive holding half my iMovie events and projects has become corrupted. I have now downloaded all the same files (from a backup in the cloud) to another hard drive - but iMovie is not "seeing" those events or movies in that external hard drive. Q1 Is there a way of rectifying that? (I.e. telling iMovie to point to the relevant folders or files on the new external hard drive)
Q2 I have a TimeMachine backup of the corrupted drive in another drive which i keep elsewhere. Is it worth me attempting to restore from that backup? And if so where can I restore to (as the original external drive is corrupted) and how do i go about that restore process so that the events and projects re-appear?
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When I right click on an image, then went to Go to Folder in Library, it pulls up the new external hard drive where I made the new link. When I try to work on the photos, the image still says file image is offline or missing. When I right click on the image to Show in Finder, it says the image could not be used because the original file could not be found. I eventually did click on their locate and found the image. When I linked those two together, a few minutes later ALL the "?" went missing and now IT WORKS!!!!
That was weird!
Hope this helps someone else in my predicament.

Should I keep Events and Projects after Exporting my edits?

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I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. however, it seems that your events are taking up too much HD space. External HDs are cheap these days and you could sill save the raw footage on an external HD, There are various ways to migrate it there so that iMovie still recognizes the sources of the project, even when the sources (event clips) are stored on an external HD.
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The projects take up little space, they are just information of where to find the events music etc, it is the Events that take up space. SO I would buy an external large HD and move them there, or if not, I would make sure before i trash the events that I have a good looking exported AT version of my movies (share large or HD as you mentioned).
roger

HT4740 i already did the Hidding part and later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder . I still cannot share - keep getting this message "THE SHARE OPERATION 1080P FOR APPLE DEVICES (10 MBPS) HAS FAILED. Quicktime Error -50

i already did the Hidding part and later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder . I still cannot share - keep getting this message "THE SHARE OPERATION 1080P FOR APPLE DEVICES (10 MBPS) HAS FAILED. Quicktime Error -50
I dont know what else to do to be able to share my project - I know i updated FCPX before i shared this project but i dont know what im doing wrong

masterpieces wrote:
later moved the events and projects to the FCP events and projects folder .
Can you explain in detail what you did?
Do any other shsre destinations complete? If not, do you get the same error message?

How to get iMovie '11 to recognize events and projects on external hard-drive?

Hello, my old iMac recently crashed and i bought a new one. I have restored all of my iMovie files from an online backup service to an external hard-drive. Now, I would like to add all of these events and projects into my iMovie library on my new computer.
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Hi
You must do this the right way.
• EXTERNAL Hard disk - MUST - be Mac OS Extended formatted
Nothing else will do - for VIDEO !
• The Moving of Event's and Project's - Must be done within the iMovie Application
Folders named iMovie Event's and iMovie Project's - can not be moved via Desktop/Finder - as links back to iMovie will break and can not be mended.
My general note on this:
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly.
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

How to move Event (not necessarily connected to Projects ) and projects to new external drive

I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and iMovie11 9.0.4 have a had very stressful time trying to clear down the Movies folder from my internal drive and get it across to a new external hard drive, as my 700gb drive on my 2009 iMac is practically full. I have taken a full back-up and also created a new 1.5 TB partition on the external drive. However I do not know how to get the Events and Projects across, and for iMovie to know that every thing is now on the new drive.
Initially I copied the 2 folders using finder, which seemingly worked but then I discovered that iMovie did not display the the new events, so I deleted the 2 folders from the external drive and tried manually moving the events in iMovie. This was very slow, with lots of spinning wheels and eventually iMovie crashed. So I moved the new Event copies I did manage to create into trash, but still iMovie was crashing.
I then, thinking something had become corrupted, I tried to restore the Events folder and Projects folder from my backup, but that did not work as I got a message saying the there was not enough space to do the copies (why does it need extra space as I assume it would be overwriting the existing folders ?). So in desperation I did some forum searching and ended up deleting the com.apple.iApps.plist. Now iMovie seems to be working fine, and is displaying al the events from my internal drive (I have ejected all other drives), and I am back to square one (hopefully), however for some reason the 'month' folders I had previously created in each Event 'Year' have disappeared and all the, for example 2013 events, are now under the 2013 folder with no Month sub folders( I assume this is something to do with the preferences I had deleted ?)
I am hoping someone can direct me on the right path for getting the Events (not all of which are used in Projects) and Projects across to the new external drive, so I can free up space on the internal drive (and install Mountain Lion - my end goal).
I have been trying to do all this since 0600 this morning, so if anyome can help it would be very much appreciated.
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Do the external drive show up in iMovie 11?? I just drag and drop in iMovie and don't touch it or change in finder.

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
If you want to archive older movies then each Movie should have its own subdirectory within your Movies folder. These can easily be moved off to the external drive, and moved back should you ever need to work on those movies again.

I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP. When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened. I still get the missing files image.

I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP. When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened. I still get the missing files image. When I try to import the folders manually something pops up that says it is incompatable. It is possible to retrieve everything that was lost?

"When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened"
Brownale6 how can u reload folder in to FCP.
As you said folders are moved to external disk but have you checked it should be like this
For Event
external disk>Final Cut Events>your event folder.
For project
external disk>Final Cut Projects>your project folder.

Keeping same Events and Projects on 2 external HD - Best Practice

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