Moving projects and events from FCPX to server

Question

Bear with me here...I'm a new FCPX user as far as file management is concerned.
I have several projects and events sitting at the root level of FCPX when I open it. It's completely bogging down my system (whether FCPX is open or not) and I understand I need to archive the projects I'm done with. I have access to a server that also houses all of my original footage so I'd like to archive my projects/events to there and delete them from my local hard drive so that my computer is lightning fast again.
When I go to File > Move Project the location pull-down menu only has one option: No Value and doesn't allow me to pick where to move the files to. Error Message reads: "You don't have permission to write files to the choosen destination."
When I go to File > Duplicate Project, I choose Project + Used Clips (I have all of my original and Pro-Res footage on the server already, no need to copy them again, right?) it creates a new "Clips for [project name here]" folder in the Final Cut Projects folder in my Movies folder on my hard drive. It seems like there's a lot less content in this "Clips for" folder than in the original and it makes me nervous, but I understand that since I'm only checking "Project + Used Clips" there is bound to be less content than ALL of the clips I originally had in my event when I was editing and wanted access to all of my footage.
1. Is this all I need to drag onto the server? When I go to open the project in the future from the server will it have "broken links"?
2. Can I then delete the original project folder from my hard drive?
3. Do I need to check "Include Render files" when duplicating? What exactly does including these do for me in the future?
4. If I drag this duplicated project do I need to drag the separate Events folder with it? Or was that taken care of with the duplicate function? A lot of my projects reference the same events so I'm afraid if I move one event folder for one project it will screw it up for another.
I've also read about "hiding" my FCP projects and events in different folders on my system and then they won't open when I open FCPX. Problem is, I don't want all that extra footage on my hard drive slowing down my computer when it's already on the server somewhere.
Hope this all makes sense and thank you in advance for your help!

Answer 1

kkorgan wrote:
Thanks so much for responding! That all makes sense, and I was concerned about editing from the server directly because of bottlenecking, so I will continue to have my current project on my local drive and then move it later.
Can you clarify this for me:
"create a sparse disk image on the server, mount it"
Does that mean I create a "shortcut" on my desktop to the area in the server where it goes and then archive my projects to it?
One more question, when I hide my events/files as you show in your screenshot, isn't it still housing my footage on my local drive and therefore eating up space?
A  disk image is a special kind of file that you can double click and mount as if it were a hard disk.
The word "sparse" means that it will grow only as you add content to it. So you can create a sparse disk image with size, say, 50GB, but if you only add files that occupy 1GB, that's the space it will take on disk; it will grow as needed to accomodate more files (assuming the actual disk where the image resides has available space, of course). You create disk images in Disk Utility.
You probably have used disk images a lot without maybe realizing it. The dmg files that contain installers for many applications are disk images.
Regarding the hidden events: yes, if they are still on the drive they will still occupy space. If the matter is freeing space on the drive, this will not help; but if the matter is making FCP X work faster and use less memory, it will.
And you could just as well take the events and "hide" them in a different drive.