Edit on an External Hard Drive and Save Money

Editing on an external hard drive like an SSD and following this very important tip can save you money. If you're editing audio, photography or video, and using programs like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or Davinci Resolve, these tips can help you set up your post production process and save money while doing it. Whether you have the Samsung T5 or the SanDisk Extreme SSD, this bonus tip will help you save more space on your Hard Drive so that you can store more content.

In this Final Cut Pro tutorial, I bring you behind the scenes of my personal workflow on how I setup these external SSDs and edit on the everyday. If you're editing video and need more space, but can't upgrade your internal hard drive, an external SSD is the way to go.

Time Stamps:
Intro: 0:00 - 01:00
Intro SanDisk: 01:20
Intro Samsung: 01:30
Reasons for External Drives: 01:50
Speed: 02:50
Working with Teams: 04:08
Mounting The Drives: 04:50
Workflow: 05:30
Bonus Tip: 07:20

Gear mentioned in this Video:

SSD Enclosures (If you're interested in building your own):

Stay in touch:

Kevin Ross
4845 Pearl E. Cir. STE 101
Boulder, CO 80301

[chrissarahnowakowski]

The tips are priceless! 1. Saving backup file to internal 2. Deleting the render files after completion.

[lizzieblades]

I'm thankful for this. I have had trouble finding videos of people explaining how this all works, and I realized I needed help with this when I made only like 10 videos (not even good videos, just beginner videos) and they filled up my Macbook. Lol!

[teknobuddie]

Hey Kevin! I know that this video was uploaded 2 years ago and you aren't probably reading this but this video was very helpful to me. My video files and other files which the software was generating took a lot of space and I had to clean up my computer every week because I needed space for other files and due to that I had to delete some files which I needed but I had no other option. I figured that an external drive would help through some YouTube videos. All of them said "You could edit on an external drive to save you space." but no one actually showed how to do so. I finally came accross this video and you explained literally everything those videos didn't include. Thank you so much.

[scottoconnor]

I just picked up a 1TB sandisk ssd and didn't know how to edit from it until I found your video. Well explained. Thanks!

[kobietens]

I just love how you pull out another content that super helpful for Final Cut user like us . Save a tons of data and Choosing the workflow with a SSD External Drive 👍👍👍

[jenriquefilms]

Wow, that bonus tip at the end wow! Game changer right there. BIG thank you!

[ramonalejandro]

Nice video bro. Just getting into film editing and I have an old 2012 MacBook Pro. Changed out my HDD for SSD but still want to work off an external drive to keep my old machine fast!

[Jeniferfayy]

watching this 4 years later still a great video

[michaelkelleher]

Have used Sandisk SSD for couple of years now with Lightroom for photography. Started as the best way to create my catalogs between home and university. Workflow is great once it's kept organised, the headache is BACKUP. To backup the backup and backup the backup and make sure to have a backup of everything. It's head melting at times to just keep everything backed up😂😭

[KevinRossRN]

Be sure to check out the bonus tip toward the end if you've been making the same mistake I made when trying to make space on your drives after you've rendered and exported your final project.

[cphaleiellc]

Thank you for this! Definitely starting now to get in the habit of changing my workflow to keep my laptop working great and in top tier performance 👌

[joet]

Love the way you mount the ssd to the MacBook. Is heat from the ssd not an issue with the MacBook monitor? My sandisk gets real hot. Excellent video!

[SimonShabo]

OMG you just helped me to clear 110GB from my external HDD! What an amazing trick!Thank you so much, double thumbs up!!

[mikeb]

Hi Kevin. Thank you for the great video. There are a lot of these out there, but yours is exceptionally 'user friendly, ' especially for dummies like me. You carefully explain stuff. You don't scrimp on things that might seem obvious-- you teach them carefully too. And you actually make a movie-- you show things. So great. Thank you.

I'm hoping you'll be willing to give me a reality check. I have been so confused, for so long, about importing-- what does it mean? And then, having just a vague understanding of what I'm doing when I'm importing compromises my understanding of everything else involving file management, so I'm perpetually confused.

I'd be very grateful if you'd look at my try at an explaning importing, and tell me whether I'm on the right track. I pray to God that I am. But, if not, at least I'll be able to add my explanation of importing video to the massive pile of erroneous, incorrect information that has been living in my head for years and years.

In another FCP video, somebody mentioned being able to work on an editing project on different devices (yeah, I know, really basic), and it occurred to me that maybe "importing" is a deceptive term. You're not really importing content from your external hard drive to FCP in your computer. Instead, you're using one of those cables you kept holding up to connect the FCP in your computer to the video content in your external hard drive-- SO YOU'RE ESSENTIALLY COMBINING YOUR COMPUTER, FCP AND YOUR HARD DRIVE INTO ONE SYSTEM, as if it were a single computer.

But you're never actually 'importing' the content into your computer or 'into FCP.' Instead, 'importing' is really CONNECTING-- the first step in building a complex set of instructions to, step by step, organize your content into a movie.

One thing that does happen, though, is kind of the opposite-- your FCP somehow tags the content in your external hard drive, so when you give your external hard drive to your friend to work on his computer-- his FCP in his computer gets those tagged instructions so it too can organize, and render, your content in exactly how you've been working on it on the FCP in your own computer.

My impulse is to beg to tell me that I'm right, whether or not I am right. But, if you could explain the truth, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks, Mike

[kiyakiya]

I have the Samsung T5 1tb and I was using it for my editing like u but I am running very low on space which was strange so thank you for your help im going to try that out ASAP. I ended up getting a 5tb external drive as a back up so I’m going to see how that goes as well

[ElliotStephens]

What a great video!! Thank you for explaining how to edit from the SSD!! Got mine coming tomorrow along with my new camera so time to get creative!!😃🏄‍♂️

[rorywalters]

I thought I was the only one using Command straps instead of Velcro for attaching SSDs on the lid of a MacBook. Velcro is great for making morale patches, but they do wear out easily, not great for veryfrequent attaching and detaching. Command instead is a lot more durable. I change out the Velcro on my morale patches and tactical gears every year or so since they do fail fast. I've also been using Command straps for several years and haven't got any failed.

[omardurxn]

Hey!, first of all I wanna say that all of your content is pretty cool, you don't know how helpful your channel has beed for me as a beginner/student editor, and also I wanted to ask you what do you men by "bundle" in this parte of the video 7:50, English is not my first language and that was the only word I didn't catch the meaning or was relatable for me, I don't even know If I'm writing it right LOL.
Thank you so much!

[coelisanctus]

I am an external hdd junkie, and I have cables and velcro everywhere! I'm all about saving internal space.

[adamnotmichels]

Fantastic video! I edited my latest video almost entirely off of my internal drive, and it was a challenge. I kept on running out of space, and my computer was running really slowly. I will have to try your workflow out.