How does Final Cut Pro X back up your work?
On this week's episode of MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin from Ripple Training takes us through the what, why, when, where, and how of backups in Final Cut Pro X.
Final Cut backups are enabled by default and they back up your work every 15 minutes (if there has been a change). Now, even though you never have to manually save your work in Final Cut since it saves every change you make automatically, these backups can save your bacon in the event of project corruption or a drive failure.
It's important to understand that the backup is of the library databases, not your media files – you should always be backing up your media yourself, either by using camera archives (my preferred method for any video or photos pulled from a video camera that shoots to solid state media) or another method of your choosing.
Backups are stored by default in the the Movies folder of your startup drive, but you can choose to place them anywhere you like – I'd recommend storing them on a separate drive from your library locations – in case that drive fails, you'll still have your backups.
Because the backups are of the library databases and not the media, they are relatively small. Over time, the folder containing them can start to get large, and Final Cut manages this by periodically purging older backups.
Restoring a library from a backup is a very straight-forward process: you can choose any of the time-stamped backups to restore from, and when you do, a brand new Library is created so your current version is not affected at all. Then, you can simply drag any projects, events, or clips from the backup to your current library, close the backup, and continue working. Check out the episode for all the good details.