Re: HD video "chugs" in fcp7 and I cant work out why

XDCAM is a GOP format, so although FCP kinda works with it (better than it does with most GOP formats) I'd only ever use it for a short, simple, fast turnaround job, certainly not anything with effects in it.

The one bit of information that I don't see there is how your SSD is connected. If it's an external drive the connection will be the bottle-neck, it needs to be Firewire800 at the very least and preferably faster than that.

One more thing: 60Gb should be fine for headroom on your drive, but do keep an eye on it, it's very easy for FCP to fill up space with tens of gigs of renders without you noticing.