Sometimes you just have to try... (SSD power use)

The place for questions about shooting with Blackmagic Cameras.
  • Author
  • Message
Online
User avatar

kfriis

  • Posts: 600
  • Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2021 10:14 am
  • Real Name: Kurt Friis Hansen

Sometimes you just have to try... (SSD power use)

PostSun Jul 28, 2024 12:49 pm

If space is of lesser concern, there is an especially low power solution for SSD recording.

May also come handy, where SATA write speeds are sufficient for use with larger cameras (Blackmagic or not).

I misappropriated a Crucial MX500 SATA SSD from my Atomos Ninja V case, and moved it to a several years old SATA case with fixed USB C cable (watertight / dustproof). Used in desert winds (Oman, Egypt and Marocco) as well as periodically high humidity environments like Singapore or the extreme Iguana Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border (walking on rainy day properly protected from the elements still gave me hands, that looked like hours of manual washing up).

IMG_7724.jpg
Crucial MX500 2TB SATA drive in Icy Box USB C case
IMG_7724.jpg (487.98 KiB) Viewed 883 times


Here are some results:

Connected: ~1.3Watt connected ~5.3V / –0.25A connected
Writing: ~3Watt ~5.3V / max 0.59A (258.5 GB FCPX Project)

Crucial MX500 2TB mounted inside Waterproof USB-C case (Icy Box - used for years / Graugear and other names found on Amazon)

Weight: 172g/6oz - complete (fixed USB C Cable)

Casing: Metal “Roof” and rubberized case, with rubber caskets all around the metal access plate.

The SSD easily handles 5.9k 12-bit ProRES RAW HQ for (near) the full capacity of 2TB in one go (also in 51200 ISO and more low light, where bitrates in ProRES RAW shoot through the roof).

Compared to my T7 Shield (roughly around 4W during prolonged recordings) that's "nothing", but some NvME based drives, the worst I’ve tested sucked - literally sucked - around 12Watt during write. No wonder, that an iPhone protests loudly. I have Thunderbolt 4 drives, that are more frugal with power during longwinded writes in the terabyte region.

Regards

P.S. The metal plate is ideal for using a really strong transparent dual sided tape (Spanish?). Only mount on VERY sturdy and solid surfaces. A couple of months ago, I tried to remove the “super sticky” thingy from the bottom (plastic) battery cover of my Zoom F6. I succeeded, the cover survived without a problem, but parts of the frame around the battery cover didn’t, when I executed my last, very decisive pull… sigh.
Offline
User avatar

Uli Plank

  • Posts: 25481
  • Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:48 am
  • Location: Germany and Indonesia

Re: Sometimes you just have to try... (SSD power use)

PostMon Jul 29, 2024 5:13 pm

Well, I don't have the same instrument, but something very similar.
A T5 shows 0.05 W when idle and 0.35 when writing a huge file.
A Samsung USB-C stick of 256 GB also shows 0.05 idle and a maximum of 0.11 when writing (floating considerably).
My disaster protection: export a .drp file to a physically separated storage regularly.
Please visit digitalproduction.com/author/uliplank/

Studio 19.1.3
2017 iMac, MacOS 13.7.4, eGPU
MacBook M1 Pro and M4 Pro mini, MacOS 14.7.5
SE, USM G3
Offline

ShaheedMalik

  • Posts: 1575
  • Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:28 am
  • Real Name: Shaheed Malik

Re: Sometimes you just have to try... (SSD power use)

PostTue Jul 30, 2024 3:05 am

I've been going on for years about the MX500 being the superior drive to the Samsungs.

I've gotten QO out of them at ISO 400.

Return to Cinematography

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot], Puddytatpurr and 71 guests