Page 1 of 1
Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:01 amby Scott Pultz
I have three of these drives (V1 model) that always worked perfectly with 2.5k and 4K ProRes.
However with 4K Raw at 30fps I would get about 15 seconds before dropping frames. Then I did this procedure. Thank you Robert Niessner for mentioning the secure erase and over provisioning and to Kohli for mentioning the newer firmware:
1) Upgrade firmware from R201 to R211
2) Secure erase drive using Parted Magic
3) Format drive to 365,000 MB, exFat, 64kb allocation size
Voila! Just recorded 38,024 files without any being dropped. Just over 21 minutes
Now the SSD was burning hot when I took it out. Not sure if that is of concern.
For my next drive I'll try just the firmware update and the 64kb allocation size and see if that is successful or not.
Anyway I know that this is a popular drive out there so hopefully this helps some people.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:32 amby adamroberts
Nice work. I'll give that a try.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:49 amby Mark Davies
Thanks Robert that should be a sticky
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:10 amby Dan MCcready
I will try this today, cheers.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:35 amby joechiazza
Awesome. I'll try this also. Anyone have any thoughts on how hot the drives get? Sometimes it's like pretty ridiculous.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:57 pmby Dave Perry
Sounds good. Is there an option for this process using Apple Disk Utility or another app that runs on Mac?
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:42 pmby Carlos Hervas
Sure, I did it using Apple disk utility. Safe erase first, then partition leaving out about 28%, format the new partition as EXFAT and it will record 4K RAW until the active partition is chock full.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:38 pmby Blaine Russom
Great info thanks so much!!
Scott P wrote:Now the SSD was burning hot when I took it out. Not sure if that is of concern.
It shouldn't be, I have recorded beyond 1-2 hours on a regular basis (with Intel SSD's) and it got so hot had to handle it with a piece of cloth. But it never damaged my footage or drive. The Sandisk should be OK..
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:44 pmby Kholi Hicks
The drives are designed to take more heat than what the camera can actually give it. They're fine, just be careful when handling.
If anyone else updates firmware on the 240GB and can record reliably please report back.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:42 pmby adamroberts
Kholi wrote:If anyone else updates firmware on the 240GB and can record reliably please report back.
I tried... but I've had no joy getting the SSD firmware update onto a USB Flash Drive. I'm not a PC user but have a Windows 7 laptop that I use for calibrating my display (running LightSpace) and other simple PC tasks. The SanDisk process is pretty simple and straight forward... or should be.
Followed the steps and when you get to the option to write the firmware to CD or USB, if I select USB there are no devices listed available even tho I have a SanDisk Flash Drive in the USB slot and the SanDisk Toolkits sees the Flash Drive.
Don't have a CD burner on the Mac so no joy there burning the ISO to a CD.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:38 pmby Scott Pultz
You can download the firmware here and burn it using your own software:
http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detai ... rsion-r211I had to do this as I couldn't get the Sandisk toolkit software to work.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:39 pmby popcornflix
Chervas wrote:Sure, I did it using Apple disk utility. Safe erase first, then partition leaving out about 28%, format the new partition as EXFAT and it will record 4K RAW until the active partition is chock full.
If I understand correctly, Apple Disk Utility safe erase is not the same as ATA safe erase. Apple's overwrites the disk with data, which wears out the SSD and doesn't touch the data the SSD has mapped out or reserved. ATA safe erase restores the SSD to factory-new state, by having the SSD release all data, even outside user space.
Your success suggests that the ATA safe erase is less essential than formatting in EXFAT and having a 72% partition.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:43 pmby adamroberts
Still requires burning to a disc. I don't have a burner. Not burnt a CD or DVD in about 3 years or more.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:04 pmby rick.lang
Scott P wrote:I have three of these drives (V1 model) that always worked perfectly with 2.5k and 4K ProRes.
However with 4K Raw at 30fps I would get about 15 seconds before dropping frames. Then I did this procedure. Thank you Robert Niessner for mentioning the secure erase and over provisioning and to Kohli for mentioning the newer firmware:
1) Upgrade firmware from R201 to R211
2) Secure erase drive using Parted Magic
3) Format drive to 365,000 MB, exFat, 64kb allocation size...
Glad you have success, but with five changes, you've made, I'm wondering which change(s) really gave you the success. Maybe it's really just the firmware update?
The 480 GB SSDs already have over 6% reserved for the internal data controller to manage your data. Seems unnecessary to change that to over four times as much. The data block allocation amount puzzles me. I thought quite a while ago, it was determined that BMD wrote their video data to the SSD in blocks of 128 KB, not 64 KB. Has something changed? Has BMD made a change to their block size?
Rick Lang
Sent using Tapatalk HD
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:18 pmby joechiazza
rick.lang wrote:Scott P wrote:I have three of these drives (V1 model) that always worked perfectly with 2.5k and 4K ProRes.
However with 4K Raw at 30fps I would get about 15 seconds before dropping frames. Then I did this procedure. Thank you Robert Niessner for mentioning the secure erase and over provisioning and to Kohli for mentioning the newer firmware:
1) Upgrade firmware from R201 to R211
2) Secure erase drive using Parted Magic
3) Format drive to 365,000 MB, exFat, 64kb allocation size...
Glad you have success, but with five changes, you've made, I'm wondering which change(s) really gave you the success. Maybe it's really just the firmware update?
The 480 GB SSDs already have over 6% reserved for the internal data controller to manage your data. Seems unnecessary to change that to over four times as much. The data block allocation amount puzzles me. I thought quite a while ago, it was determined that BMD wrote their video data to the SSD in blocks of 128 KB, not 64 KB. Has something changed? Has BMD made a change to their block size?
Rick Lang
Sent using Tapatalk HD
I'm wondering which one fixed it too. I'm going to do a test trying one at a time.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:22 pmby Scott Pultz
Later today I'm going to test just the firmware update. The over provisioning is the only thing that is a bummer, so if that's not necessary then that would be ideal.
When I got these things to work I didn't have time to test every combination. Just happy that this one works!
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 12:19 amby Scott Pultz
I tested with just the firmware update and no dice. Started dropping frames after about a minute.
With the secure erase + over provisioning then things are looking good. I'm not sure what over provisioning amount is the one that we need, but formatting to 365,000 million bytes works for me.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 1:36 amby popcornflix
Scott P wrote:the secure erase + over provisioning then things are looking good.
You're using the ATA secure erase on a PC, right? Not Disk Utilities on a Mac.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:22 amby Scott Pultz
popcornflix wrote:Scott P wrote:the secure erase + over provisioning then things are looking good.
You're using the ATA secure erase on a PC, right? Not Disk Utilities on a Mac.
Correct. I am booting up to Parted Magic (Linux) and issuing the command there over SATA. I think the point is to reset the disk such that when a smaller partition is made, the controller uses the remaining space as over provision area.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:23 amby Scott Pultz
Two drives have been converted from total failure to total success (fingers crossed!). I have a 3rd but it needs to be backed up first...
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:50 amby joechiazza
Do you guys think it has anything to do with the age of the drives and the amount we use and reuse them? Or would this fix apply to even a brand new drive out of the box?
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 5:53 amby Dave Perry
I have two Sandisk Extreme 240 gb drives and used one of them tonight for 4k raw. I filled it up. It took a 18:51:23 worth of footage. The longest clip I recorded was about 10 min, the rest were about 3-4 min each. No dropped frames (unless I missed something, it's up posed to give a warning by REC blinking?) I have done nothing special to the SSD other than format it EXFAT.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 6:14 amby Scott Pultz
dp351 wrote:I have two Sandisk Extreme 240 gb drives and used one of them tonight for 4k raw. I filled it up. It took a 18:51:23 worth of footage. The longest clip I recorded was about 10 min, the rest were about 3-4 min each. No dropped frames (unless I missed something, it's up posed to give a warning by REC blinking?) I have done nothing special to the SSD other than format it EXFAT.
Yeah REC will blink if you are dropping frames. You can also look at the frame numbers in the files and compare it to how many files you actually have.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 9:45 pmby Robert Niessner
Scott P wrote:Later today I'm going to test just the firmware update. The over provisioning is the only thing that is a bummer, so if that's not necessary then that would be ideal.
When I got these things to work I didn't have time to test every combination. Just happy that this one works!
Glad my tip worked. You could try to reduce the amount of over provisioning and test what works.
7% is the internal op value. Enterprise class SSDs use 28%. To get the same on consumer SSDs you have to make +21% op free. It might be possible to get away with +14% op, that would increase your available space on the 480 GB drive to 413 GB.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:05 pmby Timothy Montoya
dp351 wrote:I have two Sandisk Extreme 240 gb drives and used one of them tonight for 4k raw. I filled it up. It took a 18:51:23 worth of footage. The longest clip I recorded was about 10 min, the rest were about 3-4 min each. No dropped frames (unless I missed something, it's up posed to give a warning by REC blinking?) I have done nothing special to the SSD other than format it EXFAT.
Was that in 24p?
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:13 pmby Robert Niessner
rick.lang wrote:The 480 GB SSDs already have over 6% reserved for the internal data controller to manage your data. Seems unnecessary to change that to over four times as much. The data block allocation amount puzzles me. I thought quite a while ago, it was determined that BMD wrote their video data to the SSD in blocks of 128 KB, not 64 KB. Has something changed? Has BMD made a change to their block size?
Rick, to learn more about the reason for using larger over provisioning you should read this article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-opRegarding the block size - I would also like to know why 64 KB was chosen. Generally you should go for the larger blocks for faster speeds. It would be great if someone from the BMD engineering team could chime in on this topic.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:50 pmby Scott Pultz
I just chose 64kb because there is no real downside to it considering our file sizes. The upside is that less blocks seem like a good idea.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:51 pmby Scott Pultz
Robert Niessner wrote:Scott P wrote:Later today I'm going to test just the firmware update. The over provisioning is the only thing that is a bummer, so if that's not necessary then that would be ideal.
When I got these things to work I didn't have time to test every combination. Just happy that this one works!
Glad my tip worked. You could try to reduce the amount of over provisioning and test what works.
7% is the internal op value. Enterprise class SSDs use 28%. To get the same on consumer SSDs you have to make +21% op free. It might be possible to get away with +14% op, that would increase your available space on the 480 GB drive to 413 GB.
I have one more disk to convert over and I'll try half of the over provisioning of what I have done and see how it works out. I'd rather be safe than sorry though.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Fri Jun 27, 2014 11:01 pmby Dave Perry
Timothy Montoya wrote:dp351 wrote:I have two Sandisk Extreme 240 gb drives and used one of them tonight for 4k raw. I filled it up. It took a 18:51:23 worth of footage. The longest clip I recorded was about 10 min, the rest were about 3-4 min each. No dropped frames (unless I missed something, it's up posed to give a warning by REC blinking?) I have done nothing special to the SSD other than format it EXFAT.
Was that in 24p?
Yes, it was 24p.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 10:42 amby Marlon Bos
adamroberts wrote:
Still requires burning to a disc. I don't have a burner. Not burnt a CD or DVD in about 3 years or more.
Maybe it will burn to a bootable USB drive or Disk? Will try it myself, but only when I need the 4K RAW... So in a week or so.
Let me know if you're going to try it.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:01 pmby rick.lang
Scott P wrote:I just chose 64kb because there is no real downside to it considering our file sizes. The upside is that less blocks seem like a good idea.
Scott, then it may still be true that BMD writes in 128 KB blocks and that might be a better choice for the SSDs.
Rick Lang
Sent using Tapatalk HD
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:05 pmby rick.lang
Robert, thanks; I'll look later as their site is down for maintenance at the moment.
Rick Lang
Sent using Tapatalk HD
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:26 pmby Nick Vega
dp351 wrote:Timothy Montoya wrote:dp351 wrote:I have two Sandisk Extreme 240 gb drives and used one of them tonight for 4k raw. I filled it up. It took a 18:51:23 worth of footage. The longest clip I recorded was about 10 min, the rest were about 3-4 min each. No dropped frames (unless I missed something, it's up posed to give a warning by REC blinking?) I have done nothing special to the SSD other than format it EXFAT.
Was that in 24p?
Yes, it was 24p.
24p should hold up fine. 30fps will probably cause you drop frames within a minute.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:49 pmby Dave Perry
Nick Vega wrote:
24p should hold up fine. 30fps will probably cause you drop frames within a minute.
I'll give it a try.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sat Jun 28, 2014 8:02 pmby Carlos Hervas
popcornflix wrote:Chervas wrote:Sure, I did it using Apple disk utility. Safe erase first, then partition leaving out about 28%, format the new partition as EXFAT and it will record 4K RAW until the active partition is chock full.
If I understand correctly, Apple Disk Utility safe erase is not the same as ATA safe erase. Apple's overwrites the disk with data, which wears out the SSD and doesn't touch the data the SSD has mapped out or reserved. ATA safe erase restores the SSD to factory-new state, by having the SSD release all data, even outside user space.
Your success suggests that the ATA safe erase is less essential than formatting in EXFAT and having a 72% partition.
You are probably correct, I also think EXFAT and over provisioning are the essential factors.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:13 pmby rick.lang
Robert, I read the Anandtech examination of spare capacity and consistent I/O activity. I saw little there that was conclusive for our situation although you have demonstrated that these suggestions have helped recording raw on the BMPC4K so there must be some merit in it.
The problems I have with virtually all Anand's reviews of SSDs is that they are considering SSDs as used in computers, often as boot drives, with an emphasis on 4K block size activity. This just isn't what you'll experience using SSDs in the BMD cameras which I believe primarily use 128 KB blocks when writing and reading video.
And the discussion about allocating and formatting and deleting a partition to provide an "over provision" area for the SSD controller implies this is the only route to success. This doesn't make a lot of sense on a controller like Digistor's controller and possibly other controllers that manage defrag and garbage collection and spreading the cell usage evenly over the device without solely relying on their hidden free space (the over provisioned area).
There is no mention at all in that article about the performance of multi-level cells versus single-level cell SSDs. If you are on a MLC, one way to have consistent high performance should be to only write to one-half the capacity of the visible partition as that will ensure only the first level of cells are used.
I'm looking forward to Adam's discussion with Digistor to hear their comments given that Adam experienced problems with dropped frames while recording BMPC4K raw at 25 and 30 fps but not 24 fps. I don't know the space Digistor reserves for over provisioning but I think it's only the standard 7% most SSDs use. We shall see soon hopefully.
Rick Lang
Sent using Tapatalk HD
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:35 pmby Robert Niessner
Rick, any SSD with 480, 240 or 120 GB is using 12% of internal op.
The reason why there is no discussion of the differences between MLC and SLC is that there are almost no SSDs with SLC any more because they are much, much more expensive.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Sun Jun 29, 2014 11:07 pmby Kevin Maistros
Intel 240gb records and plays back > 10 minutes.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Mon Jun 30, 2014 9:36 amby Christopher Cox
Which type of SSD's generally work best for RAW? (for reads as well as writes).
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:38 pmby Shaho
Thanks for your idea
sorry iam new on mac os , how i can partition leaving out about 28% ?
you mean should make 2 partitions? and both format in exFat ?
please help , thanks again
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:32 pmby Robert Niessner
Shaho wrote:Thanks for your idea
sorry iam new on mac os , how i can partition leaving out about 28% ?
you mean should make 2 partitions? and both format in exFat ?
please help , thanks again
Shaho - read this:
viewtopic.php?p=152320#p152320and
viewtopic.php?p=152737#p152737You have to use the diskutility to partition and format a drive.
Just press on your keyboard the command key (has an Apple logo or this flowery ornament) and space key together. This opens the spotlight search input. Now type diskutility (should show the software after the first characters typed in) - highlight it and press enter to open diskutiliy.
Here is a how to use disk utility:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Mon Jun 30, 2014 4:38 pmby Tom
Just been shooting 4k raw on the OCZ Vertex 3 240 - all I did was format in windows to EXFAT, nothing else. No dropped frames...yet.
Recorded up to 5 mins at a time, probably should do longer for stress testing.
but so far so good.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:55 pmby Kevin Stewart
I posted this on another thread but thought I'd share my findings here too:
Just wanted to report back about my adventures with the Blinking REC of Death or BROD.
So I went ahead and tested out the secure erase and partitioning with Parted Magic and have had no success so far.
At first the problem was that I was using my iMac with bluetooth keyboard and mouse and since they are not recognizable under the Parted Magic interface, I could do nothing while in it. Then I went digging around for an old USB mouse but couldn't do much because I needed to type in some numbers while partitioning the drive. (I didn't have a USB keyboard). I don't recommend trying to use bluetooth interface while in Parted Magic. Maybe someone smarter than I can relay how to use it.
*note: for those who don't know, understand that Parted Magic is a linux interface and acts as its own operating system of sorts.
Then I thought why not use my laptop since mouse and keyboard functionality is built in obviously. After booting from the Parted Magic CD by holding down C on the keyboard while booting up, I was able to access my 480 GB Sandisk Extreme SSD and secure erase it while in Parted Magic.
I posted this on another thread, thought I'd share my findings here too.
I then used the Partition tool to partition the drive as recommended (365 GB) but I couldn't figure out the disk allocation so I skipped that step. Maybe someone has a lead on how to do this on Parted Magic?
After all that, I put the drive in the camera and started shooting 4K RAW only to get the blinking REC (dropped frames) after about 10 seconds and sometimes 1 minute at the most.
Then I tried using TRIM enabler as Robert suggested and had a minor success! After enabling the TRIM on my SSD, I was able to record over 2 minutes without dropping a frame. It was my longest RAW shot to date but alas did not fix the problem entirely. After that 2 minute shot, I tried recording RAW again and I got the blinking REC after about 10 seconds again.
In either case, I just wanted to let everyone know that my endeavors in trying to eliminate the Blinking REC of Death have not yet brought success.
I will continue to to try but I have a feeling my particular drives are just not fast enough to record 4k RAW.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:53 amby Kevin Stewart
Again I posted on the other SSD and 4K RAW thread. (Maybe those two should be merged?)
Here is some more info on this topic:
Happy to report that I was able to shoot a full card of 4K RAW at 23.98 and 30 FPS on a brand new 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD without a single dropped frame. I just bought it today knowing that having a faster card would probably resolve the issue.
I guess it just depends wether or not your SSD is fast enough to handle 4K RAW for long periods of time. I suspect that all SSDs will eventually get slow enough not to allow for 4K RAW after a decent amount of usage.
Haven't had luck with playback yet however. If I try to play the shot back it will play after a few seconds and then freeze while the audio continues. After I go back to live view and hit playback again it just goes to a black frame with audio over it. I need to power the camera off and back on again before I'm able to get playback for a few seconds again.
I brought the shots into Resolve and sure enough they were full clips with no dropped frames. At least that answers some questions but may pose others.
Also getting massive amounts of FPN issues at RAW but that seemed to already be a problem before 1.8 and at Pro Res.
Re: Sandisk Extreme 480gb 4K Success!
Posted:
Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:53 amby Scott Stacy
Good info