Blackmagic Forum

Anybody have their eye on any particular SSD specials for black friday?

[edit, i was looking at the sizes wrong - i think these are pretty normal deals]

http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/24/amazon-h ... -upgrades/

Here's a couple of decent looking deals on Amazon, anybody know if these are great prices? They look to me to be almost 50% cheaper than wherever else I could find them:

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Vertex-2-5-In ... B004Q81CKY

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Ve ... B004QJM1HG

I recently picked up two Kingston SSDNow V+200 240 GB drives on Amazon for $158.02 each. This was the best deal I've seen. The second best deal, that I didn't take advantage of, was for a Sandisk Extreme 480 GB drive for $319.99, also on Amazon. I regretted not grabbing that, which is why I picked up the two Kingston drive. Moral of the story is that decent prices for these drives do pop up from time to time. I'll be looking on Friday, too.

How about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820147193

I wonder though if it performs well and doesn't do weird garbage cleaning in the background like ocz and some brands. I heard people have issues with all the drives on the bmd approved list except the sandisk 480 gb which is only 360 USD at newegg right now. Not too far off that $320 of last month. Would like to see an updated list of suggested drives, maybe user compiled experience and BMD feedback before buying drives.

Jason Hinkle wrote:Here's a couple of decent looking deals on Amazon, anybody know if these are great prices? They look to me to be almost 50% cheaper than wherever else I could find them:

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Vertex-2-5-In ... B004Q81CKY

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Ve ... B004QJM1HG

Stay away from OCZ if you're planning to use those drives in the BMCC. Yes, they are on BMD's support web page but they are not listed in the approved list found in the BMCC Manual. The manual is still the most recent list, not the web page. Someday after California falls into the Pacific Ocean, BMD may update the list of approved SSDs on their support web page.

Martin BMCC wrote:How about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820147193

I wonder though if it performs well and doesn't do weird garbage cleaning in the background like ocz and some brands. I heard people have issues with all the drives on the bmd approved list except the sandisk 480 gb which is only 360 USD at newegg right now. Not too far off that $320 of last month. Would like to see an updated list of suggested drives, maybe user compiled experience and BMD feedback before buying drives.

BMD has taken it upon themselves to maintain a list of approved drives for the BMCC. They have not updated it in many months. That Samsung 840 Pro drive may work, let us know! Or wait until it shows up on the approved list. If the drive has sustained read/write speeds of about 480MB/s and does about 46,000 I/O operations per second, it may be fine. But the SSDs are best tested in real world use in the BMCC since there may be many factors that cause them to fail or drop frames in the BMCC even though the specifications look good and they'll perform well as a general purpose SSD outside the camera. Unless the money is burning a hole in your pocket, I'd wait until you have the BMCC and make informed purchases then. There will always be another sale.

rick.lang wrote:Stay away from OCZ if you're planning to use those drives in the BMCC. Yes, they are on BMD's support web page but they are not listed in the approved list found in the BMCC Manual. The manual is still the most recent list, not the web page. Someday after California falls into the Pacific Ocean, BMD may update the list of approved SSDs on their support web page.

good to know - thanks!

Yes i was referring to the same list, and like everyone else am hoping for an update. The 840 Samsung falls short of 480MBps write speed, but 330MBps in theory should sustain the 5 MB per frame of cinema DNG. I heard of dropped frames on every drive, the 830 included, except the Sandisk extreme. According to Frank Glencairn (sp?) over on bmcuser forum, the key is frequent formatting of ssd drives as he had dropped frames with the Kingston +V200

Martin BMCC wrote:Yes i was referring to the same list, and like everyone else am hoping for an update. The 840 Samsung falls short of 480MBps write speed, but 330MBps in theory should sustain the 5 MB per frame of cinema DNG. I heard of dropped frames on every drive, the 830 included, except the Sandisk extreme. According to Frank Glencairn (sp?) over on bmcuser forum, the key is frequent formatting of ssd drives as he had dropped frames with the Kingston +V200

Yes, never erase but reformat after each time you've transferred the data to another drive.

I would not assume 330MB/s is adequate for sustained use. When rates are quoted they can mean on compressible data but the CinemaDNG data is still considered incompressible data so you'll get half what you expect. And when your multi-leve cell (MLC) SSD is half full, writing to the last half of the drive can be at half the speed again. Beginning to see where the published numbers don't mean much compared to real world use in the BMCC? And don't forget as SSDs age, their performance will decline as pages with faults add up and data is shuffled about in decreasing capacity as the drive controller works to find free blocks.

my reseller says several users of the camera really like the sandisk ssd. i'll probably place an order for a couple 480gb drives once my camera ships - by the time that happens i think the price may have dropped on storage a bit. hoping, at least...

http://www.adorama.com/IDSEID480GB.html ... QgodORAAgg

To Marcs: Yes that was the Sandisk I was referring to. Positive reviews so far.
To Rick Lang: Aside from 'faults' or corrupted/bad sectors, I believe the number of write cycles come into play for our intended purpose as video recording media as they weigh in as a shelf-life-determining factor much more heavily than for the average PC user, who may never reach those limits, whereas a camera user may reach this in 2-3 years of use, especially when renting out a camera or shooting frequently. The reliability of sustained data rates as we approach the write cycle limit may indeed decrease as you mentioned, and could vary from brand to brand and which chipset they use. It seems the amount of write cycles has decreased as ssd technology developed, and has favored performance (speed) of the drive over longevity.

marcs wrote:my reseller says several users of the camera really like the sandisk ssd. i'll probably place an order for a couple 480gb drives once my camera ships - by the time that happens i think the price may have dropped on storage a bit. hoping, at least...

http://www.adorama.com/IDSEID480GB.html ... QgodORAAgg

That's a great price!!

This looks like a good deal.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 239046-L0D

The model number is different than on the approved list, but manufacturer specs look the same.
Any feedback on this? 24 hour deal (well 18 hours and 40 minutes now) and these sell out quick, they were on sale two months ago and I was too late. They are even cheaper now. Probably the lowest cost per GB at the moment.

These are even cheaper than the Kingstons right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 1568-L010D
just read that John Brawley uses these.

btw sorry the kingstons above are 150 USD with promo code only EMCJJHG22

Martin BMCC wrote:These are even cheaper than the Kingstons right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 1568-L010D
just read that John Brawley uses these.

Great deal. Just picked some up. Thanks so much!

sandisk sold out already...

Amazon is now showing the Sandisk Extreme 480 GB for $309.99. Best price I've seen so far for it.

Jason Greene wrote:Amazon is now showing the Sandisk Extreme 480 GB for $309.99. Best price I've seen so far for it.

...not until my camera ships...must resist...there's always another sale...

...not until my camera ships...must resist...there's always another sale... [/quote]

That's a fact. Another sale, a newer better product for the same price.

Does anyone know if the OCZ Vertex 4 256Gb SSD will work with RAW capture? Heard that it's quite unstable.. Unfortunately I've got three of these..

Aleksander Fremstad wrote:Does anyone know if the OCZ Vertex 4 256Gb SSD will work with RAW capture? Heard that it's quite unstable.. Unfortunately I've got three of these..

From page 26 of the BMCC Manual:
Recommended SSDs for RAW Recording
SSD’s recommended for use with Blackmagic Cinema Camera and RAW 2.5K video recording include:
‚ Crucial 256GB C300
‚ Crucial 512GB M4 (firmware 009) ‚
Kingston 64GB SSDNow V+100 ‚
Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+100
‚ Kingston 240GB SSDNow V+200 ‚
Kingston HyperX 240GB
‚ Sandisk Extreme 480GB.

That was the latest list as of August 2012. Based on forum comments from people using the BMCC, there have been problems with most of these SSDs. I would recommend the Sandisk Extreme but remember to format the SSD after each time you have copied your precious data to other drives so the BMCC will always see the drive as empty. Do not format with any erase, just simple quick format, as you do not want to cause the the SSD internal controller to exercise the cells more than necessary.

One day there will be a new list of approved drives updated on the BMD Support BMCC FAQ website, but there may be a greater chance of a certain very hot place freezing over first!

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Thanks!

Can anyone up tell me what the boot up / warm up time is on the BMCC? Like how long you have to wait from when you switch it on to when you can start recording?

Hearnia wrote:Can anyone up tell me what the boot up / warm up time is on the BMCC? Like how long you have to wait from when you switch it on to when you can start recording?

Reportedly just a few seconds. For example, see at about the 12-min. point in the following video:

Hi,

Peter is correct, it is only a few seconds for the camera to boot. Using the one I have next to me I estimate it to take roughly 3 seconds for the interface to appear, you can then start recording straight away if you want to.