Blackmagic Forum

Forgive me if this has been asked previously (I could not find it in a forum search) but can the same SSD that is used for capture be used for editing (in a dock) and then returned to the camera for more capture, with the project files (ie: Final Cut, or exports, etc) still also sitting on the SSD?

Cheers
Jamie

Yup yup, assuming of course the connection between the SSD and the computer supports the required throughput.

For example, if you have the drive docked via thunderbolt, then you'll have plenty of throughput. If you have it docked via USB2 not so much.

Great to hear! I am just about to upgrade to a new Retina Macbook Pro and, to simplify things, it will be great to stick to a smaller internal SSD on the laptop (256GB) and external SSS's dedicated to video projects...glad I don't need another SSD in the equation for transferring footage from the Blackmagic cam.

Although it's cool that it's possible to edit BMCC camera-original footage on the SSD media drive, and to store other types of files there, just a word of caution:

Camera-original footage on the SSD should be carefully copied and completely backed-up (meaning at least 2 copies on 2 different drives/tapes) immediately after being shot, and before being used directly for editing.

Acquiring camera-original files typically represent many hours of preparation and work by skilled personnel, and often requires many thousands of dollars to produce on the day(s) of the shoot.

No recording media or hardware or computer system is perfect or infallible. Eventually they all fail. Having multiple backups -- that are known to be good copies -- is the only insurance against this inevitability.

Although there are a few (very few) categories of production where an exception might be made (breaking TV news? live event playback?), to avoid the risk of losing valuable production assets, make at least 2 backups of footage before editing them on the SSD, and if possible store each copy in a different location to guard against the risk of fire, theft, etc.

Cheers.

This actually might benefit some of us http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossd.html
Pop open the Mac Pro (or Windows) and drop in the SSD into the PCI card and boot-up.
Or better yet, a BMD SSD slot loading Thunderbolt connected device not yet invented since I came up with it first...okay okay, you guys can have this one

Or you could just use a GoFlex Thunderbolt Adaptor, to plug the SSD directly to your Mac via Thunderbolt.

Exactly what I was planning, Chris.

Peter - thanks for the heads-up. I do backup my files regularly, but lots of my work is extremely fast turnaround, short projects, so being able to just use the capture SSD versus offloading to another, is extremely useful. I would also have a backup of the capture SSD, but at least that can be done after the fact.

Cheers,
Jamie

Can someone confirm of the GoFlex works with all flavours of SSD 2.5s
Im reading odd stuff with future BMCC owners.

Yes, in theory the GoFlex should work with most if not all flavours of SSDs.

I've never experienced this personally - but I have known of people having trouble with drives constantly un-mounting, however using a non-Apple Thunderbolt cable actually fixed the problem (keep in mind there are actual chips in the cable, hence the reason the cable does actually make a difference).

The GoFlex isn't quite as fast as it could potentially be - but it still seems to do the job for most people.

For our first BMC shoot - we ended up just using an open Lacie case as our "docking station". Worked a treat!

Chris Hocking wrote:For our first BMC shoot - we ended up just using an open Lacie case as our "docking station". Worked a treat!

I noticed the SSD model used in the shoot.
How did you like it?

How did you like it?

They worked perfectly! No complaints at all.

We only had two drives, but that was perfectly fine, as we were dumping as we went.