Blackmagic Forum

I wonder when has BM SSD list updated:

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support ... 542&os=mac

Seems my cam will emerge today and i have to buy some SSD's but i'm a bit confused

I tried a bunch of different SSDs but I stick with Sandisc 240, since they never gave me any trouble.

Thanks.

Any specific models?

I see here in the store SDSSDX-480G-G25 and SDSSDX-240G-G25

Personally I prefer the 240s, because if one acts up, you only loose 25 minutes of material.
I find it scary, that some folks are using huge drives, just because they are too lazy to swap them out (and no, you not gonna miss a shot during the 30 seconds it takes).
Let's say you record with DNX on a 500G drive that's about 4-5 hrs of material. If you have an expensive production and you loose a whole day, just because of convenience the producer and director gonna crucify you on set.

I totally agree with Frank.

I would not use anything other than the SanDisk Extreme 240 & 480. Both are very reliable.

I did however have one shoot where I had dropped frames on a 240 SanDisk shooting RAW. It only happened on 2 takes and I noticed right away as the record "REC" indicator on the LCD flashes.

My only theory is that the SSD was about 85% full at the time. Swapped SSDs and continued shooting.

Very reasonable arguments.

Friend of mine just had a problem with red card and day worth of shooting missing.

I bet he just had all he's life running in front of he's eyes

Also what i have thinking is to get 2 ssd's or 4. To have more room and to have
different drives if you will if one fails in some point.

I see most people recommend the 240/480 sandisk extreme cards. Is there any reason not to get the 120s? I'm just thinking whether its worth getting more smaller cards and keeping them in regular rotation (for fiction)... should be quicker to unload each one as well. From my understanding its about 10mins of raw on 120Gb - is that right?

jamesedge wrote:I see most people recommend the 240/480 sandisk extreme cards. Is there any reason not to get the 120s? I'm just thinking whether its worth getting more smaller cards and keeping them in regular rotation (for fiction)... should be quicker to unload each one as well. From my understanding its about 10mins of raw on 120Gb - is that right?

Different size drives write at different speeds. Don't get the 120. It's untested.

Margus Voll wrote:V
I bet he just had all he's life running in front of he's eyes

That's exactly what happens to you in such a situation (Don't ask me how I know that).
There is no such thing as a 100% save medium. Period.

I'm a bit paranoid since than. If it is a expensive set, I hand over the drive after every scene to my DIT.

Frank

I wonder if BM could give us most preferred SSD models they like?

If you want an option other than sandisk, I can say that I have shot (on raw) 8 4+ minute webisodes using 2 OWC 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G and have had 0 dropped frames. I relied heavily on these drives not failing and they definitely came through for me. I'd be interested in hearing if someone had a different experience. Hope this helps!

On paper i like Samsung 840 Pro model also but they are slim and give problems for some people.

I like them as they work nice on my current macs.

New Intel models also float around but i have some concerns with them.

I run Sandisk Extreme 240 and 480. I use the 240 for ProRes and Dnx...and the 480 for RAW.

I'm not lazy Frank, I'm just disorganized! I don't want to juggle 12 120GB drives when I could just use 4 480s...

On commercial work i can live with 240 if they are up to it in speed sense with raw.

In theory Samsung should also work but one needs 2,5 mm spacers to hold it in place.

I see some Kingston kits have spacer in the set.

Wonder if Scandist have it or they are 9,5 mm units ?

Also have you seen those spacers on sale somewhere?

Sandisk Extreme are 9.5mm

sean mclennan wrote:I run Sandisk Extreme 240 and 480. I use the 240 for ProRes and Dnx...and the 480 for RAW.

I'm not lazy Frank, I'm just disorganized! I don't want to juggle 12 120GB drives when I could just use 4 480s...

I bought this:

It's called "UK Underwater Kinetics Ultra Box 408" around 30 bucks.

Waterproof, moistureproof, airproof, and dustproof
Submersible to depths often exceeding 16 feet/5 meters
High Impact ABS, LEXAN, polyurethane rubber & stainless steel construction
Automatic pressure equalization valve insures easy opening after altitude or temperature change
Optional removable shock-absorbent rubber liner protects sensitive equipment
Optional nylon mesh lid pouch for storing accessories
Available with clear lid to view contents or solid lid to protect against light
Designed for mounting of an electronic panel in the lid or bottom of the case
Stackable, o-ring sealed, lanyard included



I put some plug and pick foam in it, so the drives keep separated



A little stripe of colored tape indicates if they are full, or ready to use.
There is a red and a green stripe on each drive, so I just put put them in upside down to know it's full.

Really nice setup Frank!

I would do something crazy and test out Samsung Pro 840 256 gb but i can not find separate spacers.

As fas as i can read around here then people have problems when their ssd float in the camera and
are not connected securely.

I'm not sure if in camera sata port is 3 gig or 6 gig?

If 6 gig then on paper samsung makes a lot of sense as it is insane fast on paper.

On 3 gig mac ports i get 240 MB write and 260 BM read. It should be ok but i would probably
buy new fresh one and leave that to my old mac

Margus Voll wrote:I would do something crazy and test out Samsung Pro 840 256 gb but i can not find separate spacers.

As fas as i can read around here then people have problems when their ssd float in the camera and
are not connected securely.

I'm not sure if in camera sata port is 3 gig or 6 gig?

If 6 gig then on paper samsung makes a lot of sense as it is insane fast on paper.

On 3 gig mac ports i get 240 MB write and 260 BM read. It should be ok but i would probably
buy new fresh one and leave that to my old mac

I get those speed with my Sandisk Extreme over USB3...I don't think the bus is the bottleneck. 6 gig still isn't being used to it's capacity by any HDs yet.

Frank Glencairn wrote:I bought this:

It's called "UK Underwater Kinetics Ultra Box 408" around 30 bucks.

Waterproof, moistureproof, airproof, and dustproof

Frank, you're making me laugh. SSD's can take over 1500 G's of shock, the kind of thing that would liquify a human being.

They are pretty immune to humidity, though I wouldn't recommend dunking them in seawater for an extended period. HOWEVER, if you did dunk them in seawater for 6 months, the data can still be recovered from the flash chips.

But don't let me talk you out of your Ultra Box.....

Margus Voll wrote:On paper i like Samsung 840 Pro model also but they are slim and give problems for some people.

I like them as they work nice on my current macs.

New Intel models also float around but i have some concerns with them.

Before you experiment with Samsung, I would look at the SSDs from Digistor. Their drives apparently were used in the BMD display cameras at NAB 2013 and are on the approved list. If we get positive feedback from our users, that is likely what I'll buy.

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Samsung idea is just that i do not have productions coming up in few weeks
and i have secondary usage planned for it.

So i could play with one for some time and see how does it feels.

I would also like to test out new Intel 3500 series but have to see how is the availability.

i am the one wrote:

Frank Glencairn wrote:I bought this:

It's called "UK Underwater Kinetics Ultra Box 408" around 30 bucks.

Waterproof, moistureproof, airproof, and dustproof

Frank, you're making me laugh. SSD's can take over 1500 G's of shock, the kind of thing that would liquify a human being.

They are pretty immune to humidity, though I wouldn't recommend dunking them in seawater for an extended period. HOWEVER, if you did dunk them in seawater for 6 months, the data can still be recovered from the flash chips.

But don't let me talk you out of your Ultra Box.....

I think Frank is more concerned with keeping his SSDs in order. Having a case that can easily be accessed and keeps the drives in some sort of logical order is really important. The Red/Green tape is a good tip. Many DITs do something similar. Clearly marking which drives are empty / full is super important.

Protecting the data from the various risk on set and location is also important.

The SSDs might be shock proof and deal with water but what is a scaffold pole from a lighting rig fell onto your drives? Or the clumsy client spilt their Coke on the drives? Not really an ideal situation and probably very slim chance but you'd rather the data was safe.

Considering the low price for the box and hi value of your production it is no brainer to get the box.

Ok i started to rethink of Samsung.

Just read their specks and warranty states that 40 gig per day write

No so fancy i'd say.

We use the Kingston HyperX 480gb for our Hyperdecks.
During a usual production we go through 30 of them and the set we have works perfectly, never acted up or behaved strange.

But as with all solid state storage, the day the flash acts too strange for the controller to correct the disk will fail. It is more a question of when not an if. Production gear tends to write in a very unusual way if you compare to regular computer usage. You fill the entire drive, then wipe the entire drive and then rewrite it, this presses the write cycles of the disk and shortens the life of the drive.

Then server grade ssd's make sense with built in error correction ?

Margus Voll wrote:Ok i started to rethink of Samsung.

Just read their specks and warranty states that 40 gig per day write

No so fancy i'd say.

Margus, if you can get one, maybe it is time after all to investigate those Digistor drives that are approved by BMD. I think they are pretty new so don't know if it will be a problem to find them, but a note to Digistor would result in knowing where to buy them. What do you think?

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Not bad idea.

For now i decided i will get 2 Scandisk 240 for starters and will investigate more options like Digistor,
Samsung and Intel 3500.

Having some open surgery on my wallet as i'm getting ton of stuff and the list does not end any time soon.

Thanks for the input everybody. I really appreciate it!

Hello, the SSD list was updated last week with the additions of the 240 GB and 480 GB model of the OWC Extreme series and the 240 GB Angelbird AV Pro. There are more drives being tested at this time as well.

Thanks!

Frank Glencairn wrote:

sean mclennan wrote:I run Sandisk Extreme 240 and 480. I use the 240 for ProRes and Dnx...and the 480 for RAW.

I'm not lazy Frank, I'm just disorganized! I don't want to juggle 12 120GB drives when I could just use 4 480s...

I bought this:

It's called "UK Underwater Kinetics Ultra Box 408" around 30 bucks.

Waterproof, moistureproof, airproof, and dustproof
Submersible to depths often exceeding 16 feet/5 meters
High Impact ABS, LEXAN, polyurethane rubber & stainless steel construction
Automatic pressure equalization valve insures easy opening after altitude or temperature change
Optional removable shock-absorbent rubber liner protects sensitive equipment
Optional nylon mesh lid pouch for storing accessories
Available with clear lid to view contents or solid lid to protect against light
Designed for mounting of an electronic panel in the lid or bottom of the case
Stackable, o-ring sealed, lanyard included



I put some plug and pick foam in it, so the drives keep separated



A little stripe of colored tape indicates if they are full, or ready to use.
There is a red and a green stripe on each drive, so I just put put them in upside down to know it's full.

Looks awesome Frank! I didn't understand what type of separation did you put inside.

I have problems with Crucial C300 256, while recording RAW I get drop frames. Can be on the first minute, on fifth you never know.

SergeyKomarov wrote:Looks awesome Frank! I didn't understand what type of separation did you put inside.

He says he used Pick n Pluck foam...

SergeyKomarov wrote:[

Looks awesome Frank! I didn't understand what type of separation did you put inside.

What Sean said.

I am using a Samsung 840 with 500GB and a Crucial m4 512GB.
Both are working reliable, but with the Crucial I had an issue when shooting time lapse. When set to every 1 sec or longer the Crucial would start to drop frames, with every 10 frames it worked ok.
The Samsung did not suffer from that issue - did a several hours test including emergency shutdown due to empty batteries. No problems at all.
But I have yet to find a solution to make the thin Samsung fit better into the slot.

you should be able to hire laser cutting company that can cut out some
non static electricity emitting plastic. In theory should be simple.

cnc cutting would also work well.

I will report on 840 Pro (512 GB this one) in case it crashes. People were having troubles with No SSD error (as most of you are aware), but I intend to report on any matter, in case I do face any problems using this drive.