The top types of HD drives for all stages of video production
One of the major hazards in video content is the Great Fear: Losing all of your hard work. If it's not backed up correctly, a whole shoot could be lost. The good thing is, we now have tons of options in terms of technology and techniques that can duplicate and save important work. We reached out to Larry O'Connor, Founder and CEO of Larry O'Connor. Powerhouse storage solutions company OWC , to help us gather all the necessary equipment to handle every kind of video scenario. Check out Larry's top practices for storage and the best practices to ensure your video project is secure throughout the process.
A brief definition of hard drives
Hard disk drives (HDD) HDDs are the most well-known and widely used storage devices used by computer systems and external drives in the past few years. Solid state drives (SSD) are similar to the HDD However, they are flash memory that has no moving parts within. non-volatile memory express (NVMe ) is a communications standard that has been specially designed to improve flash technology performance to deliver speedier SSD performance using PCIe.
Okay, on to the gear
Pre-pro
All the crucial details that can determine the success or failure of a project such as casting, script locations, equipment and crew required --- It is essential to ensure you are ensuring that your "pre-pro" work is accessible yet protected. Start saving early and frequently make sure you select storage devices that are high-capacity as well as less expensive.
Envoy Pro EX with USB-C
$119.00 -- $479.00 Best to use for: Off-site or location scouting visits for clients
This sleek dust-proof, waterproof design fits into your pocket, making it both durable and versatile.
Mercury Elite Pro Dock -- $330- $1,430
Ideal to use for: Studio, desktop devices The dual drive, PC-friendly device provides speed, versatility as well as up to 32TB of storage/backup capacity.
Production
Similar to how location plays a role for real estate transactions, storage speeds are crucial in the process of production. The footage you're working on is massive but you may not be sitting in the privacy of your home office or in the your pre-production location. Whatever you're doing you must make sure that footage doesn't take a lot of time to sort through.
Accelsior 4M2 PCIe
$529.75 -- $1,999.75 Ideal to use for: Controlled studio environments, on-set backups
Whether you're using the newest Mac Pro, a legacy Mac, or a PC tower on set, you'll want the Accelsior card SSD. It's the most powerful SSD OWC offers (over 6,000MB/s) which is perfect for streaming and editing large-format video and graphics videos and graphics without any hiccups.
ThunderBay Line - $710 -- $2,800
The best to use for: Large-scale projects
If your project requires both speed and massive capacity take a look at OWC's ThunderBay collection. Do you need something that is compact enough to fit in a tight space or DIT cart? Think about ThunderBay Miniature HTML0 .
Shipping from where you are to the studio
It's possible you'll need send the work out to editors or coworkers before you actually make your way back home. Here are the hard drives that can last to deliver with.
Mercury Helios 3S - $229.99
The best to use for: For durability, back up a shooting day The Mercury Helios and the U.2 NVMe Interchange System were developed to link workflows from posts and manufacturing. This system delivers quick U.2 NVMe SSDs with simple drive swapping convenience within a an incredibly safe, portable container. This lightweight, long-lasting SSD allows you to quickly take a full day's worth filming and forward it for editing, cutting down on the cost of shipping with its light structure.
ThunderBlade $ 729 -- $2,299
Best to use for: T ravel Productions, outdoor shooting
Created to be durable, dependable and blazing fast, the ThunderBlade can be found on the road, on set, and in the edit bay. It comes with a ballistic hardshell case that makes it easy to transport and move. It is small but mighty with as much as 8TB of storage (with speeds of up to 2800MB/s read speeds and 2450MB/s write speeds).
Post-production
A lot of drives that are listed under production are able to be used to edit post. In fact, this is when the ThunderBlade, Mercury Helios, and ThunderBay mini shine, as they're able to edit.
Jupiter mini-NAS
The best for: Real-time collaborative editing
The desktop with 5-Bay Jupiter mini is an ideal option for big-scale group projects. It's tiny enough to fit into the carry-on bag, but it offers enormous capacity (up up to 70TB). Plus, it's fully compatible with the most popular video editing software.
Archiving
Mercury Pro LTO
The best to use for: It was saved and then forgotten for 30 years
When all the thinking and editing is done There's a final process to complete the project. When archiving your work, you'll want to choose gear which is stable and shelf-stable, so that it will not erase your work when they've been sitting idle for some time. It's the Mercury Pro LTO will be accessible in June 2020 to purchase. This means you'll be able to save your work now for up to three decades.
A final word on the terabytes
The majority of drives listed above are referring to Terabytes of storage so for some human reference 1TB of hard drive capacity =