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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Life of Red SSDs

Antony M

Antony M

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One issue which I haven't seen mentioned much on reduser is the fact that although SSD drives are great for read-only usage (e.g. running an OS in a computer), they are not a perfect solution for repeatedly writing to (as with Red cameras) as they have a limited number of write cycles. Typically 2000 to 3000 write cycles for consumer grade SSDs.

Has Red issued specs for how many write cycles their SSDs are certified for?
 
What you might notice is a drop in reported capacity, as cells that have exceeded the write threshold will become locked by the SSD controller, and will be read-only from then on.
 
SSDs are generally rated for about 4,000 cycles if I remember correctly. If a 128GB SSD gives you 1 hour of footage that means you can record, erase and re-record 4,000 hours. If you recorded every waking hour that means you could go for about a year. If you had say 2 cards and was offloading one while recording on the other for 12 hours a day that would get you through 2 years of filming non-stop. If you decided that you only wanted to film about 4 hours a day and only 5 days a week and take off a few vacations from your non-stop productive lifestyle that means you could use your 2 SSDs for about 8 years.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
SSDs are generally rated for about 4,000 cycles if I remember correctly. If a 128GB SSD gives you 1 hour of footage that means you can record, erase and re-record 4,000 hours. If you recorded every waking hour that means you could go for about a year. If you had say 2 cards and was offloading one while recording on the other for 12 hours a day that would get you through 2 years of filming non-stop. If you decided that you only wanted to film about 4 hours a day and only 5 days a week and take off a few vacations from your non-stop productive lifestyle that means you could use your 2 SSDs for about 8 years.
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I think id me more worried about SSD's in computers and SAN environments. Particularly those rendering images. I dont have any figures how this compares to conversional SAS or eSATA drives but would be interested to know.
 
Roger Valdes said:
Red might be .....
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Yes, but that was the point of my question.
There are lots of things that *might* be, I just wanted to know some *facts* about the SSDs.


Gavin Greenwalt said:
SSDs are generally rated for about 4,000 cycles if I remember correctly. If a 128GB SSD gives you 1 hour of footage that means you can record, erase and re-record 4,000 hours.
Click to expand...


Gavin, your assumptions are way off target.
A 128Gb SSD is only likely to allow you to record around 25 minutes of 5k footage at 5:1 compression.
Also, it is not recommended to fill a card before offloading it.
 
Dave Blackham said:
I think id me more worried about SSD's in computers and SAN environments. Particularly those rendering images. I dont have any figures how this compares to conversional SAS or eSATA drives but would be interested to know.
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Which is why you should not be using SSDs for those uses.
SSDs are best used for running an OS and apps (i.e read only). And make sure your OS cache is writing to a separate spinning drive, not to the same SSD which the OS is on!
 
Good question though. Like Roger said, the best source for this data would be calling RED, and comparing that figure to what heavy duty users on here have experienced. My SSDs certainly do not have 4,000 HOURS on them, so I can't say whether they can last that long or much longer
 
It depends on the cell type (SLC, MLC, TLC) and the lithography node (newer SSDs are in the 1X nm class).
 
I work on a job where we use 1 64gb redmag all day long for ten hour days. Its been used a lot. We really are rolling to bnc cables for 99 percent of our stuff, but I have the DP roll on the mag as a backup all the time and wipe it all day long in case the Avid we are hooked to crashes. So sufficient to say the card can be wiped and recorded to literally thousands of times without problems is sort of an understatement, we have used it for like maybe 200 days or more now of shooting, so I can't quite do the math but at 4k lowest compression we must wipe it pretty damn often... I wouldn't worry too much guys, the cards will last longer then anything you will ever need, I can pretty much promise that
 
Antony M said:
Which is why you should not be using SSDs for those uses.
SSDs are best used for running an OS and apps (i.e read only). And make sure your OS cache is writing to a separate spinning drive, not to the same SSD which the OS is on!
Click to expand...

Exactly the reasons why our machines are set up as you suggest.
 
I have not seen many threads here about dying SSD's... And I do think that some people use them quite heavily. So I would not worry to much. I think our cameras will retire before this is an issue for most of us.
 
Antony M said:
A 128Gb SSD is only likely to allow you to record around 25 minutes of 5k footage at 5:1 compression.
Also, it is not recommended to fill a card before offloading it.
Click to expand...


Good practice, yes. But irrelevant to this discussion. SSDs have a limit to write cycles on a per-block basis. Newer (and these days, pretty much all) SSDs evenly distribute the writes across all of the blocks on the drive, evenly distributing wear-and-tear. Whether you roll for 5 minutes and then unload, or 25 and then unload, the SSD should wear down at the same rate, so long as you are rolling the same amount of footage in total.
 
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