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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 :)

On the topic of Red Drive capacity

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Mark B.

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I have a Red Drive, and I've been thinking about getting another one. They're expensive though, and they only have a capacity of 320GB - which was good when they came out but nowadays 2.5" drives are being made with 500GB capacity for about the same cost as the 160GB drives of last year. So it seems the RedDrive is due for an update to 1TB of storage space instead of 320GB. It leads me to ponder whether I should buy the 320GB now or wait for an upgraded drive size? If I knew we could upgrade the drive at a later time, I'd probably just get it now.

From what Red has said, the Red Drive has proprietary circuitry inside that prevents a direct swap of new drives into the case. Or, perhaps the proprietary aspect is in the RedOne camera firmware? Whichever, it appears that in order to upgrade existing drives we will need a modification from Red. Is Red planning on selling a low cost upgrade to the larger drives at some point, or will we be stuck with 320GB capacity while the rest of the drive world continues to grow?
 
I wonder if there is any utility to increasing the size of the red drives - I would prefer to see a price decrease based on the current spec rather than a capacity increase. As it stands I rarely use more than 100 gb during a day of shooting divided between a couple of drives but maybe I am overlooking a situation where a larger hard drive would be useful.
 
Are the hard disks in the Red Drive 7,200 RPM or 15,000 RPM?
 
Personally I wouldn't like to see the size increase. If something happened to that drive at the end of the day with all that footage on it...that would blow. I never fill up my drive anyway because I like to offload and backup as much as possible.
 
The bigger the drive, the more you lose if the drive fails. Remember, it's only a spinning hard drive (well, actually 2 in RAID 0).
It's better to have more drives than to have bigger ones. 2.5 hours is already a lot.
 
Red Drives only hold 10%-15% their capacity, sorry no none would care if they were larger, they would only become more dangerous than they already are.
 
If you want cheaper drives, with the same 320GB capacity, then I totally understand where you're coming from and I think it's a good idea. I don't think abandoning larger drive sizes is a good idea though.

Haven't you ever been in a situation where you had to record an artistic performance that continued beyond the length your drive could handle? How about public speaking engagements that run long? I can think of many situations where a larger drive would be beneficial. Not having to ask a band to hold their live performance while you switch mags is one of those situations. Limiting your drive capacity is like shooting your horse in the leg so that it can't run at dangerous speeds.

Drive crashes are a rare event. If it's a primary concern for you, then swap drives more frequently and leave the extra drive space open. Nobody would be forcing you to use that extra space. Besides, having free space on a drive can improve its read/write speed because file fragmentation becomes less of an issue. In the meantime, when you happen across situations that need the extra recording time, perhaps low-risk situations where you don't mind losing the data in a crash, then you'll have the longer recording times with the larger drive.

Also, think to the future... what happens when the Red is upgraded to handle higher data rates? Will you still be happy with 320GB when you're capturing 120FPS @ 4K? How about 500FPS @ 4K?
 
I absolutely agree the size limitation on a drive is a real issue. Drives are cheap comparatively and the newer ones tend to get more reliable. I would love to see bigger drives. Today they could charge the same amount for a bigger drive and still come out ahead. just my 2cents
 
I would rather have more drives than Larger ones, Drives get dropped... Assistants or Loaders get fired, shoots need to be re-shot. I completely disagree. If something lasts more than 90 minutes, you had better have brought more than 1 Red Drive. Rental houses will rent these to you for next to nothing, I will not be interested in larger drives at all. Luckily With Reds LEMO connector to the e-sata, I feel a little more secure than the Firestore from ancient times... Still if its dropped or never Mounts on a computer what are you left with?

Solid State is a whole nother Beast, I fully support SS and hope these get implemented into larger RAM drives for High Speed Shoots, etc... I would trust these like I do CF cards. I can toss a CF card down the mountain to the Loader in the truck, All frames intact(not tested, only theory).
 
How about this?

Larger drives at 7200RPM with the outer sectors partitioned as active for maximum write speeds at RAID 1?

If you took the 500GB drives and only allowed the outer 320GB to be used, I would imagine being able to keep up with the data rate.

And RAID 1 would be what every would want right now...
 
I think RED drives can be a little more dangerous thing if you work in anything except a tripod mount situation.

There is rare situations where we really need to shoot on the drives, we strongly prefer CF instead. But just this weekend we use drives, as we shoot a music concert (2 times) with 5 cams each, live 3 hours - non stop. There will be tripod mounted cameras and handheld (well, handheld with pauses to recover). And dolly stuff, clearly. This can only be accomplished with RED drives. But to be honest - I hope nothing will fail.

I've once seen a RED drive being disassembled. There was no damping for the drives, its metal-to-metal hookup, well slight-in. And when it comes to "mounting" the RED drive to the cage, well, everyone who has done it yet will probably know what I am afraid about. Not to speak about a camera operator trying to do a head banger... Flying drives... We love gaffer tape :)

Always have in mind: RED drives are potentially 3 times more risky than a "normal" notebook drive. Why? Simple: Its a RAID 0 configuration, so either one of the two drives could fail, or the electronics for combining the two to become a RAID 0. So you have potentially 3 parts that could fail, compared to 1 in a notebook. Thats simple math. I do not say that RED drives tend to fail often (non of mine failed yet), maybe the drives are selected well - who knows. These are a good invention and many customers and collegues are amazed when we say it contains 3 hours 4K footage. But I fear the day one will fail and 3 hours unrepeatable takes might get lost.

Just some thoughts from the paranoid :)

Axel

To be clear: I do in no way say I don't want RED drives, but they include some increased risk compared to the CF. But there are situations where RED drives are a must, datarate or storage length wise. And therefor they are a good invention. I just would love to see - at some point - a new design that gives us a little more security. Something like a redundant RAID, damped drives cases etc.

Will RED ever open up their custom SATA cable for third parties?
I imagine lots of alternative approaches there.
 
I realize all this is anecdotal, but I've used the drives in a whole host of situations--the worst was car mounted on a rough dirt road tracking a galloping horse. The only drop frame I've found with the drives was when it was on a tripod--and that only once.

Now, having said that, I wouldn't do that again with the horse--it's really too risky, but suffice it to say in my experience, the drives aren't as bad as everyone fears. (I have two also.)
 
We have two RED drives for our two REDs, but use them ONLY for data offloading during shoots. If a drive fails, you've lost a ton. . . except for a performance of some sort, I'll never use the drives for recording.

Stephen
 
I have done extensive handheld shooting for two weeks including in-car work and lots of running and shaking the camera for crash effect for my feature....not one dropped frame. Using the REDcradle
newer used more than 70GB on one mag. We change and backup at lunch.
 
There are limits, But why risk the Productions Budget? you'll lose work if something does happen.
 
The RAID on the RED drive would be the killer feature. Even so, they would still be impact sensitive.
 
x86box said:
Red Drives only hold 10%-15% their capacity, sorry no none would care if they were larger, they would only become more dangerous than they already are.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting that 10-15% of their capacity? Is that from personal use?

I've shot to the CF and to my Raid, filling up the Raid more than 50% sometimes since Feb 2008 and no problems (knock on wood)

I like the Raid+1 idea. That would make me feel better.

Element Technica shock mount helps things out in this dept. of dropped frames..
 
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