32 gb SSD probably rocks

[J. Bernard Vallon]

So, considering the posted price of a 32gb SSD drive as $350, I think they'd be a way better option in many cases than a pair of reddrives.

RED Reader - $500
4x SSDs - $1400
= $1900 for 100 minutes

2x RED Drives - $1800
for 5+ hours

Plus onsite backup for each.

Reddrives would be cool in a lot of situations, but most of my projects don't need 5+ hours of footage. Plus if I'm backing up as I shoot anyway, a big drive isnt as great of a thing.

I can't find anyone who will sell me only 3 or 4 SSDs, they all seem to be direct-to-manufacturer bulk sales. My question is:

Does anyone know of a place to get them?

or

Could the guys at red buy say...a thousand of them, and pass them on to us? Id be happy paying a premium for the service, I dont mind giving the RED Team a buck for their troubles.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

So, considering the posted price of a 32gb SSD drive as $350, I think they'd be a way better option in many cases than a pair of reddrives.

I definitely think SSDs and higher-capacity FLASH is the way of the future and will probably become the dominant form of record media by the end of next year or so. RED Drives will still be desirable for long-format shoots and live events. Eventually, SSDs will replace hard drives in most applications anyway, but we're a few years off of that I would think.

The 1.8" SATA SSDs are very interesting as a record media for RED. However, I'm curious to know how this will work. 1.8" SATA devices are not meant to be continuously swapped like a CF card. There's going to have to be some sort of hot-swap tray/sled or connector attachment to the SSD device. It needs to be as quick and efficient to swap as a CF card or people aren't going to go for it. Also, how does one connect these 1.8" SSDs to a computer to offload the footage? Is RED going to provide their own inter face cable or tray that will take the SSDs the same way as the 1.8" FLASH module on the camera? Or are they going to leave it up to the end user to rig up their own eSATA + power cables.

Additionally, the $350 price quoted for a 32GB SSD may not hold true in figuring for use with RED. The specs I've seen for 32GB SSDs at <$500 don't look like they would provide the performance needed. PQI and Adtron both have 32GB SSDs that have ample performance, but they're very expensive. For those expensive offerings, it makes more sense to buy their larger 64GB and even 160GB 2.5" SSDs and place them in a RED DRIVE enclosure (this would be the RED RAM). A lot more money for sure, but a lower cost per GB. ...I think the 160GB Adtron 2.5" has a suggested price of about $14K and I don't know if they're shipping them just yet. That's actually cheaper than the current price of their 64GB model - $16K.

I can't find anyone who will sell me only 3 or 4 SSDs, they all seem to be direct-to-manufacturer bulk sales.

1.8" storage devices mostly serve the embedded products industry. They're found in things from iPods to HDD camcorders, etc.. Some 1.8" drives can be found, but I haven't really seen any of the SSD models available to end users or smaller OEMs just yet. You're probably looking at a full carton purchase from the manufacturer, possibly several hundred units minimum.

Could the guys at red buy say...a thousand of them, and pass them on to us? Id be happy paying a premium for the service, I dont mind giving the RED Team a buck for their troubles.

That's probably what's going to happen.... But at the same time, I think CF is going to become the dominant form of FLASH media for RED and many other large capacity devices. It's a nice compact size, easy to produce and deal with, most people can already read them or buy inexpensive readers to do so... As soon as CF hits 64GB (I'm thinking early to mid '08), it will really make sense. And I would rather deal with 32~64GB CF cards than 1.8" SSDs. OTOH, if 1.8" SSDs take off in terms of capacity, then they could become real useful too. A 128GB 1.8" SSD could be more practical than 4x32GB CF cards.