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Alliterative to Red SSD?

Graeme Hay

Graeme Hay

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I know there are CF cards as well, but red options seem very pricey. Are there other brands that work?

I remembering hearing about a drive ninja (or something) that can handle 1080p output.

Thoughts?
 
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Graeme, can you be more specific about what your needs are? Is this for Epic, Red One, Scarlet? What resolutions will you need to shoot at? The Atomos Ninja would be used as either an offline file recorder or I suppose as a way to get files you could use as final if you weren't worried about RAW. But kind of defeats purpose of camera in a way.

As of right now, the best bang for the buck for R1 is probably the Red Drives. 320GB for $500-600. They spin, have been EOL'd, and are bulky but if budget is a factor....On Epic and Scarlet, RED has decided to focus on SSD media. There has been mention of CF card support as well but clearly the roadmap is for SSD which means it may get cheaper in the future. But right now, reality is they cost a chunk of change if you want multiple SSDs. They have been doing bundle deals to bring the overall cost down a bit but for those in the low budget world, that's still a bit much perhaps.

Keep an eye on deals on used SSDs too. There have been a few.
 
Graeme Hay said:
I'm more looking towards the scarlet (maybe a used R1 but they are big beasts) so I'll keep an eye out for the SSD combos / used.
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What camera are you currently using now?

As we know, Scarlet specs are subject to change. If there is an option to use CF, it may not be a bad way to go because you'll probably be able to find more approved media used, i.e. cheaper as everyone sells off to get SSD. But until the specs are finalized for that camera, you may need to wait it out. The nice thing about SSD is that it's viable on all 3 cameras, even the R1.
 
Agreed, the SSDs are excellent but very pricey; too pricey if you're on a budget and need a lot of storage IMHO.

SSDs are common enough technology that cheaper third-party solutions will certainly become available, and the price of ALL SSDs will fall fairly quickly to more manageable levels; Moore's law.

I'm at the early stages of toying with a Red Drive sized box using off the shelf SSD components which will plug straight into the SSD connector on R1/EPIC/any camera that uses it. I can live with the bulk and cabling if it gives me a reliable TB or so of storage at a reasonable price. Think of it as an updated solid state Red Drive replacement! High-end 256GB 1.8" SSDs are of the order of $600-$800 today, and that price will drop. Put five of them together with an appropriate controller for RAID 5 1TB and you're looking at $4000 in very round numbers, modulo the cost of enclosure etc. - this of course compares VERY favorably with the cost of $10k for a 4-pack of 256GB from RED... and if RAID 5 gives enough performance might get away with cheaper lower performance drives.

I'd like RAID 5 for performance and data security, but the tricky bit is utterly sustained throughput; it doesn't matter how good or cheap it is otherwise, if it drops frames or corrupts data it's as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. I'd want to hammer it in a variety of ways before I thought about using it in the field.

Everything is subject to change, but it's been pretty explicitly stated in the recent past that there will be a CF-SSD adapter allowing the use of CF cards in the SSD slot on EPIC/Scarlet.

Mike
 
The things is nothing is going to work with RED unless it is approved, and media has in general not been one of the things RED gives approval to. They can limit it via firmware. Hence why 3rd party CF cards have never been able to get past 2K resolution. In general, this is a good thing as RED is making sure that the media is reliable and that people don't come pointing fingers at them when drop frames or corruption happen. Not telling anyone to not try to come up with something...
 
Steve Sherrick said:
The things is nothing is going to work with RED unless it is approved, and media has in general not been one of the things RED gives approval to. They can limit it via firmware. Hence why 3rd party CF cards have never been able to get past 2K resolution. In general, this is a good thing as RED is making sure that the media is reliable and that people don't come pointing fingers at them when drop frames or corruption happen. Not telling anyone to not try to come up with something...
Click to expand...

That's not strictly true; all my CF cards are 3rd party (top-end Lexar) and work perfectly at the same resolutions and compressions RED cards do, although I'm aware than many other 3rd party cards don't work properly.

The trick is to make it plug & bug -compatible; if it performs identically in all respects to the RED product, it will operate exactly the same - in fact, so far as the firmware is concerned, it should be indistinguishable. It's NOT RED's problem to tweak their firmware to be compatible with 3rd-party solutions, it's the job of the 3rd party to ensure they're 1000% compatible with RED. This is an area where I happen to have a lot of history; think IBM vs. Amdahl :-)

If it's something mechanical or interfacing to custom electronics, - prime recent example: lens mounts! - then of course RED would want to approve it, otherwise it won't be covered by warranty if you blow something up; this is well-known and obvious. But storage is storage, CF is CF, SSD is SSD. Industry-standard interfaces, no RED approval issue there. If I was thinking in terms of a side- or rear-mount SSD module that would be different and would of course require approval, but that's not on my agenda.

Of course if your product is crap and doesn't perform up to the same standards as RED storage your name will be mud and you'll be out of business in three weeks flat...

(IBM vs. Amdahl was actually a very good example as in my off-hours I've spent a lot of time working on an open-source IBM mainframe emulator over the last ten years or so; I *know* about reverse-engineering and making things compatible; I was a geek long before I picked up a camera!)

Mike
 
I'm just looking at the prices here and for $200 you can get a 90GB OCZ 1.8" SSD card. Thats just under $2000 for the same capacity in RED SSD. So my jaw tends to drop when I see 10x increase in price.

I agree that SSD card makers need to meet RED spec, but I'm hopeful there will be options as I'm hoping to get the Scarlet and right now looks like media going to pop my budget.
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
That's not strictly true; all my CF cards are 3rd party (top-end Lexar) and work perfectly at the same resolutions and compressions RED cards do, although I'm aware than many other 3rd party cards don't work properly.

The trick is to make it plug & bug -compatible; if it performs identically in all respects to the RED product, it will operate exactly the same - in fact, so far as the firmware is concerned, it should be indistinguishable. It's NOT RED's problem to tweak their firmware to be compatible with 3rd-party solutions, it's the job of the 3rd party to ensure they're 1000% compatible with RED. This is an area where I happen to have a lot of history; think IBM vs. Amdahl :-)

If it's something mechanical or interfacing to custom electronics, - prime recent example: lens mounts! - then of course RED would want to approve it, otherwise it won't be covered by warranty if you blow something up; this is well-known and obvious. But storage is storage, CF is CF, SSD is SSD. Industry-standard interfaces, no RED approval issue there. If I was thinking in terms of a side- or rear-mount SSD module that would be different and would of course require approval, but that's not on my agenda.

Of course if your product is crap and doesn't perform up to the same standards as RED storage your name will be mud and you'll be out of business in three weeks flat...

(IBM vs. Amdahl was actually a very good example as in my off-hours I've spent a lot of time working on an open-source IBM mainframe emulator over the last ten years or so; I *know* about reverse-engineering and making things compatible; I was a geek long before I picked up a camera!)

Mike
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Mike, are you referring to 8GB cards? If so, the Lexar works fine. But a 3rd party 16GB card will not work at all resolutions, nor will a 32GB, 64GB, etc. RED is able to limit what resolutions the cards will record to unless something changed just recently, in which case that is news to me. They have been limited to 2K resolution in the past.

RED has rejected many 3rd party media for not actually meeting the specs they come with. That's why they had to pursue their own version of the 16GB CF card.

Before you stick any homemade storage devices on a RED, I beg you to talk to Jarred or someone at RED in advance because I doubt it will be received very well if the camera is in any way damaged or if it was being sold as an accessory. I know a lot of R1 cameras are out of warranty now, but still it could affect repair procedures, etc. I'm not RED, so don't take my word on this but I'd be surprised if they agreed with your statement that storage is storage. They have not taken that position in the past, in fact have been very adamant about reliability of media and having RED branding on it. The 8GB Lexar UDMA CFs being the exception. But I'll let Jarred speak to this as I am only a customer, not an authority.

EDIT: Mike, looking back at my notes there were reports of people using Lexar 16GB cards and getting resolutions similar to 8GB cards. I might be wrong on this. There were also reports of dropped frames though. And I couldn't find the 2K restriction in my notes but I remember this being the case with some CF cards. Might need someone from RED to clarify the restriction because perhaps I'm not remembering correctly.
 
<snip a bunch of good stuff that doesn't need comment>

Steve Sherrick said:
Before you stick any homemade storage devices on a RED, I beg you to talk to Jarred or someone at RED in advance because I doubt it will be received very well if the camera is in any way damaged or if it was being sold as an accessory.
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Steve, you've been around the RED scene a lot longer than I have, so I'll take your advice seriously; it can't do any harm and may well do good!

Steve Sherrick said:
I know a lot of R1 cameras are out of warranty now, but still it could affect repair procedures, etc. I'm not RED, so don't take my word on this but I'd be surprised if they agreed with your statement that storage is storage. They have not taken that position in the past, in fact have been very adamant about reliability of media and having RED branding on it.
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Well storage IS storage. To amplify my earlier point, CF is an industry standard interface. SSD is an industry standard interface. You can plug any CF card or SSD device without the slightest fear of blowing something up. Storage can't be an approval / voided-warranty issue *unless* you're building a device to replace part of the camera, or use a non industry-standard interface. If I was building... a lens mount, or a 3rd party replacement for the side SSD module, or a rear Thunderbolt module, or anything along those lines, absolutely you would need it approved by RED, since you could Blow Things Up quite easily, or at least have Unintended Consequences. But you don't void your warranty by using a non-RED CF card, that would be ridiculous! RED won't support you if you do, and it doesn't work right, but it doesn't void warranty; they'll just tell you to use RED media and come back if there's still a problem.

Now the interface is standard, but storage sure as hell doesn't all perform the same, hence the difficulty getting CF cards that met RED performance standards, but that's a different issue.

Steve Sherrick said:
The 8GB Lexar UDMA CFs being the exception. But I'll let Jarred speak to this as I am only a customer, not an authority.

EDIT: Mike, looking back at my notes there were reports of people using Lexar 16GB cards and getting resolutions similar to 8GB cards. I might be wrong on this. There were also reports of dropped frames though. And I couldn't find the 2K restriction in my notes but I remember this being the case with some CF cards. Might need someone from RED to clarify the restriction because perhaps I'm not remembering correctly.
Click to expand...

I'll investigate. RED has very particular requirements in terms of absolutely unremitting data throughput under all conditions. And as an aside, it's data throughput that matters, not resolution. It's a product of resolution x frame rate x compression; a relatively low-end card might be perfectly fine recording 5K at 3:1 if it was a 1FPS time-lapse; same card might well crash and burn if you tried 2K at 300FPS at 6:1. A crude 2K kneecapping is Bad and Wrong and not the appropriate way to go.

Mike
 
Erm...unless I'm hugely mistaken, RED is using a non-standard (I.e. Proprietary) connector for it's SSDs.
 
Michael Olsen said:
Erm...unless I'm hugely mistaken, RED is using a non-standard (I.e. Proprietary) connector for it's SSDs.
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IIRC, the physical connector is peculiar but the interface is standard.

Mike
 
Alternate Epic/Scarlet 1.8" SSD cards

Alternate Epic/Scarlet 1.8" SSD cards

A question to the forum regarding an absent answer to the initial question; are there any cheaper, Red-compatible, IIRC compliant connector IO, 1.8" SSD cards that will work in the Epic and Scarlet side modules that are not Red and do not cost a small appendage? :-)
 
And apologies to Red for asking about this; I ask because the best is great unless it's too expensive for your budget. If Red were competitive with other storage manufacturers price-wise it would be a no-brainer. Quite frankly, though, I'm worried about longevity and relative value of an SSD that costs $3200 for 256G vs $5-600 drives of the same capacity from other vendors. I know one pays for quality, but that's only if you can afford it, and for me, storage is storage is storage (as long as it's dependable).

Can firmware be revised via digital instruction/coding so that cheaper SSD cards can be firmware-imaged to interact as a Red compliant SSD? I am asking from a point of total ignorance on SSD storage capabilities and would really like to spend less on media (wish, wish).
 
R Todd Eastman said:
And apologies to Red for asking about this; I ask because the best is great unless it's too expensive for your budget. If Red were competitive with other storage manufacturers price-wise it would be a no-brainer. Quite frankly, though, I'm worried about longevity and relative value of an SSD that costs $3200 for 256G vs $5-600 drives of the same capacity from other vendors. I know one pays for quality, but that's only if you can afford it, and for me, storage is storage is storage (as long as it's dependable).

Can firmware be revised via digital instruction/coding so that cheaper SSD cards can be firmware-imaged to interact as a Red compliant SSD? I am asking from a point of total ignorance on SSD storage capabilities and would really like to spend less on media (wish, wish).
Click to expand...

Todd... *sigh* - you really do need to do a search; this topic has been thrashed and thrashed and... yes, thrashed some more. :smiley:

Bottom line - like it or not, right now, the only SSDs that will work, are RED's.
 
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