RED Mini Mag price breakdown, comparisons

[Josh Becker]

So I'm doing a bit of research on the Mini Mags in prep for the Scarlet-W I have preordered. Thought this information could be helpful to other people who are jumping into RED from another platform.

I currently own an FS7 and have 6 64GB cards (hold 33 min of 4K 24 each), so I could hold roughly 3 hours of 4K. It's not often I need to roll that long at that high of resolution, but I like to be prepared. Every now and then for doc-style projects, I'll get a day where they scheduled interview after interview, resulting in hours of footage in a day. My "storage conservation plan" with the Scarlet-W is to record interviews in 2K ProRes (25MB/s, comparable to 2K REDCODE at 3:1 but without the sensor cropping since it scales down from whatever resolution you want).

Anyway, I just wanted a nice way to visualize the cost savings as you get larger mini mags, you can see that it's almost double the cost per GB to buy the 120GB vs the 1TB. Note: I did an approximation for the smaller cards, they add up to 960GB instead of 1024 for a full TB. This is because it ended up requiring odd number of drives, mixing and matching 240 with a 120... I just wanted to keep it clean with buying sets of all the same capacity.

A couple questions I have:

The Scarlet-W sees no benefit from the red-colored 512GB and 1TB Mini Mags, does it? Looks like the camera maxes out at 140MB/s. So if that's the case, I wouldn't get any camera performance benefit from the larger cards. But I would get cost savings and potentially better resale value if I didn't want/need them in the future.

Any arguments for or against getting several smaller cards vs. fewer larger cards? In the past, I've preferred the "don't put all your eggs in one basket" approach... but comparing the 120GB to the 1TB, I could almost buy two 1TB cards for the price of 1TB's worth of 120GB cards! It does scare me to only have two cards though. SSD failure, loss, theft, etc. Any thoughts there? I think I'd definitely want at least two cards, because I'd never want to halt a shoot because we have to unload the only card.

 

[Phil Holland]

Just my POV and experience.

I made the switch to MINI-MAGs on Epic Dragon. There were lots of hints being dropped that this was "the future media". However, a bigger influence on me was certain jobs that required long, long takes. Which got longer shortly after that even. So one benefit I'd say is if you find yourself in a situation where you need to roll huge takes the larger capacities are very useful.

While I'd recommend 4 cards, I also started out with 2 REDMAGs back in the old'n days You can certainly make that work. It's useful on productions to have a minimum of 4 though. Just to cycle the cards as you're rolling.

 

[Alexander Thomson]

I'm with you on the "too many eggs in one basket" mantra. I'll probably grab a couple of 512GB mags for my Raven because 1) they'll last forever at 4.5K 2) They look badass 3) I have needed to shoot more than 240GB just a handful of times, but i'd like to have the headroom/extra mag space than what I'm used to, and I won't have to sell my mags if/when I upgrade to Weapon.

Long story longer, yeah, I think I'm going to split the difference between cost/space/risk/future proofing and go for the 512s

Thanks for for running the numbers on the mags. Something I needed but never got around to doing.

 

[Josh Becker]

Just my POV and experience.

I made the switch to MINI-MAGs on Epic Dragon. There were lots of hints being dropped that this was "the future media". However, a bigger influence on me was certain jobs that required long, long takes. Which got longer shortly after that even. So one benefit I'd say is if you find yourself in a situation where you need to roll huge takes the larger capacities are very useful.

While I'd recommend 4 cards, I also started out with 2 REDMAGs back in the old'n days You can certainly make that work. It's useful on productions to have a minimum of 4 though. Just to cycle the cards as you're rolling.

Thanks for the tips. I think 4 cards is a great number, too. But at the current pricing, it would be hard for me to drop $9800 on four 512GB vs. $7800 on two 1TB. So it's possible I may go the 1TB route purely because of the price per GB. But I also just remembered that the V-lock Kit I preordered comes with a 120GB, so maybe that could be a backup overflow card. Or I could shift the order to brain only and get a 3rd party module like an O-MOD... decisions, decisions. Of course it's all a couple months away, so I've got some time to ponder and shop around.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I completely agree with Phil and others that putting too much of a day's footage on to few cards is not a great idea. Four cards is ideal but cost can be an issue. I would probably opt for 2 x 512s to start and then add a couple more over time. As for long takes, while I do shoot interviews, I can't recall finding myself in a situation where I couldn't pause momentarily to change cards.

I don't know the details as I haven't done it yet but, for interviews and other situations where you might be shooting in a studio-like environment, what about tethering and recording directly to a computer? Isn't this now possible with Dragon?

 

[Brian Merlen]

The problem is lots of productions give you some slow back up drives. Plus others want md5 check sum done. Some over crank a lot at low compression too. So hard to say generally speaking, depends what you are working on. One mag is not sustainable, even two is hard. More mags always help a lot

 

[Josh Becker]

The problem is lots of productions give you some slow back up drives. Plus others want md5 check sum done. Some over crank a lot at low compression too. So hard to say generally speaking, depends what you are working on. One mag is not sustainable, even two is hard. More mags always help a lot

Good point. Transfer of a 1TB mag with checksum onto a USB 3 portable drive (5400 rpm) would probably be brutal!

 

[Randy Panado]

I completely agree with Phil and others that putting too much of a day's footage on to few cards is not a great idea.

Quick question, has anyone historically had a corrupt mini-mag? I realize that all memory is susceptible to loss though I'm hoping that mini-mags have a much lower possibility due to the QC (and price lol). I used to shoot on more cards when I first started filming though with the dual record options I've gotten used to in the Canon C-Series, I've just shot on two high capacity cards for up to a week during a job. Going back to one recording does worry me though I was hoping that since it's a RED, those worries are unfounded.

Cheers.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Quick question, has anyone historically had a corrupt mini-mag? I realize that all memory is susceptible to loss though I'm hoping that mini-mags have a much lower possibility due to the QC (and price lol). I used to shoot on more cards when I first started filming though with the dual record options I've gotten used to in the Canon C-Series, I've just shot on two high capacity cards for up to a week during a job. Going back to one recording does worry me though I was hoping that since it's a RED, those worries are unfounded.

Cheers.

I have never, ever had an issue with corrupt media on RED media dating all the way back to shooting RED One on hard drives. HOWEVER (!!!), IMO it's always a good idea to concern yourself with possible problems. As is often said about hard drive failure, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN.

 

[Louis Maddalena]

I have never, ever had an issue with corrupt media on RED media dating all the way back to shooting RED One on hard drives. HOWEVER (!!!), IMO it's always a good idea to concern yourself with possible problems. As is often said about hard drive failure, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN.

I agree. I have never had a problem but that doesn't mean I treat it as if it can't happen. If I'm on a shoot and I have a bunch of work on card, even if that card is only at half capacity and we have down time, I get that card to the DIT or MM to get it offloaded and backed up and switch to a fresh card. You never know what may happen so I like to keep the cards rotating if I have enough room, and time to swap cards. It makes me feel safer.

 

[Alexander Thomson]

I have never, EVER had an issue with RED media. You definitely get what you pay for.

 

[Demetri Zuev]

I have two 512GB mini-mags and to be honest I never felt a need to get more. But then again, I don't work in features yet.

I always use the minimal compression available at current res, shooting 6K 4:1 for instance.

 

[Brian Merlen]

A place I work records the HD SDI feed and uses a single 64gb mag with raw as backup. We must have 2,000 plus hours on the card and brain without issue and 2,000 reformats. It's solid as hell but better to plan for the worst. The main thing for me as I said before, check sums and throughput decide everything coupled with compression

 

[Randy Panado]

Cheers guys, appreciate the input!

 

[Gene Sung]

Quick question,

Since the 512 gigs are a faster drives, does that mean that Weapon which has higher compression ratios require the faster, red color 512gig and above to take full advantage?

Edit: I'm getting the Scarlet-W, but who knows when I might upgrade to the Weapon, so I would hate to be stuck with cards that are not fast enough.

 

[Josh Becker]

Quick question,

Since the 512 gigs are a faster drives, does that mean that Weapon which has higher compression ratios require the faster, red color 512gig and above to take full advantage?

Yeah, if you want the lowest compression + highest frame rates on the Weapon, you need the 512GB or higher. That fact, plus the lower price per gig, is what is putting me toward buying two 512GBs. Then the Scarlet-W v-mount package comes with a 120GB that I can use as an emergency overflow card, haha. I don't know if I'll really ever need the higher speeds but its better to have it just in case!

 

[Alexander Thomson]

Quick question,

Since the 512 gigs are a faster drives, does that mean that Weapon which has higher compression ratios require the faster, red color 512gig and above to take full advantage?

In order to make use of the full data rate of Carbon Fiber Weapons and enable lower compression ratios (3:1, 4:1, etc), you will need a 512GB or 1TB Mini-Mag.

You will still be able to use 120s and 240s with a Carbon Fiber Weapon, just not at higher FPS and/or lower REDcode compression levels compared to 512 and 1TB

 

[Gene Sung]

Then the Scarlet-W v-mount package comes with a 120GB that I can use as an emergency overflow card, haha. I don't know if I'll really ever need the higher speeds but its better to have it just in case!

No matter what, I'm probably going to sell the 120gig and apply that towards whatever card I get. I highly doubt I would ever need more than 2 x 512 since I'm mainly using the Red for higher end stuff (narrative, Music Videos, art projects) where the takes are shorter. Keeping the FS7 for lower end corporate, event and interview type stuff where takes can be really long.

Damn... Now I want to get the 512 gig. More money, more money pit. Oh well, that's why I'm taking out a loan. LOL. Smile Now, Cry Later.

 

[Gene Sung]

One other question. There's regularly 512 cards floating around Reduser market place.

Should I get the Red color version over the Black color version? Are the Red color faster and more ideal for higher data rates?

 

[Bob Gundu]

One other question. There's regularly 512 cards floating around Reduser market place.

Should I get the Red color version over the Black color version? Are the Red color faster and more ideal for higher data rates?

They're the same card. Different color. They just made it easier to spot the faster cards.