Hard Drives vs SSDs for recorder?

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
Is anyone using regular hard drives instead of SSD's with outboard recorders like PIX240 or Samurai.


I've been hearing they are very reliable in anything except extreme vibration and are actually more reliable than SSD's which have some tendency to fail out of nowhere. Certainly cheaper.


Just wondering what people are doing out there.
 
the main difference between "analog" hardisk and "digital" SSD is the way they fail.
With harddisk, you can expect failures with some warnings (noises, clicks, random freeze, disk stuck at start) so you can change them before
total failure.
With SSD, usually they stop working suddenly.
This analog behavior is also a problem because a hardisk can work well when a third full and act badly when two third full, because bandwith decrease with amount of data.
SDD will work the same from first to last bit.
Some recorders push the limit very hard on bandwith and only some high end SSD are able to cope with this.
Since you can get a harddisk 5 to 10 time bigger than a SSD for same money, if you are not in mission critical shots, or use low bandwith codecs, several disks will be
better than one SSD , particularly if the disk has a backup on camera.
For low bandwith codec, you can even ask if recording on SD card or compact flash is not a better fit.

Usually you get not much choices, each recorder is imposing its own technology.
 
has anyone use hard disk drives with the PIX 240?....
If so what was used, 5400rpm or 7200rpm drives?
 
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At the end of the day, your footage is the single most important thing on your shoot - more important than your camera or any other piece of gear. Will a regular laptop HDD suffice for many things? Certainly. Is it worth taking the risk when solid state drives are available at reasonable prices these days? I'd say no.

There are places to save money on productions, but I think the media you capture your data on shouldn't be one.
 
Grug said:
There are places to save money on productions, but I think the media you capture your data on shouldn't be one.
Click to expand...

+1

And that is why I switched back to all original Sony SxS cards (I have just a few adapter cards with SD) and still buy them if a good (price) chance occurs and I use SD recommended SSD for my PIX...
 
Grug said:
At the end of the day, your footage is the single most important thing on your shoot - more important than your camera or any other piece of gear. Will a regular laptop HDD suffice for many things? Certainly. Is it worth taking the risk when solid state drives are available at reasonable prices these days? I'd say no.

There are places to save money on productions, but I think the media you capture your data on shouldn't be one.
Click to expand...


Yes you're right.....what was I thinking?!
 
Of course the results are what matter, but the issue is what is going to give you the best results. I haven't used an actual SxS card in years. My Transend class 10 cards have been uniformly great for me. No hiccups at all.

As for SSD vs HDD, everyone assumes the SSD is safer but I have had hiccups with them and have never had one with my HDD. I have had hiccups with my SSD even though its on the approved list (Samaurai). Therefore I almost always used the HDD which will generally last all day for narrative story telling.

IF I was going to shoot something with vibration I might pick the SSD first, but only if it was severe vibration. The Scorpio Black (not blue) has vibration protection internally so even though its HDD I trust it from experience. Thinking about it the last two scenes that I shot inside a moving car were shot with the HDD and we hit speed bumps without developing a problem.

Just my 2 cents... YMMV
 
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