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How much storage does standard M3 use?

jonatious

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I am evaluating on what size micro SD card to purchase this holiday. Now that we can transfer files directly from the drone, I plan on putting one size card in and forgetting about it. I am thinking about a 512GB card, but Costco has a pretty good deal on 400GB Sandisk Extreme.

Question is what is the size of the video when capturing in 5k 50 or 4k 120 with H265 codec. May be H264 codec for reference would be good as well to take an informed decision
 
I am evaluating on what size micro SD card to purchase this holiday. Now that we can transfer files directly from the drone, I plan on putting one size card in and forgetting about it. I am thinking about a 512GB card, but Costco has a pretty good deal on 400GB Sandisk Extreme.

Question is what is the size of the video when capturing in 5k 50 or 4k 120 with H265 codec. May be H264 codec for reference would be good as well to take an informed decision

Regardless of resolution, the max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. That translate to roughly 1.5 Gb/min, or 90 Gb/hour.

With a 512GB card, you should be able to record over 5.5 hours of H.264/H.265 video at highest quality settings.
 
General rule of thumb is get the biggest and fastest you can afford…especially for video. I’m looking at this one:

The max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. The card you are looking at has a rated read/write speeds up to 160/120MB, which is an overkill. You can save some $ purchasing the Samsung EVO Plus card instead, which has a rated read & write speeds up to 100 MB/s & 90 MB/s, and is one of DJI's recommended microSD cards.
 

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Another general rule is to only store as much on your drone as you are prepared to lose in one incident.
Huge SD cards aren't such a great idea if you value your work.
As Meta says..... if you do any amount of work that you value, it makes sense to adopt a professional workflow. Its good practice to change your sd card with every battery if you really care about what you are shooting. I would rather have several 64 or 128gb cards than one 256gb or larger. Crashes typically happen when you don't don't expect and a lost drone is a possibility with every flight.

Backup your work as soon as possible in at least two places and make sure the transfered files are not corrupted before deleting from the sd card.

I don't always follow these rules when flying for fun but I never risk losing important files.
 
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The max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. The card you are looking at has a rated read/write speeds up to 160/120MB, which is an overkill. You can save some $ purchasing the Samsung EVO Plus card instead, which has a rated read & write speeds up to 100 MB/s & 90 MB/s, and is one of DJI's recommended microSD cards.
Yeah I understood this after a while. Thanks for the confirmation.

General rule of thumb is get the biggest and fastest you can afford…especially for video. I’m looking at this one:

I was looking at the Sandisk extreme 512 GB on Amazon for $80. Costco has a 400GB Sandisk Extreme for $50. I’m probably going for that. That seems to be the best deal around that sizing and it should give me atleast 3-4 hours of footage
 
Yeah I understood this after a while. Thanks for the confirmation.


I was looking at the Sandisk extreme 512 GB on Amazon for $80. Costco has a 400GB Sandisk Extreme for $50. I’m probably going for that. That seems to be the best deal around that sizing and it should give me atleast 3-4 hours of footage
8-10 flights? ... that's a lot of eggs in one basket.
Another thing to consider is ... do you really need to video continuously from launch to landing?
Or just shoot selected good stuff?
 
I recommend 128 GB San Disk. Amazon caries them for about $36. View attachment 138383

128GB is more than enough for photographers.

For videographers, it is a different story.

The max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. That translate to ~90 GB/hour. A 128GB card holds roughly 1.4 hours of video, which is not enough to last a day of heavy recording.
 
128GB is more than enough for photographers.
16GB (if you could still buy cards that size) is more than enough for photographers.
For videographers, it is a different story.

The max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. That translate to ~90 GB/hour. A 128GB card holds roughly 1.4 hours of video, which is not enough to last a day of heavy recording.
Anyone who would want to store 1.4 hours of video on an SD card, doesn't put much value on their work.

Whenever this topic comes up, I'm reminded of a story of a "pro" shooting a music video with his Inspire on a boat off Miami.
He was one of those get-the-biggest- SD-card guys because bigger is always better?

He had been shooting all day and and at the end of the eighth flight when bringing his inspire in, it hit an outrigger pole on the gamefishing boat he was using for a camera boat.

The Inspire went straight down in a busy shipping channel with his whole day's work on his expensive high capacity SD card.
He was disappointed about the Inspire but more concerned about the work he'd lost.

The full story is here:
 
128GB is more than enough for photographers.

For videographers, it is a different story.

The max video bitrate for standard M3 is 200 Mbps, or 25 MB/s. That translate to ~90 GB/hour. A 128GB card holds roughly 1.4 hours of video, which is not enough to last a day of heavy recording.
That sounds like 512GB is the way to go. With 3 batteries - you can fly one and charge 2 - can get 4 hours of flight in a day
 
16GB (if you could still buy cards that size) is more than enough for photographers.

Anyone who would want to store 1.4 hours of video on an SD card, doesn't put much value on their work.

Whenever this topic comes up, I'm reminded of a story of a "pro" shooting a music video with his Inspire on a boat off Miami.
He was one of those get-the-biggest- SD-card guys because bigger is always better?
I guess the line is 'if you shoot with paid actors' - in most of my amateur videos - I end up using tiny portion of video. But if video is not rolling - I will have nothing to use. So out of 512 gb card - I may end up using way less than 64gb - but if I only have 64 gb card in drone - I will not able to have the variety of footage to pick from
 
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