Transfer speeds from SSD

[pedz]

I was transferring files from my Mavic 3 Cine to my M1 MBP and the speeds were 40 MB/s. It took a half hour to transfer a file. I tried the same cable on two different ports. One was on the laptop itself and the other was a port on my USB attached 4K display (which is now several years old).

This morning, just to verify, I got a known USB 3.1 cable and from the USB port on the laptop I got 749 MB/s. The same file transferred in 2:16.57.

Not surprising… but I’m glad I did the experiment.

 

[SkyeHigh]

That looks like the difference between USB 2 and USB 3.

 

[Dogpilot]

I went through many, many cables to get decent transfer speeds. Turns out, surprise, that many of the cables on Amazon vastly overstate their transfer speeds. It also correlates, if it is vastly overpriced, seems to have actual and stated speeds match. If it is, what may seem like a reasonable price, not even be close to the stated speed.

The other issue that came up: I had woefully inadequate storage space if I did any videos (in ProRes). I ended up getting a pair of SanDisk Extreme 4TB portables.

The final issue with the Cine SSD: You need to re-format it between uses. It comes up with disk fragmentation warnings at about 50% if you don't. Seems like the internal disk management software does a very poor job of re-allocating unused blocks. Then, it will not use the Micro SD card for ProRes, since they are too slow, apparently.

 

[pedz]

I tend to reformat rather than delete files on all of my camera and video equipment. It just seems easier and safer.

I didn’t know the problem about ProRes. I was considering using a micro SD card but now I’ll stick to the internal SSD.

 

[anotherlab]

I went through many, many cables to get decent transfer speeds. Turns out, surprise, that many of the cables on Amazon vastly overstate their transfer speeds. It also correlates, if it is vastly overpriced, seems to have actual and stated speeds match. If it is, what may seem like a reasonable price, not even be close to the stated speed.

I usually check Benson Leung's USB cable reviews on Amazon.

 

[anotherlab]

The final issue with the Cine SSD: You need to re-format it between uses. It comes up with disk fragmentation warnings at about 50% if you don't. Seems like the internal disk management software does a very poor job of re-allocating unused blocks. Then, it will not use the Micro SD card for ProRes, since they are too slow, apparently.

Fragmention on SSD drives is not a bad thing. You do not have anywhere near the level of a performance hit that you would have had with spinning rust drives. Wear leveling technology purposely "fragments" the data to ensure the consistent life of the drive. SSD drives can be written to fewer times, because the memory cells have a fixed number of times they can written to. It's a very high number of writes, but less than non-SSD. The drive controller should be handling that automatically, SSDs are not exactly new tech.

 

[Dogpilot]

What you mention is not necessarily a bad thing. Real world applications on the Cine make it a PIA. When I go out to the field I have to bring a laptop as well as the portable SSD's if I want to shoot over an hour of raw footage. More stuff, more gizmos sucking down more power. Already have reached the day field limit on my Bluetti portable power station. I just made two more 20AH battery supplements. I am beginning to feel like a Tesla, but gas powered.