The best models of HD drives to suit all phases of video production

Mar 20, 2024

One of the most significant risks in video content is Great Fear: Losing all of your hard-earned work. If the content is not stored correctly, a whole shoot might end up being lost. It's good to know that we now have tons of options in terms of technologies and methods that allow us to replicate and preserve important work. We reached out to Larry O'Connor, Founder and CEO of Larry O'Connor. Powerhouse storage solutions company OWC , to help us gather all the necessary equipment needed to tackle any kind of video scenario. Check out Larry's top practices for storage and the best practices to ensure the security of your video all through the process.

A short description of the hard drive

Hard disk drives (HDD) HDDs can be one of the most well-known and well-known storage devices utilized by computers and external drives in the past couple of years. Solid State Drives (SSD) can be described as similar to HDD But, they're flash storage devices that do not have moving parts within.     non-volatile memory express  (NVMe ) is a communications standard which has been specifically developed to improve flash technology performance to provide faster SSD performance by using PCIe.

Okay, on to the gear

Pre-pro

All the crucial details that can determine the success or otherwise of an undertaking including the casting process, locations for scripts equipment, crew and location it is vital to ensure that you are ensuring that your "pre-pro" work is accessible and secure. Start saving early and frequently make sure you select storage units that can handle a lot of data in addition to being less expensive.

     Envoy Pro EX with USB-C

$119.00 -- $479.00 Best to use to: Off-site or location client scouting trips

This stylish, water-proof, and dust-proof design fits into your pocket It is durable and flexible.

Mercury Elite Pro Dock -- $330- $1,430

Ideal to use for: Studio, desktop devices. The dual drive PC-friendly device is fast and versatility, as well as the capacity to store up 32TB in storage/backup capacity.

     Production    

Much like the role that location plays in real estate transactions, storage speeds are crucial in the process of production. The footage you're working on can be huge, but you might not be in the privacy of your workplace at home or in your pre-production location. What ever you're working on, you need to be sure that your footage doesn't require a long time to go through.

     The Accelsior PCIe 4M2

$529.75 -$ $1,999.75 Ideal to use for: Controlled studio environments and backups for on-set productions

No matter if you're running the latest Mac Pro or an older Mac or PC tower that's on the set it's best to get the Accelsior card SSD. It's the strongest SSD OWC can offer (over 6,000MB/s) which is perfect to stream and edit videos with large format and images without hiccups.

ThunderBay Line - $710 -- $2,800

The most suitable to: Large-scale projects

If your project requires both speed and massive capacity check out OWC's ThunderBay collection. Do you need something which is small enough to fit in an area that is tight or a DIT cart? Think about ThunderBay Miniature HTML0  .

Delivery from wherever you are to the studio

You may need to forward your work to coworkers or editors before you actually make your way back to your home. Here are the hard drives you can deliver with.

Mercury Helios 3S - $229.99

It is the best option for: For durability, to back up the shooting day The Mercury Helios and the U.2 NVMe Interchange System was designed to connect workflows between posts and manufacturing. The system offers quick U.2 NVMe SSDs with simple drive swapping convenience inside a remarkably secure compact container. This lightweight, long-lasting SSD allows you to quickly complete a whole day of video and send it back for editing, cutting down on shipping costs due to its light structure.

ThunderBlade $ 729 -- - $2,299

Ideal to: T ravel Productions and outdoor shooting

The ThunderBlade was created to be tough robust, dependable and blazingly speedy, the ThunderBlade can be seen on the road, on set, and at the editing bay. It is housed in a sturdily hardshell case, which makes it easy to transport and move. It's small, but powerful and can hold up to 8TB in storage (with speeds as high as 2800MB/s read speed and 2450MB/s write speeds).

     Post-production    

Many drives that are listed under production may edit posts. This is where you'll see the ThunderBlade, Mercury Helios, and ThunderBay mini shine because they can edit.

     Jupiter mini-NAS

It is the best choice for Collaboration in real time

The desktop with 5-Bay Jupiter mini is a great solution for large-scale project groups. It's small enough to fit into the carry-on bag, but it offers enormous capacity (up to 70TB). It's also 100% compatible with all the well-known video editing software.

 Archiving

Mercury Pro LTO

The ideal format to use to: It was saved but then discarded for 30 years

After all thinking and editing has been done, it's a final process to complete the project. If you are archiving your work it's best to pick equipment which is stable and shelf-stable in order to not erase the work you've done after you've had it for an extended period of time. The Mercury Pro LTO will be accessible in June 2020 to buy. This means you'll be able to keep your work for a period of up to 30 years.

HTML0 A final word on the Terabytes

The vast majority of drives described above refer to Terabytes of storage, so for some human reference 1TB of hard drive capacity equals

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