Samsung 64GB SSD out in time for Red launch?

[David Wyatt]

Samsung have just announced mass production of their 64GB SSD, hopefully coinciding with the delayed launch of the Red:
http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/PressRelease.asp?seq=20070625_0000356219

[Adrian Correia]

is it fast enough for Redcode Raw?

[PaulClements]

I would imagine they are plenty fast enough. If they are being made as replacements for laptop harddrives there would be little use in them having less than 27MBps.

Typical Notebook 2.5" hdd's have about 100MBps transfer rates if I'm not mistaken. Having less than a quarter of that would significantly reduce the computers capabilities and would therefore not be a viable replacement, at least in my opinion.

[Craig Schober]

I would imagine they are plenty fast enough. If they are being made as replacements for laptop harddrives there would be little use in them having less than 27MBps.

Typical Notebook 2.5" hdd's have about 100MBps transfer rates if I'm not mistaken. Having less than a quarter of that would significantly reduce the computers capabilities and would therefore not be a viable replacement, at least in my opinion.

i think you're mixing up your (b) bits and bytes (B). the fastest ssd's only hit about 50-60 megabytes per second. spinning hard drives for laptops don't usually get higher than 20 megabytes per second.

with the exception of red users and some laptop editors, the speed of an ssd isn't nearly as important as the battery life it will save on the laptop.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yep... It will be interesting to see how fast and reliable the 64GB SSDs are. If they're like the 32GB ones, they don't quite do it on their own and would definitely require a RAID-1 configuration. Even then, they may not handle it. I do find it curious that 64GB is pushed to mass production whereas the 32GB is not. I wonder if there's other industry forces at work here, possibly a volume buyer with a commercial product giving Samsung reason to mass produce these. My guess would be newer ultra-compact notebook computers or a SSD based camcorder or media player. Either way, this is just one more step in the right direction...

[PaulClements]

i think you're mixing up your (b) bits and bytes (B). the fastest ssd's only hit about 50-60 megabytes per second. spinning hard drives for laptops don't usually get higher than 20 megabytes per second.

with the exception of red users and some laptop editors, the speed of an ssd isn't nearly as important as the battery life it will save on the laptop.

My bad then, I checked out a couple of spec sheets on hdd's before posting to check and they listed it as MBps. I blame them... grr :)

[Evin Grant]

If these are cheap enough the maybe we will see a 128GB Red Ram that's not much more than the Red drive? That would be very cool!

[T. Glen Phelps]

During the RED presentaiton at Cingear, Ted presented the RED RAM as now being up to 96GB (instead of 64GB) and I got the impression that the RED Team was still pushing the capacity as high as practicle.

[Sam Druckerman]

If these are cheap enough the maybe we will see a 128GB Red Ram that's not much more than the Red drive? That would be very cool!

Yes, that would be Very cool. I think it's a matter of when ... not if.


During the RED presentaiton at Cingear, Ted presented the RED RAM as now being up to 96GB (instead of 64GB) and I got the impression that the RED Team was still pushing the capacity as high as practicle.

True. When I heard Ted say that.... I had to smile.

Let's hope there will be lot's of happy surprises when the cameras start to ship.

[Adrian Correia]

If these are cheap enough the maybe we will see a 128GB Red Ram that's not much more than the Red drive? That would be very cool!

that would be amazing! I have talked to several producers who want to have a solid state option available. Hopefully this comes to fruition by November!

[Matt Redmond]

Click for Samsung's press release from earlier this year (http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/PressRelease.asp?seq=20070327_0000332936)

R=read W=write (weight) (Power consumption)
Number in brackets is the comparison with 80GB HDD

Samsung’s 64GB Flash-SSD
R : 64MB/s (4.3)
W : 45MB/s (6.4)
15g (1/4)
O : 0.5W (1/3)
I : 0.1W (1/15)

Samsung’s 32GB Flash-SSD
R : 53MB/s (3.5)
W : 30MB/s (4.3)
15g (1/4)
O : 0.5W (1/3)
I : 0.1W (1/15)

80GB HDD
R : 15MB/s (1)
W : 7MB/s (1)
61g (1)
O : 1.5 W (1)
I : 1.5W (1)

[PaulClements]

Nice one _MR_ I hadn't seen that one. 4.3 times faster than 80GB hdd sounds great. That difference in power consumption is a fair bit more than the other press release.

[Rob Lohman]

that would be amazing! I have talked to several producers who want to have a solid state option available. Hopefully this comes to fruition by November!

We have Compact Flash or RED RAM for that

[Darwin]

I like the compact flash option! cause it is cheap and readily available.

[Chris Kenny]

Anyone spotted any 16 GB CF cards that are fast enough? SanDisk's Extreme IV cards still seem to top out at 8 GB.

[Darwin]

I believe they are coming out with 12 & 16 gig cards soon. Right now 8 gig is it in extreme IV that gives us 4-5 minutes of record time

[Jeff Kilgroe]

SanDisk's Extreme IV 16GB card was supposed to have a June ETA... Don't know where it stands now.

[PaulClements]

They're probably all waiting for the launch of Red to charge us ridiculous prices :)

[Keith Alan Morris]

What ARE the prices?

[damonbots]

It wouldn't suprise me to see the 16GB Extreme IV come in around a grand. The price should drop like a rock pretty quickly though...
8GB Extreme IV - original price $640 - recently sold for $110(sale) @ Adorama
16GB Extreme III - original price $1049 - todays Adorama price $249

Shooting with CF primarily actually might be feasible by the time RED ships.
BTW, I don't work for Adorama.

[Keith Alan Morris]

if you had to venture a guess, how much do you think they'll be around January 2008? :wink:

[damonbots]

I assume that's your scheduled delivery date?

Quite honestly, I haven't seen one article confirming the production of a 16GB Extreme IV. I read somewhere that the Extreme III was designed for capacity and the Extreme IV for speed.
I imagine that if and when it does hit the shelves, it'll cost a minimum of an arm and a leg at first. Meanwhile, you'll be able to scoop up the 8GB's for maybe $50-75 in January '08 ?? That's a big maybe.
One thing is clear... I love the idea of the RED RAM, but that sucker better give some serious bang for the buck at $4,500. 64 GB's of CF will cost way less than that by delivery.

Before I guess verbally abused, I do realize that there is a world of difference between the RED RAM and a handful of CF cards.

[Sam Druckerman]

FWIW, at the Cine Gear presentation Friday morning... Ted said the Red Ram was higher, I believe he said it was at 96. It's getting better.

[Adrian Correia]

FWIW, at the Cine Gear presentation Friday morning... Ted said the Red Ram was higher, I believe he said it was at 96. It's getting better.

looks like this is getting added to the cart!

[damonbots]

FWIW, at the Cine Gear presentation Friday morning... Ted said the Red Ram was higher, I believe he said it was at 96. It's getting better.

That's great news.
I think it would be pretty sweet if RED offered a couple different versions of the RED RAM. Perhaps a 32-64GB in the $2K range and 128GB in the $4K range. I've already streched my finances to the max and am looking to save a buck or two any way I can. I'm sure I'm not alone.

[Alexander Nikishin]

And as Ted said, by the time units are ready to ship RED RAM may be up to 128gb at the same cost.

The only thing I don't like about RED RAM and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'll have to drag the camera over to the offloading station every time it fills up, pain.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

And as Ted said, by the time units are ready to ship RED RAM may be up to 128gb at the same cost.

The only thing I don't like about RED RAM and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'll have to drag the camera over to the offloading station every time it fills up, pain.

YOU'RE WRONG! HAHAHA... :)

RED RAM is identical to a RED DRIVE, but has solid-state disks inside. So you mount it just like a RED DRIVE and swap it out when needed.

[Adrian Correia]

We have Compact Flash or RED RAM for that

what are the benefits of the RedRam over something like this or CF?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The benefits of RED RAM will be larger capacity than individual CF cards. Should have much faster I/O rates. And since it's in the same form factor as a RED DRIVE, you'll be able to attach it the same way to both the RED and to other systems (FW800, USB2).

For me, I'm planning on just using the RED DRIVE for most situations, but will be buying the CF option for sure. Possibly the 1.8" SATA FLASH option as well. RED RAM may have its uses and makes sense for car and helicopter mounts or other situations where vibrations and motion could become a factor. But I think until the price comes down, I would rent RED RAM as needed. Then again, I won't get my RED until December (or so it looks and maybe even after)... Lots can change by then.

[Darwin]

I think thats's the plan for me as well. RED DRIVE/ CF Cards

[David Wyatt]

I read on a Samsung press release somewhere that SSD's should double in storage capacity roughly every year (so expect a 128GB SSD towards the middle of next year). They tend to be scary money when they first come out though :-o

[Jaime Vallés]

RED RAM may have its uses and makes sense for car and helicopter mounts or other situations where vibrations and motion could become a factor.
But isn't that the point of CF cards as well? They don't have the moving parts either, so they should be just as robust. Or am I missing something?

For me, the sole advantage of RED RAM over CF cards is capacity. 64 (or 96) GB of solid state, versus 8gb for a CF card.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You're not missing a thing. The advantage to the RED RAM is capacity. That and RED RAM should be faster. The speed won't matter for recording since an approved CF card will record all the available modes anyway... But with RED RAM, you could theoretically edit right off of it too.

[Ray Flynn]

samsung has rated the 1.8" 64GB SSD at 45MB/s was written on a press release somewhere, but even that is high the 32GB SSD has a write speed of 32MB/s. i would imagine that Samsung understands the market well enough to know that any slower write speed will not satisfy many end user profiles.

right now 32GB are going for about $480.

[Finner]

right now 32GB are going for about $480.

Is this price right? I thought they were much more then that? Do you have any links to where they can be purchased at that price?

If this is all correct then that is very good news as I could see the 64GB running in around $1000 or less by late fall/early winter. I can't remember the exact numbers but what would a 64GB be in red run time, 64min?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The problem is the 32MB/s rating for those 32GB SSDs is maximum burst rate, not sustainable rate. It's unclear if those 32GB SSDs can actually sustain a full 32MB/s across the entire data structure for extended periods of time and in various temperature ranges. Soooo... Until we see some test results, I'm not going to get too anxious. The 45MB/s of the 64GB units sounds a lot more promising as it gives some extra headroom. Actually, I don't think 32MB/s is fast enough. 4K @ 24fps was said to require about 28MB/s. That would put 4K @ 30fps somewhere in the 35MB/s range I think.

4K at 24fps ~ 28MB/s would equate to about 36 seconds of footage per GB. So that 64GB SSD should hold about 38 minutes of 4K/24.

[Finner]

4K at 24fps ~ 28MB/s would equate to about 36 seconds of footage per GB. So that 64GB SSD should hold about 38 minutes of 4K/24.

Thats a very good amount of time. I could see 3 of 64GB cards covering most peoples needs for starters.

[Paul Leeming]

The problem is the 32MB/s rating for those 32GB SSDs is maximum burst rate, not sustainable rate. It's unclear if those 32GB SSDs can actually sustain a full 32MB/s across the entire data structure for extended periods of time and in various temperature ranges.
Yes but don't forget, you would still be using RAID 0 with two flash drives in the standard RedDrive shell, so even if it were 32MB/s per SSD, or less, two of them together in RAID 0 should negate any data rate limitation from the Red camera.

[Justin Anderson]

If these are cheap enough the maybe we will see a 128GB Red Ram that's not much more than the Red drive? That would be very cool!

A viable option could be to split the bandwidth of REDCODE between 2 64GB chips in a RAID array to make the 128GB card. :o