Storage Suggestions for a workstation (4K video editing) on a budget.

[stuccoholmes]

So I am getting back into editing some of my own projects and have a few questions. Right now my old build has 2x 500GB HDDs which I think I could reuse.

I am upgrading the CPU/MOBO/RAM and eventually the GPU. I am also looking at a couple Samsung 480GB SSDs as my budget for storage components is only $500.

I am just trying to get opinions as my last project we shot on a RED DRAGON (6K) and ended up with 30min of footage which was close to about 450GBs. Ended up paying an editor to help with that one but I am just curious of which drives should be used for what.

From my understanding

1x SSD should be used for OS + Scratch disks (or should I have one dedicated to scratch disks)
1x SSD used for backup?
1x HDD Downloads
1x HDD backup?

Thoughts?

 

[giantbucket]

are you a paid pro, or self-employed? how much do your clients pay for your work? what percentage of your earnings are you re-investing into your equipment?

i suspect the answer is mostly in the $0 range, which means you should just buy plenty of cheap HDD and do a RAID-10 or something with them.

 

[stuccoholmes]

are you a paid pro, or self-employed? how much do your clients pay for your work? what percentage of your earnings are you re-investing into your equipment?

i suspect the answer is mostly in the $0 range, which means you should just buy plenty of cheap HDD and do a RAID-10 or something with them.

Not self-employed, unionized (director's guild) but I work in a totally different department then post work. Just for a few personal projects at the moment, and to be honest most projects we film on I'll have to go to a professional editor anyway as the resolutions are well above 4K.

That's what I needed to hear though, it's too easy to get sucked into that hole of the latest and greatest. I'll just reuse my HDD's for now, maybe add a few more and put that extra cash towards a light.

 

[The Original Ralph]

i do a lot of video rendering for personal projects - the WD Green 4 TB 3.5" HDD is normally $139 shipped at newegg, but i have seen them, about once a year or so, go on sale for $99 shipped - at either price, that's within my $25-35 per TB price.

Have six of them now, four have been in use for 2 years, no issues with any - only "aggravation", the Green means they go to sleep when not in use for a bit - seems to vary but usually 45 - 60 minutes, but they only take 7-8 seconds to wake back up. There is a utility available at WD to alter or change the sleep settings if that's an issue

 

[giantbucket]

i've not liked WD's Rainbow drives for the most part. the Red is slow (but at least it's quiet). the Green has narcolepsy (but at least it's.. no, it's not even cheap), and the Black is only sensible in 2.5" size since it's 7200rpm instead of most being 5400rpm.

i haven't tried the Purple Nurple, or the Yellow Submarine. i just go to Seagate nowadays.

 

[The Original Ralph]

while i know there are folks that will defend seagate, there have been an awful lot of discussions on other forums re seagates suffering a pretty high failure rate, especially the 2 & 3 TB variants. After reading those discussions, i remembered of the 4 seagates i've got or had, 2 500 GB HDDs were still going 6+ years later, but 2 1 TB HDDs had failed, both were only used as external backup drives, and not running 24/7 - only turned on for the backup session

there are a couple of interesting failure studies out there though

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/198154-2014-hard-drive-failure-rates-point-to-clear-winners-and-losers-but-is-the-data-good

and https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/

 

[stuccoholmes]

What about if I got a Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive for my OS/Programs/etc?

Then I used the 2x 500GB HDDs in RAID for storage? They are 5 years old though so I am worried they might be useless soon?

I suppose I could always look into a 4TB HDD and I think I would still be under my budget.