Budget storage solutions for video content creation?

[terry.mac]

Question for video creators, what are the budget storage solutions and work flow you use?

I have a MacBook Pro with Adobe Premier Pro (I know; I need photoshop and don't want to shell out extra for Final cut). I have been storing all the files on the laptop. It comes a time I need to find a better solution.

What do you use?
Do you edit the files on the internal storage, only after finish you move it to external storage?
What are the pros/cons?
Would you recommend external SSD via USB/Thunderbolt? Or a NAS like Synology?

Thank you!

 

[ColdCase]

I've tried a bunch of them.

For me, woking with HD content, NAS is way too slow for anything other than archives/backup. Other than the internal PCI storage, a fast quality SSD in a TB enclosure performs the best, much better than a SSD in a USB enclosure, but the USB is more budget friendly. SSDs can range in price and quality. I moved away from spinners awhile ago for anything other than archives or backup.

 

[Pilot Jones]

Seconding ColdCase about SSDs over regular Hard Drives. If you can, try and stretch your budgeted make that happen, your future self will thank you for it.

I need to upgrade some of my own gear to SSD and I can’t wait to make that happen sooner.

 

[diamond3]

It entirely depends on what youre shooting, how often you shoot, how many projects you work on at the same time and if you will revisit content.

NAS: you want redundancy for hard drive failure, lots of storage, ease of backup without your computer and some speed (10GbE option). You also don’t need to be editing on the go.

ssd: you need to backup a few projects to work on. Your ssd is the size of current projects and you aren’t referencing other projects from the past. Still backup your files to another drive.

HD: you need a lot of storage, don’t have a budget, and aren’t using uncompressed or raw content. Use this for archiving projects at the very least and put projects on an ssd if it fits your needs for current editing.

My personal workflow is different than my work. Personal, all on a thunderbolt raid. Backed up to an external drive and then online. I delete the external duplicate when I don’t need it anymore and leave it on the raid and online for now. Remote editing is done on an ssd.
For work, we have a couple of NAS’s. I just built one with 12x14TB drives, 10GbE and thunderbolt. We have a few other synology servers as well. This is because we are accessing projects from multiple computers and editors.