I need an external drive to edit some video in Premiere and am thinking of getting an SSD instead of a hard drive.
1. Is there a big difference when editing from an external SSD vs. a hard drive in terms of performance?
2. Can someone please recommend an external SSD that I can get to do this?
3. Can someone please recommend an internal SSD that I can use with a dock to this?
Thanks!
Stan, perhaps a bit more info would be helpful. What form of connectivity do you plan to use? (USB3, Thunderbolt 1 or 2 or...)?
In terms of connectivity, a single SSD drive will work similar for both USB3 and Thunderbolt. Where a marke difference can be found is when 2 or more SSD are "striped" together in a RAID 0 fashion and connected via Thunderbolt. As for brands, everyone has their favourites and I would suggest you start by looking at the Samsung EVO line up.
Also not all USB3 enclosures are created equal. You will want the better ones that include the latest standards for throughput. If you want a single drive enclosure consider tried and true Firmtek dLite or their heavy all metal top dog Miniswap/U3. Both score very well with SSD and two of them can be used for RAID 0. Naturally, there are other makers of enclosures that perform similarly.
About RAID 0 - if you go with striping drives, do consider that a failure of one drive equals lost of all data of the 2 or more drives. In this, frequent regular backups are crucial.
Odd man out - Though expensive, a combo TB dock plus internal drive is available by Sonnet. It offers not only the option for internal drive(s), but various ports out from TB and optical drive (DVD or Blue Ray).
