I’m just an amateur videographer and film mostly in 4K, but plan on getting more involved in doing bigger video projects. I’m currently using a maxed out 2016 iMac and that had only 1TB SSD. I pretty much just load everything on to externals. Would 1TB be just fine if I just unload/save and edit everything off of externals? Or would it be better to get a higher TB storage, transfer files to Mac Studio for editing and then transfer to externals when job is complete? Any help is greatly appreciated!
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Video editors, do I need more than 1TB SSD?
- Thread starter MacinTosh.0
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This is one of those situations where what you are currently doing as an amateur is also what professional film editors do. If a filmmaker has hours of footage to edit, it just makes sense to have the editing application on the internal drive and the footage on external drives.
As an amateur who is presumably not making long-form films, you can do whatever you want. It comes down to personal preference and the difference in cost between, in this case, Mac Studio storage and external storage. For video editing, using drives such as Samsung's T7 will be just as efficient as the internal drive on your Mac Studio.
As an amateur who is presumably not making long-form films, you can do whatever you want. It comes down to personal preference and the difference in cost between, in this case, Mac Studio storage and external storage. For video editing, using drives such as Samsung's T7 will be just as efficient as the internal drive on your Mac Studio.
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You'd probably be fine using the 1TB with the external disks.
If things were to slow down or you want to use this system for a very long time, I recommend getting a separate thunderbolt 3 enclosure with nvme drive.
Put all your working projects files on it, as well as use it as scratch disk.
This offloads read/writes from your internal disk which will have it last longer.
And if the nvme drive runs out, it's easily replaceable, unlike the internal drive.
If things were to slow down or you want to use this system for a very long time, I recommend getting a separate thunderbolt 3 enclosure with nvme drive.
Put all your working projects files on it, as well as use it as scratch disk.
This offloads read/writes from your internal disk which will have it last longer.
And if the nvme drive runs out, it's easily replaceable, unlike the internal drive.
Large internal storage is good if you need to edit while not connected to external storage.
More external storage is probably the better option. Even the Samsung T7 is so compact and portable. So 1TB internal is more than sufficient.
More external storage is probably the better option. Even the Samsung T7 is so compact and portable. So 1TB internal is more than sufficient.
It's time to start throwing around some numbers before settling on 1TB being 'enough'.
For example:
- the "shooting ratio" of how much stuff you capture versus the final length of the deliverable
- the number of concurrent projects that need to have a resting place while you're working on them
- whether you shoot in H.264, H.265 (not so bad) or ProRes or any flavors of RAW (can be really bad)
- whether there will be multicam projects or concerts
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4k ???
Then, YES, you need more than 1tb (total). As you already know, project sizes of any length can get pretty large.
Hmmm... 1tb would probably be ok for the internal drive, so long as you use it mostly for "work in progress, and supplement it with external storage to "off-load" projects once they're completed.
Then, YES, you need more than 1tb (total). As you already know, project sizes of any length can get pretty large.
Hmmm... 1tb would probably be ok for the internal drive, so long as you use it mostly for "work in progress, and supplement it with external storage to "off-load" projects once they're completed.
be aware the T7 is pretty slow compared to a thunderbolt based NVME external SSD.
my t7 measures out at a pokey 700 MB/s. that's roughly 1/10th the speed of the internal SSD on my ultra studio.
Can you elaborate on the benefits of ever-faster drives? For example, three 4k ProRes cameras smoothly edit at xxMBytes/sec, but there's some non-linear relationship, and six 4k ProRes cameras needs xxMBytes/sec ...
The write and read speeds for a 2TB T7 are below. This is quite fast enough for editing 4K video with Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Premier Pro. Indeed, it's in line with what full-time professional film editors have from their NAS systems.
I happen to use NVMe M.2 SSDs as well as Samsung T7 SSDs. In particular, I use Samsung Gen. 4 2TB 980 Pros. I started what is now a 6-page thread about the Mac Studio and NVMe drives, and just made two posts showing the results of setting up two 980 Pros in RAID 0. The read and write speeds are impressive in the abstract, but confer no benefit for editing 4K video. See posts #84 and #85 on page 6: Thunderbolt 4 & NVMe M.2 External Storage: Read/Write Speeds?
Purchasing NVMe drives and enclosures for them is significantly more expensive than purchasing T7 drives. They also introduce heat management issues, and can have reliability problems.
My personal view is that there's an argument, up to about 2TB, for paying Apple for internal storage rather than buying an NVMe M.2 enclosure and drive.
Whether it's fast or slow will depend on the type of work you're doing.
It still works fine for editing 4K videos, and is fast enough as shown in screenshot from F-train above.
I went with 2TB so I have room to work on current projects locally and then archive older projects onto external drives.
The speed advantage of the internal drives is one of the main features of the Mac Studio for video editing.
Hi MTO:
The amount of internal SSD is dependent on how you work. I typically work on possibly one or two video projects at a time using Davinci Resolve Studio. Most of my videos are UHD4K, H265, 23.976 FPS and never longer than 15 minutes. When completing a project, I move it to an archive file on my home server.
I had a late 2016 MBP15 with 1 TB. On occasion I would run out of SSD space. Hence, I purchased a late 2021 MBP16 with 4 TB. With 4 TB I never runs out of SSD. That said, based on my usage, 2 TB would have been more than adequate.
Your choice of SSD size will depend on your projects and how you work.
Don
The amount of internal SSD is dependent on how you work. I typically work on possibly one or two video projects at a time using Davinci Resolve Studio. Most of my videos are UHD4K, H265, 23.976 FPS and never longer than 15 minutes. When completing a project, I move it to an archive file on my home server.
I had a late 2016 MBP15 with 1 TB. On occasion I would run out of SSD space. Hence, I purchased a late 2021 MBP16 with 4 TB. With 4 TB I never runs out of SSD. That said, based on my usage, 2 TB would have been more than adequate.
Your choice of SSD size will depend on your projects and how you work.
Don
I'm using Orico enclosures but I can't seem to find them in on the US Amazon website.
Yottamaster
This would be something similar.
They come in more variations, some are backwards compatible with USB if necessary.
Since 2500MB/s is the general read/write limit, any nvme ssd would do. I'd concentrate on the ones with the highest TBW, they'll last longer and usually have the best warranty. I'm using Samsung and Silicon Power nvme's and none have failed so far.
Hmm just buy as much as you can afford. If you are not making money off this yet, just buy some bulk external storage. Use that to offload your finished projects and working files to the bulk storage. Keep your internal drive to a minimum and only use it for applications and your active project(s) and related files.
Once you get a better handle on your workflow modify it more. Anything external can always be repurposed so it's won't go to waste.
Once you get a better handle on your workflow modify it more. Anything external can always be repurposed so it's won't go to waste.
I've got two of these from Orico...
ORICO M.2 Enclosure for NVMe SSD, USB4.0 40Gbps Type-C to M Key B+M Key 2280 Aluminum External SSD Case Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4 USB3.2/3.1/3.0/ Type-C-M2V01
ORICO M.2 Enclosure for NVMe SSD, USB4.0 40Gbps Type-C to M Key B+M Key 2280 Aluminum External SSD Case Compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4 USB3.2/3.1/3.0/ Type-C-M2V01
smile.amazon.com
I only edit on external TB3-NVMe-drives. I do not copy video renders or anything else onto the internal drive. Finished projects are moved to an 4-Bay-HDD-Raid. For the external edit drives 1TB is not enough. Things can escalate quickly, if you ingest high bitrate 4k footage. So I would recommend you to use 2 TB.
Do you still stand by the 2TB internal view? I’m about to buy an MBP M3 Max with 128 GB ram and 2 TB Internal SSD. I was going for 4TB but the $$$’s are nuts. I’m already spending a motza. But what the heck… I can’t add more RAM later but I can do external SSD.
For me as an editor anything more than 512 is completely pointless. Everything runs off externals. I upgraded my previous trash can to 1tb and still only used around 250gb max.
If you are doing more than just Video editing, internal 1TB min, 2TB nice. I'm always pushing a 1TB internal to the limit, so choose 2TB. External I found 4TB ssd OK, NVMe better. My Libraries tend to grow to about 3.5 TB over the course of a year. RAM, std is OK, if you tend to have a lot of browser windows open, more RAM is better.
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Hi. Sorry I didn't see your question earlier. Yes, my view on this hasn't changed.