EX3 & Working Solid State Drive (SSD)
 

This is a follow up to the previous thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...hardrives.html

I received several e-mails and comments that "at the end of the day" the Western Digital Passport was still a "harddrive" prone to shock and eventual failure. Therefore it would be unreliable for shooters requiring the same endurance as the SXS. So I moved on with the goal of implementing a solid state drive (SSD) that does not have any moving parts and is completely shock proof as Sony's SXS storage.

There were a lot of technical considerations to make given that the SSD technology that is now emerging cleans up many of the first and second generation issues. So this implementation is a pretty good balance of cost-performance tailored to the EX1/3 camera.

The Corsair SSD is $289 US
The RocketFish USB/SATA Case is $30 US
The Dolgin BP-30/90 Power Unit modified with 5 volt regulators is $40 US
The hacked ExpressCard fitted with USB cable comes from spare parts.
Not bad for 5 hours of EX1/3 recording!

Interestingly the performance tests reveal that this USB-SSD configuration is equal to and better than Sony's SXS. I have not yet taken the time to fill up the SSD with 308 minutes of video and then measure how much time it will take to off-load to a computer via SATA-2. However as you can see the SSD SATA-2 read performance is more than respectable.

I'm waiting for Jeff DeMaagd to ship my EX3 upgrade from plate to a shoulder mount. This will the platform to mount the modified Dolgin BP-30 battery power and the SSD/Case.

I searched the net for Dolgan BP-30/90 Power supply and found nothing listed - can you tell me who makes it and maybe the capacity and voltage output before regulation?

thanks

Paul

Paul,

It's Dolgin, not Dolgan :)

I think this is the unit...

EX-V adapter [EX-V] - $39.00 : DOLGIN CAMERA POWER, Battery Chargers · Simultaneous Quad and Dual Chargers for Sony, Panasonic, Canon, JVC CAMERAS · 7.2v and 12V-14V DC Converters · DC Power adapters

Aaah !! thanks, I found it now.

Barry, I wonder how much loss there is with a 7 volt drop at around 150mA to give 5 volts in terms of operation time from a single charge?

I recently built a 5 volt NIMH pack which drives an external Seagate USB drive connected to my EX1, and draws about 350mA in write mode. In theory it should run for 12 hours, using 8 cells providing 4.2Ah, but in reality gives me 9 hours running time.

I'm just concerned about power wastage and therefore active drive operation time when in the field. Obviously the SSD drive you are testing only uses around 150mA - any info on how long a single charge BPU 60 would run the SSD for?

I roughly calculate that the SSD and the regulator/voltage drop would total about 900mA, giving about 4 and a half hours operation

Please correct my math if it's way off!

thanks

Paul

Paul, there is very little current lost because I am using a standard Motorola 7805 voltage regulator TO-220 case. It can handle a max input of 35 volts and maintain a regulated 5 volt and deliver up to 1 amp output if necessary. In this case the Sony BP-30/90 battery outputs anywhere from 12-14 volts.

One consideration in choosing the Corsair SSD for this application is that it has very low power consumption (96 ma max.) as you can see from the specs attached above. So the Sony BP-30 has all kinds of capacity for this unit. I've modified the Dolgin adapter to accommodate two 5 volt regulators so that it can power two SSD's. The bottom plate is 1/8 inch aluminum so there is plenty of heat sink space. As mentioned, I have yet to run the thing for 5 hours, however with the SSD power utilization I don't anticipate any problems.

Please let us know how your tests go, I'm currently using two Seagate drives, but am very keen on the lower consumption/higher reliability of the SSD's - I'm often shooting 6 hours with 3 EX1's so for me its a great way forward without breaking the bank.

I also ran some tests on 12v supply for 5 volt USB drives using 7805's and some other low dropout regulators, but wow, did they dissipate some heat delivering 400mA !! at least the SSD is a lot lower in power needs, and as you say, the Dolgin has good heatsink abilities too.

thanks

Paul

The Dolgin part actually ships with a piece of plastic for its bottom cover. So here, I used a scrape piece of aluminum and fabricated the bottom cover to house the two 5 volt regulators, as well as provide tapped holes for a mounting on either the EX3 cold shoe or the Demaadg Shoulder Mount.

It's worth mentioning that many of the SSD's currently on the market actually consume more power than conventional harddrives. This has been verified by Tom's Hardware with independent tests to debunk the marketing spin.

Hi Paul, I just completed filling up the SSD so that I could measure off-load time to computer as well as estimate the battery life.

SSD off-loading via SATA2 to computer is 20 minutes for 308 minutes (5.13 hrs) of video.

Estimated BP-U30 life with the 128GB Corsair SSD continuously writing is 6.7 hrs.
Estimated BP-U30 life with the 128GB Corsair SSD continuously reading is 6.4 hrs.

The SSD drive case under continuous writing or reading for over 5 hrs remains cool to the touch.

The modified Dolgin power pack with the 1/8 inch aluminum bottom gets warm to the touch when continuously reading. However when continuously writing/recording there is only slightly warmth to the touch.

This is about all the formal testing I plan on doing. I feel very satisfied with the end result and especially pleased with the off-load time. It will be a great time saver compared to SDHC card off-loading which are painfully slow. My 16GB Sandisk Extreme III's takes 15 minutes to off-load 1 hr of video. SSD off-loading for 5 hrs of video takes 20 minutes. Cheers!

Voltage regulators
 

You might get better efficiency and less heat using a switch mode regulator. That does involve more components though. If there's enough demand I guess the good people at Dolgin could build a run of suitable adaptors.
On the SSD side the new Intel SSDs seem the best of the bunch, at a price and no doubt higher power consumption as they use a faster chipset. On the up side they don't seem to suffer from the problem of performance degradation with use that leads to stuttering, that's the last thing you'd want when writing video to the drive.

Bob, your correct on both points. I choose the Corsair SSD because it uses the more expensive Samsung controller chip which does not suffer from "stuttering" more from "white space fragmentation." This latter issue has plagued the first and second generation Intel SSD's. Intel has only recently updated its firmware to solve the fragmentation issue in their second generation controller.

Barry,

just to be sure, do all SSD's come with USB as well as SATA connections? I'm finding little documentation on some drives I've looked at - massivley fast ingest time - wow!

thanks

Paul

I used some of these ones for my prompter (12V for the monitor and 5V for the VGA transmitter out of 24V)

This sounds really good news. I hope someone is able to offer a 'kit' with all the bits ready assembled / soldered for the less technically minded like myself. I would hate to blow my cam up because I may have soldered the wrong wires to the wrong bits.

Well done to the pioneers of this method, lets hope its available to the masses at a sensible price in the near future.

Stuart

Hi Paul, the actual SSD is typically packaged exactly the same as any 2.5 inch SATA drive. So it is the case that provides the USB and/or eSATA2 ports as well as power input either by the USB bus or a standard 2.1mm power plug. Some of the newest SSD's now provide an option that also includes the case.

I had to look for a while to find the Rocketfish case because I also wanted the eSATA port for off-loading purposes. Cheers!

Stuart, I have no plans to make this into a revenue generating enterprise. For my part, I love to pioneer-learn-innovate, so all my research, engineering and development is public domain and free to use. All the pieces are off the shelf and use industry standards - nothing is proprietary.

In truth, Sony has provided the EX camera with an industry standard PCI ExpressBus and firmware for limited USB data transfers but no firmware/interface to provide open eSATA-II data transfers. Sony also offers the USB ExpressCard and cable in their 60GB harddrive package but no option to purchase the former as an individual item. An EX firmware upgrade to support open SATA data transfer is highly desirable now the SSD's are in the mainstream. Red One already offers this option.

I would also invite Convergent Design to offer an eSATA-2 port rather than the Compact Flash card sas an option on their FlashXDR and NanoFlash devices at which point, I for one would surely buy their product. This kind of innovation adds tremendous value to products that are already very good at what they do--and they clearly have the potential to be even better and more desirable for videographers.

So for any enterprising individuals/companies, please do provide a package or some options so that our entire EX community can benefit. I am confident that there are other combinations of SSD/Case/Power that can also offer a good price-performance balance. Cheers!

Yes, it is possible to put a 5V regulator in the EX-V adapter, as Paul noted it has to be a switching kind as at the currents over 100 ma efficiency becomes a serious concideration. We could come up with a solution quickly as we already have a regulator board used in another product (7.2V DC converter). What about the 5V connector? Is a SATA power plug going to do? USB? If somebody takes a picture or provide a link, would be great.

Alex,

Looking at the RocketFish enclosure it has both a 5 pin connector, which is industry standard USB, and a power socket, although there's no indication of its size.

A USB female, power only, would be good as well as a "Roca" plug, although the size is questionable, it rather depends on common sizes used.

Completely agree regarding switched mode regulator to make losses a minimum, and battery life a maximum in the field.

Cable length is also important, not too short from the battery unit to the drive and to the camera adapter.. after my tests, I found it helped to be able to attach the drive and power unit onto the tripod with high power velcro, rather than having everything hanging onto the camera body!

Paul

Paul, it looks like they use a mini USB, so if we cut the left part of the cable off http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/688060020_sd.pdf and have the right part (mini USB 5 pin plug) coming out of the EX-V adapter, it should work. Right?

The Rocketfish enclosure requires a standard 2.1mm power adaptor. Typically 2.5 inch drive cases are either mini USB bus powered or of the 2.1 mm power adaptor variety. I have not yet found any cases were the SATA power terminals are externally available. Hope this helps.

Alex, good news to hear that a 5 volt switching regulator can be made available. Cheers!

Update: The folks over on the other forum also pointed out this European case which is the same configuration as the Rocketfish:

http://www.raidsonic.de/en/pages/pro..._objectID=4806

And with a second glance, I happened to notice this case only support SATA-1 (1.5Gb/s). So be cautioned if your expecting SATA-2 data transfer speeds. The Rocketfish case and all the new SSD's support SATA-2 (3.0Gb/s).

As I said on the other forum, I'm looking for someone to solder USB cable to Express34 adapter. I tried one myself on an old Sonnet card and coldn't get it to work. I was not cut out either to be a surgeon or solderer. The case, etc, I have no problem assembling myself.

As far as power, I have a ton of Tekkeon MP3450 batteries and was planning on testing with that once I get a working adapter.

Found the Corsair SSD at Newegg.com for $299.

Ned

I quickly made a 5V adapter today; only had parts for one adapter, with a 2.1mm plug DC output. I also ordered a mini USB cable, so in a few days will be able to offer a USB version. As it is not an "official" product yet, I put together a quick and dirty PayPal order page at EX-V5V adapter

I think the majority of potential users have a problem "manufacturing" the modified express card adapter, not only in terms of soldering skills, but confidence - no one wants to damage their camera.

We really need someone to make these cards, and cheaply too, there's nothing inside them!

Mine was made with a damaged Kensington, pretty tricky, I cut off the socket leaving the pins to solder to and added a new "card" made from plastic and epoxy resin to embed the cable - works fine but a bit of a hassle as I couldn't find the "easier to convert" cards in Europe.

Oh, nice one Alex, just the ticket, cool running efficient and enough power to run a pair of drives -

Paul

Well, for those of us who bought a phu-60k, it's nice to know we now have an option to spend less than $500 ($300 corsair + $100 dolgin adapter ) to get 5 hours of recording using the express card cable that came with the phu unit.

It still would be nice to have a card/cable with a longer reach, as Paul suggested, to get the drive off the camera. I found that the added weight of the phu, given the already unforgiving hand-held ergonomics of the ex3 , was the straw that made it just too unwieldy for handheld (great for interviews on a tripod, though).

Maybe using the drive with the vf or dm shoulder mounts would be the ticket.

Ned, I have to agree. My first prototype connector took me several hours with a magnifying glass and soldering iron to get proper connections. However, on my second go for the final SSD cable I left the molex connector on the ExpressCard daughterboard so that the USB wires are more easily attached to the molex pins. To accomplish this, I used my larger soldering gun to apply heat to the back off the motherboard, enough so that with a little pressure the duaghterboard molex connector lifted away. So no heat was applied to the daughterboard or its molex connector, thus it comes away without any damage whatsoever. This makes the task much easier. See the attached pictures.

I have also included the pinout details so that the USB cable can more easily be soldered to the molex pins without having to fiddle under a magnifying glass. You may also find it easier to solder the Black USB wire and its Sheath to the otherside of the daughterboard where its ground plane has lots of space and an exposed ground point to solder to. Make sure to use an Ohm Meter to check for continuity and no shorts - do keep your shorts on though:-) This may still be a bit of a challenge for people with big fingers and a few thumbs ;-)

P.S. The Sonnet, Sandisk and Delkin ExpressCard adaptors have this daughterboard arrangement. Cheers!

Mike the PHU-60K is $1200 plus taxes in Canada. Morever, it remains a harddrive with moving parts and eventual mechanical failure as well suffer from painfully slow USB off-loading transfers. Those who do have this unit however, have a ready made ExpressCard adaptor with the required USB cable. That may be some consolation.

this really cool box
PRODIMEX eShop | Votre magasin online
has a e-sata conector and a docking station so you just need to slide it in the rack for the transfer.
add a SSD inside the case, and you got the perfect tool.

I probably didn't make the point clearly, but yes, Barry, it is consolation (altho I'm happy with the phu for interviews), knowing that a much better solution is available for not too much money.

SSD off-loading to Raid-0 Array
 

I've discovered some more real-world surprises in my everyday use of this SSD.

1) SATA-2 Off-loading 5.1 hrs of video to the MacPro desktop = 20 minutes
2) SATA-2 Off-loading 5.1 hrs of video to the MacPro Raid-0 = 14 minutes !!!
3) USB Off-loading 5.1 hrs of video to either desktop/Raid-0 = 40 minutes

So the SSD can off-load 5.1 hrs of video faster than one hour of video on a SDHC card. Even a USB transfer from the SSD is three faster than the same amount of video stored on SDHC cards. A huge time-saver for tapeless workflows using SSD's.

In all of this, I have also completed an actual time measurement for the Sony BP-U30 battery to power the SSD. The battery ran continuously for 7 hours and 20 minutes before depletion. So a BP-U60 battery has more than enough juice to record over 10 hours of video onto two SSD units.

And finally the Rocketfish SSD case is capable of USB bus-powering without an external 5 volt supply. The SATA port however does require the external 5 volt supply.

As the SSD pulls around 100mA, I wonder how much the RocketFish enclosure draws? according to your 7 hour and 20 minute life cycle of the BPU30, this gives your consumption at around 750mA - I guess with a switched mode converter, you could well get double that duration - assuming the RocketFish pulls 200mA (should be less)

Alex quoted about 95% efficiency for his DC to DC convertor which is pretty high, many I've looked at quote 80%

Interesting, it would be great if a single BPU30 could run a set up for 12 hours - if the total power needs were say 2W @5V you should achieve this easily with a 90% efficient convertor -

just thinking aloud here, more testing to do...

Barry - fantastic ingest speeds !!

Paul

The BP-U30 battery is rated at 1.9 Amp-Hrs or 1900 ma-hrs. Divide that by 7.33 hrs of use and you get 260 ma. This is the total current draw for the SSD, the Case with controller/status light and the inefficiency of the regulator. Not sure how you arrived at 750 ma?

I'm sure a switching regulator is more efficient and will provide some benefit. For argument's sake say 100 ma for the SSD and 100 ma for the Case/controller/status light. So at 80-90% switching regulator efficiency that would work out to roughly 9 hrs of battery life.

first let me say.. thank you...
I'm a little confused
I ordered the ex v5v from Alex
Barry you stated that
"And finally the Rocketfish SSD case is capable of USB bus-powering without an external 5 volt supply. The SATA port however does require the external 5 volt supply."
I want to run two ssd
I ordered the rocketfish ssd's
Do I need a different product from Alex.. he sent the v5v with one 2.1 plug
He said to run two drives cut off the connector and put two 2.1 plugs.. is that the way to get the most efficient power? or should it be wired different internally?
Am I on the right track...
Thanks

But it still needs battery powering when using the express card cable for recording, correct?

Hey Mike...
Not sure.. trying to stay on track with this...

Can someone clear this up a little... thx

Dolgin v5v with one 2.1mm plug to power (1)corsair ssd drive in a roketfish case
(1)express 34 card reader modified

For (2) ssd's
Cut off 2.1mm plug and attach (2) 2.1mm plugs
Use two modified express 34 readers with two usb cables coming out of ex3 to drives..

1 up60 Battery should power both drives for over 10 hours
Is this right?

Your math is right based on 14.4 volts, but you're running at 5v ?

260mA at 14.4 volts = 3.744 W = 7.4 hours approx - correct.

Your rig is running at 5v 260mA = 1.3 W = 21 hours approx

the regulator loss is: 9v drop at 260mA drawn = 2.3W

I'm not making an issue of this, just hoping that we can get this thing to run for ages on a single quick charge battery :-)

I hope I'm right, but probably not, Ha Ha! my days of maths are long over - Cheers!

Paul

Paul, you are right. The easy way to do it in your head is if you have a 5V linear voltage regulator, when powering with a 10V power source, 1/2 is wasted as heat, another half goes to the load. In our case at 14.4V power it is even worse, most of the battery charge is wasted. When using a switching voltage regulator almost all of the battery charge is delivered to the drive, making it run very long.

Rocketfish Power Plug
 

I went out and actually purchased a power plug for the Rocketfish case to double check its size.

Turns out is a 1.3 mm plug. Sorry about that Alex.

The EX camera does not have 5 volts available via the ExpressCard bus, so the SSD's will need an external source of 5 volts. Enter the need for the Dolgin power adaptor to make good use of the Sony BP-U30 battery that came with the camera. Cheers!

Do you have the part number?
Thx