EX3 & Working Solid State Drive (SSD) at DVinfo.net

Barry J. Anwender · May 21st, 2009, 12:10 AM

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.

Paul Newman · May 21st, 2009, 03:10 AM

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

Piotr Wozniacki · May 21st, 2009, 04:36 AM

Paul,

It's Dolgin, not Dolgan :)

Ray Bell · May 21st, 2009, 04:55 AM

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

Paul Newman · May 21st, 2009, 05:33 AM

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

Barry J. Anwender · May 21st, 2009, 06:25 AM

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.

Paul Newman · May 21st, 2009, 06:55 AM

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

Barry J. Anwender · May 21st, 2009, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Newman

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.

Barry J. Anwender · May 21st, 2009, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Newman

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. Paul

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!

Bob Grant · May 21st, 2009, 05:59 PM

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.

Barry J. Anwender · May 21st, 2009, 06:12 PM

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.

Paul Newman · May 22nd, 2009, 12:35 AM

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

Giroud Francois · May 22nd, 2009, 01:11 AM

1W Single Output Isolated DC-DC Convertors > Maplin

Giroud Francois · May 22nd, 2009, 01:20 AM

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

Stuart Wilson · May 22nd, 2009, 01:54 AM

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

May 21st, 2009, 03:10 AM	#2
Paul Newman Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Agua Blanca Ibiza Posts: 305	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 __________________ Another Sunny Day in Ibiza

May 21st, 2009, 04:36 AM	#3
Piotr Wozniacki Inner Circle Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Poland Posts: 4,086	Paul, It's Dolgin, not Dolgan :) __________________ Sony PXW-FS7 \| DaVinci Resolve Studio; Magix Vegas Pro; i7-5960X CPU; 64 GB RAM; 2x GTX 1080 8GB GPU; Decklink 4K Extreme 12G; 4x 3TB WD Black in RAID 0; 1TB M.2 NVMe cache drive

May 21st, 2009, 05:33 AM	#5
Paul Newman Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Agua Blanca Ibiza Posts: 305	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 __________________ Another Sunny Day in Ibiza

May 21st, 2009, 06:25 AM	#6
Barry J. Anwender Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Saskatchewan, Canada Posts: 382	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. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Barry J. Anwender; May 21st, 2009 at 03:22 PM.

May 21st, 2009, 06:55 AM	#7
Paul Newman Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Agua Blanca Ibiza Posts: 305	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 __________________ Another Sunny Day in Ibiza

May 21st, 2009, 04:55 AM	#4
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	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

May 21st, 2009, 05:59 PM	#10
Bob Grant Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,570	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.

May 21st, 2009, 06:12 PM	#11
Barry J. Anwender Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Saskatchewan, Canada Posts: 382	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.

May 22nd, 2009, 12:35 AM	#12
Paul Newman Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Agua Blanca Ibiza Posts: 305	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 __________________ Another Sunny Day in Ibiza

May 22nd, 2009, 01:11 AM	#13
Giroud Francois Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: switzerland Posts: 2,133	1W Single Output Isolated DC-DC Convertors > Maplin

May 22nd, 2009, 01:20 AM	#14
Giroud Francois Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: switzerland Posts: 2,133	I used some of these ones for my prompter (12V for the monitor and 5V for the VGA transmitter out of 24V)

May 22nd, 2009, 01:54 AM	#15
Stuart Wilson Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Warrington, UK Posts: 48	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