F3 - Samurai issue

[Peter Ford]

I know a few on here are using a samurai - we've had a strange issue, and I'm interested to see if anyone else has had similar.

Kit used:

F3
Samurai
Intel SSD

All with up to date firmware.

The samura has been performing fine, but yesterday we had a serious issue- we put the SSD in the samurai drive reader to transfer footage, and the mac gave the error "this disk is not readble by this computer"

Put back in samurai - not readable. Hooked the reader up to a PC - not readble.

We've lost some important footage. We were recording to SxS cards as well, but client was paying for higher bitrate material.

I've done some testing today, with a different SSD drive, and different computer. I've recreated the problem once. which is quite worrying.

Problem only occurs when putting the SSD in the samurai reader. Once the mac gives the message e'disk not readable", the SSD is essentially bricked, until formatted on the Samurai.

Needless to say, i've lost faith in using it on paid jobs. My gut feeling is something isnt right with the reader, not the samurai.

Waiting for a call back from samurai, and from cvp. Still doing some testing, to see if i can replicate the problem a third time.

Anyone else had and samurai issues?

[Alister Chapman]

Not seen that issue myself. So far it's been rock solid with the SSD's. Had vibration induced issues with HDD's, but that's to be expected. Also in Norway at -20c the Atomos supplied batteries were rubbish lasting only 10 or 15 mins while genuine Sony batts lasted 2 to 3 hours. At normal temps the Atomos Batteries have lasted many hours.

The reader is a pretty simple sata to firewire/usb adapter. If you have a spare external 2.5" drive you could possibly remove the drive from it's enclosure and then use the enclosure as a reader for the SSD, repeat your tests and see if the problem occurs again. Maplin sell a cheap data to USB adapter that should work: http://www.maplin.co.uk/usb-3.0-to-s...-bridge-517247

[Doug Jensen]

I have not had an trouble either using a 300GB Intel SSD . . . but I have only used the Samurai a few times so far. Thanks for the heads up, I will be extra cautious.

I'll be using it this weekend and there will be no backup if it fails.

[Ryan Sarver]

I have also experienced this issue. Losing footage as well. Anyway, I had issues with my first Samurai which caused the problem. I haven't had problems with my current one. The issue showed itself on my intel 320 160gb

[Chuck Fishbein]

One other issue to watch for...
I put the Samurai in my camera bag, in a small pouch, with the batteries still mounted and it managed to turn itself on. In short order it was as hot as a toaster.

So, always remove the batteries.

[Duke Marsh]

I haven't had any issues with the drives, either SSD and HDD, not being readable. I do format them with each use. That might be an issue if you are just deleting the files, though many people do that without a problem (for awhile).

exFat is still using a file allocation table. Deleting the file without formatting is leaving a table that doesn't match the data.

I bet you could use a file recovery program and get your files back as long as they recorded in the first place and you haven't overwritten them..

[Alister Chapman]

Currently ONLY the Intel X25 40Gb, 80GB and 160GB SSD's are recommended for the Atomos products. These drives are from the X25-M range, not the newer X25-V range. I would be very cautious about using unsupported SSD's. Many SSD's have issues when used in video devices, not just the Samurai. If using Intel 320's in particular you must be very careful as Intel admit that these can suffer from something they call Bad Context 13x Error, where the drive effectively dies with the loss of all data if it is disconnected or reconnected to it's power source in anything other than a completely perfect manner, which could clearly be a regular occurrence in a device like the Samurai as you remove it and plug it in to the caddy. There is a firmware update for the 320 SSD's from intel

http://www.intel.com/go/ssdtoolbox/

But reading through the forums, it appears that the problem has not completely gone away even with the firmware update.

It's not a risk I would be happy with. I believe the 300GB Intel X25-V is actually from the 320 series. I believe the X25-M's are only available in sizes up to 160GB, but I could be wrong.

There's are good reasons why some SSD's and HDD's get approved and others don't. I use Intel X25-M 160GB drives, they are a little more expensive, but then what's your footage worth?

[Doug Jensen]

Alister,

Thank you for the warning. I wasn't even aware of any issue with those drives. I agree with you 100% that is a bad idea to try to save money buying less expensive drives or memory cards, but that was not my intention here. My decision to buy the drive I bought was not based on price at all. I just thought it would be a good drive compared to HDDs. Looks like I've got some work to do before I use the Samurai again this weekend. Thanks again for the warning.

[Ron Wilk]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Currently ONLY the Intel X25 40Gb, 80GB and 160GB SSD's are recommended for the Atomos products. These drives are from the X25-M range, not the newer X25-V range. I would be very cautious about using unsupported SSD's. Many SSD's have issues when used in video devices, not just the Samurai. If using Intel 320's in particular you must be very careful as Intel admit that these can suffer from something they call Bad Context 13x Error, where the drive effectively dies with the loss of all data if it is disconnected or reconnected to it's power source in anything other than a completely perfect manner, which could clearly be a regular occurrence in a device like the Samurai as you remove it and plug it in to the caddy. There is a firmware update for the 320 SSD's from intel

Intel(R) Redirect

But reading through the forums, it appears that the problem has not completely gone away even with the firmware update.

It's not a risk I would be happy with. I believe the 300GB Intel X25-V is actually from the 320 series. I believe the X25-M's are only available in sizes up to 160GB, but I could be wrong.

There's are good reasons why some SSD's and HDD's get approved and others don't. I use Intel X25-M 160GB drives, they are a little more expensive, but then what's your footage worth?

The Atmos site specifies the "x25" SSD, but most advertisers, including Intel refer to it as the x25M. Are they one in the same?
BTW, no problem so far with a 320 series 160GB SSD on the Samurai.

[Alister Chapman]

The drives specified by Atomos appear to be the original X25 series which came in 40, 80 and 160GB capacities, these are also known as the "X25-M".

last year Intel brought out the 320 series. Very similar to the original "X25-M", the 320 series go up to 300GB. Sometimes you will find the 320's referred to as "X25-V 320 series".

The Bad Context 13x Error only affects the 320 series drives, which would include drives referred to as "X25-V". The error occurs when removing power from the drive. When powered back up the drive becomes unreadable and all data is un-recoverable. There is no warning or other indication prior to the failure. The firmware update was supposed to fix the problem, but if you google the error you'll find plenty of reports of drives with the updated firmware failing in the same manner.

Just to put some perspective to this, there are also reports of OCZ and Crucial SSD's failing when used for video.

[Ron Wilk]

Thought I would share this excerpt found on one of the various forums:

"...in the meantime Intel's message is: don't stop buying the drives, only a small percentage of are affected. If you have one, back up your data regularly, as although the SSD 320 is non-volatile memory, the bug makes it very volatile indeed and you lose data.

Shut down your system in the standard way: don't just turn the power off. Also, try to minimise unplugging of the SSD 320 when your system is powered."

I guess the takeaway is that not all series 320 drives are affected by this bug.

[Nate Weaver]

Buying a SSD (a 320), and then an X25 for the Samurai got me interested in getting one for my Macbook Pro.

Last few days I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about SSDs, mostly via Anandtech. This news about X25s does not surprise me.

Suffice to say SSDs, while they have come a long way in the last 2-3 years, still have a bit to go before they are 100% rock solid. Intel X25s appear to have the best reliability short of some of Intel's enterprise offerings (most of which are based off of the X25 anyway, so Mr. Anand Shimpi says)

Incidentally, I put an OCZ Vertex3 in my 2011 Macbook Pro 17, and it's just off the planet fast now. It was tough to say before which was faster, my previous 2009 nehalem 8 core Mac Pro, or the new 17, but now it's a whole new ballgame.

[Tony Brennan]

Samurai recomended SDD drives now includes the 320 series.

Compatible Drives

Manufacturer Model Capacity Speed
HHD
Hitachi Travelstar 7K/Z7K Series 320GB - 750GB 7200 rpm
Hitachi Travelstar 5K/Z5K Series 320GB - 750GB 5400 rpm
Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB - 750GB 7200 rpm
Seagate Momentus 500GB - 750GB 7200 rpm
Toshiba MK7559GSXP 750GB 5400 rpm
SSD
Intel X25 series 40GB, 80GB,160B limited stock
Intel 320 series 40GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 300GB, or 600GB
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB - 480GB
OCZ Agility 3 120GB - 480GB
Solid State Drives are designed in such a way that the smaller the capacity the slower the drive will perform. Please bear this in mind when purchasing SSD drives

[Alister Chapman]

Ouch, recommending a drive known to fail catastrophically. I'll stick to my X25's until Intel sort the 320's out. Maybe not every 320 is going to fail, maybe the majority are OK, but a quick google search shows it not to be an isolated problem. Would you buy SxS cards if Sony said we know there's a problem, it doesn't happen often, but you could loose all your data. Caveat Emptor. It's russian roulette with your footage. If I was in Atomos's shoes I don't think I would recommend the 320's as very often it only takes one person to have a catastrophic loss to give a product a bad name and the end user will blame Atomos not realising it might be an Intel issue.

A lot of the Atomos pages need updating with the new list.

Of course double recording, internally as well as externally gives you some insurance.

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Tony Brennan

Solid State Drives are designed in such a way that the smaller the capacity the slower the drive will perform. Please bear this in mind when purchasing SSD drives

Can I regurgitate some info I just picked up from Anandtech? It seems any drive made in the last 1-2 years has plenty of headroom to write the 35MB/sec Prores HQ requires. Only the oldest drives could run into problems. (again, not an expert, just paraphrasing 4 articles from Anandtech) Smaller drives fall down in random writes, which our Samurai will never do.

That said, some of the WORST, OLDEST drives would probably crap out when close to full.

Just another comment on the new list of drives from Samurai...it seems pretty much all issues from SSDs come from the vast variety of SATA controllers and OS combinations not playing nice with the SSD controller. It would not surprise me that an SSD known to have problems amongst the PC enthusiast crowd to work just fine consistently with one known scenario (i.e. the Samurai), because it's always the same hardware, and it's always written to in the same manner, over and over again.

If nothing else, all this SSD talk just hammers home to me the importance of rolling to SxS for backup at the same time. No biggie, it's good practice anyway.