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BUYERS’ GUIDE
Internal SSDdrivesmight bemore regularly used for laptops and PCs, but are also essential for filmmakers for use inside caddies to fit some of the faster monitor/ recorders, or even inside cameras. The 870 QVO SATA SSD is a quad- level cell (QLC) flash drive and comes in capacities from 1TB up to 8TB, and has a great mix of speed, storage capacity and SAMSUNG SSD 870 QVO 1TB £111/$130 samsung.com
reliability. Large capacities like this werepreviously thedomainsofHDDdrives, rather than the faster SSDs. The 870 QVO offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively, with the drive’s Intelligent TurboWrite technology allowing it to maintain peak performance levels using a large variable SLC buffer.
The 870 QVO also delivers a 13% improvement in random read speed compared to the 860 QVO. It provides an endurance rating of up to 2880TB written data or a three-year warranty.
It wasn’t that long ago that a 1TB external hard drive was a milestone. And now you can buy memory cards with 1TB of storage, such as the Lexar Professional 633x SDXC UHS-I card. This high-capacity card is really designed for mid-range DSLR, mirrorless or HD camcorders rather than high-end LEXAR 633X SDXC UHS-1 1TB £299/$379 lexar.com
professional models, as its write speed of 633x/95MB/s isn’t really optimum for 4K capture on data-hungry devices. But for mega-long time-lapses or HD footage rather than 4K, it’s more than up to the job thanks to its Class 10, UHS-I rating. It comes with a lifetime warranty, too. You might never have to buy another card!
SANDISK EXTREME PRO CFEXPRESS 128GB CARD £279/$249 sandisk.com
LEASE HARDWARE TO SAVE CASH
for three years then hand it back, although you can buy it at the end if you like. A flexi-lease gives you more options to change your kit, send it back or continue with the plan during the three years, then you will own it at the end for a tiny payment – often just £1. More information: hardsoftcomputers.co.uk
If you really want the latest new computer and hard drive kit, but don’t want to shell out a huge lump of cash all in one go, leasing is a great option. With even software companies like Adobe offering Premiere Pro CC and After Effects as a pay-monthly subscription, it makes sense to spread the cost of the hardware to run it, too. Specialist firms like HardSoft offer the latest Apple Macs, Surface laptops, iPads or any hardware you could need, and allow you to pay a monthly subscription, without a deposit. And something that can make a big difference to a filmmaking business is that there is a technical helpline to help with any issues. HardSoft’s range of options includes a rental scheme where you pay a fixed monthly fee for your computer
Lots of new cameras are moving over to the super- speedy and robust CFexpress cards, like this 128GB beauty from Sandisk. It’s the Extreme Pro series Type B card and reads at up to a blistering 1700MB/s and writes at 1200MB/s, so is faster thanmost things on themarket. There is low latency during high-speed recording and workflow efficiency that’s far beyond anything existing SanDisk cards deliver. It’s also backwards compatible with select XQD cameras that adopt firmware enabling CFexpress. The card includes both RescuePRO Deluxe Recovery Software and a lifetime warranty.
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PRO MOVIEMAKER SUMMER 2020
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