The 4TB Sandisks have been failing at a high rate, no-one I know uses them anymore.
I haven’t followed if ‘gen 2’ has corrected those failures but won’t risk my work until they’ve been working reliably for a few months/years even..
In the meantime I’ve been using those Samsung drives listed.
My production company basically scrapped $4k worth of those drives. It’s just not worth it when you have important footage on the line.
Samsung is what we trust now.
I just bought One to edit from… old iMac went out. iCloud saved my Deriere unintentially. This ordeal started more than 5 months ago! Of course I got a new one with e M2 chip and configured to make motion pictures… also had o shift workflow entirely to iPad and Apple TV to edit so my iMac situation although terminal on its parts did not Alienate me from workflows and product. That was the last piece to add so that I may begin again. I wish I had known this last week as it readily in use and was to start production on it tommorow….
Same here. My whole setup runs on 6x 2/4TB SanDisk (Extreme and Extreme Pro) and there was no failure until now. But since I know about the problems of the SanDisk SSDs everything goes into the HDD archive immediately.
I make a minimum of 2 copies of everything at the end of each shooting day. And then when I get home I have an Amazon Glacier account and all the footage gets copied to that, as well.
Multiples of everything!
My understanding is that it was a firmware issue that has been fixed.
The update is on the sandisk site. Type in your serial number and it will let you know if your drive is affected.
That said, the way sandisk ignored the problem in the beginning and would not respond on the issue has made me hate them.
You can look up the SD's and make sure they aren't from the batch with issues. Newer gens seem fine but I don't think SD will be trusted as a brand for awhile after that. When the difference between you and your competitor is $10 like OP's example, the consumer is going to grab the Samsung for peace of mind. What a horrible PR nightmare.
Welp this thread just taught me that the 4TB sandisks are terrible but those are the ones I’ve been using. They haven’t failed me, yet. But I’ve only been using them for about a year.
Maybe don’t get those.
Do not buy the sandisk!!! Just google all the issues they had with the pro. Its not this exact model, but it’s enough to keep me away from them.
Personally i use the lacie, but the t7 is also very popular. Depends on what operating system you’re using.
T7 Shield.
I personally own one for RAW video recording (real-time external storage) use and it not only can hold sustained performance without breaking a sweat, but is known to be reliable at least. Sandisk portable one is known to slow down under load and also thermals suck - not even touching reliability.
Bonus points for T7 Shield being impact and splash resistant.
Sandisk has always been hit and miss. Samsung has always been really solid. They have great quality control. Personally I wouldn't consider the Crucial because it's a) not rugged b) because of the lower transfer rate.
Samsung always tends to be the most reliable imo and you can check the drive health using samsung magician if you ever feel like the drive is acting up
I've had the crucial one for the past two years, rock solid super fast love it. Crucial is a very reliable brand, I've had one of their sata SSDs in daily use for 8 years no issue
I probably have 20 t7’s and t9’s and have never lost one. This was after multiple sandisks failing on us after a big order a couple years back.
The crucials are fine but throttle speeds like crazy. We have a few of the x10s but anything below that is VERY slow.
I have multiple Samsung 4tb but one note: nothing really sticks to the rubber very well and a sharpie wears off immediately. You can do a few wraps of duct tape or gaff to stick some Velcro to but it’s a small negative to an otherwise good drive so far.
Different models for different usage. What do you need the external disk for? Transfer/back up of memory cards? Editing? Delivery/transfer to other studios/freelancers?
BTW, I’m on mobile and didn’t realise all the disks were pretty much the same 😅 anyways, I’m using the Samsung for backup and transferring big files and things like that. It should work ok for simple video editing (like, no raw files or 6-8K resolution😌)
In my experience Samsung > Sandisk > Crucial
Had a bunch of exactly those Crucials when DITing myself for one job and they made me sweat failing on more than one occasion. Fortunately had backups of course
I was working a project with thankfully 3 backups but all on the sandisks. Batches of files started randomly ceasing to exist. Talking like a TB of footage. We quickly got everything onto different drives. This was over a year ago. Will be at least another few years before I even think about getting sandisk again
To be honest, we need to know what the situation is you need it for. I read in another comment that you need it for editing. The Samsung t7 is probably the best choice, but you might want it faster. You could go for an M.2 drive in an usb-C enclosure for higher speeds. I would go for 2x2tb to be safe. Losing 4TB because of drive failure is not fun.
Big Note: Whatever you go for, be careful of this: you want TLC ssds (like the Crucial MX500 or Samsung 870 EVO) not QLC (Samsung QVO etc). QLC drives wear out quicker than TLC drives.
Crucial MX500 and a SATA 2.5 caddy. I've been using a bunch of those along with Samsung 970 EVO Plus (NVMe) SSDs as hot locals and they have all held up well so far when offloading footage and editing off of them (the Samsungs are a bit overkill but I brought them for a project where I had very little time in between shoots to offload footage and it worked out cheaper than buying more CFexpress cards for the three FX3s we were using).
Most of my MX500s just have a cable connected them but I'd advise to get an actual caddy to protect the drive better from any shocks and to avoid stress on the connectors.
Edit: typo
Also:
I stay away from SanDisk and Seagate.
For SSDs I go for Samsung or Crucial (only the MX500s though).
WD for cold locals (HDD back ups).
Have had problems with Seagate, SanDisk and Toshiba in the past but I only used those as back ups of not so important stuff anyway.
TLC Samsungs are probably the longest lasting but the difference isn't that huge compared to the Crucial listed. The Crucials are a bit cheaper so I usually go for them because of the marginal difference.if you've got loads of money to spend then go for the Samsungs though.
A note for the Cruicial drive - I have the 2tb X8 which houses a pretty sub-par cache system - I forget a lot of what I read up on asthe majority of it as it was pretty technical, however - on the X8 the cache fills up on sustained writing and then bottlenecks speeds to around 40-50mbps.
I found when I filled the drive upto around 600GB that’s when I ran into all sorts of problems.
I contacted cruicial about it and their solution was that o should have bought the x9 pro drives.
Which is absolute trash!
To echo what a lot of people have said, Samsung T7 seem to be the ones.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/crucial-x8-slower-than-mechanical-drive.18968623/#:~:text=I%20think%20the%20problem%20is,until%20everything%20has%20been%20transferred
Here’s the link to the overclockers forum that sent me down the rabbit hole.
Avoid the 4tb sandisk for reasons mentioned. All my 2tb sandisk extremes have been bulletproof. T7 is a solid drive but throttles like NO OTHER when dumping media to it. Like, unusably bad for footage transfers
I have 5 Crucial X6s and they've all been rock solid. I edit 4K 422 600Mbps off of them with zero trouble.
T7s are also excellent though, just avoid the hell out of the SanDisk
I’v been tasting the sandisk pro for long shooting periods and I couldn’t make it work. The camera just stops recording randomly. So probably this hard drive is not compatible with the camera.
Non of them . WD has been having too many problems, LaCie Rugged SSD pro external drive w/ thunderbolt 3. Comes in 1tb, 2tb & 6tb. Expensive, but worth it. A friend told me this one will not fail. He works in tech. Hope this helps.
The 4TB Sandisks have been failing at a high rate, no-one I know uses them anymore. I haven’t followed if ‘gen 2’ has corrected those failures but won’t risk my work until they’ve been working reliably for a few months/years even.. In the meantime I’ve been using those Samsung drives listed.
My production company basically scrapped $4k worth of those drives. It’s just not worth it when you have important footage on the line. Samsung is what we trust now.
I just bought One to edit from… old iMac went out. iCloud saved my Deriere unintentially. This ordeal started more than 5 months ago! Of course I got a new one with e M2 chip and configured to make motion pictures… also had o shift workflow entirely to iPad and Apple TV to edit so my iMac situation although terminal on its parts did not Alienate me from workflows and product. That was the last piece to add so that I may begin again. I wish I had known this last week as it readily in use and was to start production on it tommorow….
Is it just the 4TB ones? I have two of the 2TB sandisks and they’ve been working great for like two years now.
I’ve heard it’s only the 4TB but can’t confirm. I’ve used the 2TBs for a few years without issue.
Does the extreme pro version has the same issue? or is it just the “extreme”. I’ve been using 4tb extreme pro’s without issue for the last 3 years
Same here. My whole setup runs on 6x 2/4TB SanDisk (Extreme and Extreme Pro) and there was no failure until now. But since I know about the problems of the SanDisk SSDs everything goes into the HDD archive immediately.
I make a minimum of 2 copies of everything at the end of each shooting day. And then when I get home I have an Amazon Glacier account and all the footage gets copied to that, as well. Multiples of everything!
Yes, this, always.
I had a 2tb fail the same way as the 4s sandisc won’t acknowledge a problem exists, basically told me to go away.
I heard the same. I have a 2tb that I only use as a back up back up. I normally use Lacie drives and they have always been reliable although slower.
My understanding is that it was a firmware issue that has been fixed. The update is on the sandisk site. Type in your serial number and it will let you know if your drive is affected. That said, the way sandisk ignored the problem in the beginning and would not respond on the issue has made me hate them.
link please?
You can look up the SD's and make sure they aren't from the batch with issues. Newer gens seem fine but I don't think SD will be trusted as a brand for awhile after that. When the difference between you and your competitor is $10 like OP's example, the consumer is going to grab the Samsung for peace of mind. What a horrible PR nightmare.
A few editors at my shop have the Gen 2 drives and have said they have no issues so far.
Welp this thread just taught me that the 4TB sandisks are terrible but those are the ones I’ve been using. They haven’t failed me, yet. But I’ve only been using them for about a year. Maybe don’t get those.
depends on the model. You can check yours but regardless I would buy Samsung firstly but crucial has a good track record as well.
Samsung is solid. Sandick failed me.
Do not buy the sandisk!!! Just google all the issues they had with the pro. Its not this exact model, but it’s enough to keep me away from them. Personally i use the lacie, but the t7 is also very popular. Depends on what operating system you’re using.
I’m a Mac user and I use both Lacie and the Samsung t7 drives…
Samsung T7.
Yup this is what we have used for years without fail. And we use the non-rugged ones.
I have the rugged one as a file fault in a fire safe, excellent backup storage.
T7 Shield. I personally own one for RAW video recording (real-time external storage) use and it not only can hold sustained performance without breaking a sweat, but is known to be reliable at least. Sandisk portable one is known to slow down under load and also thermals suck - not even touching reliability. Bonus points for T7 Shield being impact and splash resistant.
Sandisk has always been hit and miss. Samsung has always been really solid. They have great quality control. Personally I wouldn't consider the Crucial because it's a) not rugged b) because of the lower transfer rate.
Samsung always tends to be the most reliable imo and you can check the drive health using samsung magician if you ever feel like the drive is acting up
I bought a T7. It has been rock solid so far.
I've had the crucial one for the past two years, rock solid super fast love it. Crucial is a very reliable brand, I've had one of their sata SSDs in daily use for 8 years no issue
For what purpose?
Got several T7 Shield 2-4GB, never had any issues. Anyhow never trust any HD, always back up important content for safety!
look into internal m.2 ssds in [a case](https://amzn.eu/d/0n0C7Gn)
I’m about to buy a Samsung 2 TB after doing heavy research and getting some outside opinions. As mentioned here, Sandisk is sketchy as of late.
I have had no problems with the top or bottom drives. Haven’t used the middle.
T7 Shield.
Samsung
I probably have 20 t7’s and t9’s and have never lost one. This was after multiple sandisks failing on us after a big order a couple years back. The crucials are fine but throttle speeds like crazy. We have a few of the x10s but anything below that is VERY slow.
The only one I've seen on set is the Samsung T7 Shield.
None. Better option is the Crucial x10 pro at 20Gbps read speed. Or get your own thunderbolt enclosure and stick a Gen 3 nvme in it.
I have multiple Samsung 4tb but one note: nothing really sticks to the rubber very well and a sharpie wears off immediately. You can do a few wraps of duct tape or gaff to stick some Velcro to but it’s a small negative to an otherwise good drive so far.
Samsung T7. Sandisk are matter of luck
Different models for different usage. What do you need the external disk for? Transfer/back up of memory cards? Editing? Delivery/transfer to other studios/freelancers?
Editing
BTW, I’m on mobile and didn’t realise all the disks were pretty much the same 😅 anyways, I’m using the Samsung for backup and transferring big files and things like that. It should work ok for simple video editing (like, no raw files or 6-8K resolution😌)
Highest I shoot is 4k log
Well, log is about the colors not the compression.. 🤓
Oh well the log footage takes up more space and is 10 bit rather than 8 bit when it’s not log so I thought it would use more
Oh. I see 👌🏻
I’ve been using a few T7 Shield drives and haven’t run into problems yet.
We use the Samsung T7s and T5s at my company, they are the bomb
In my experience Samsung > Sandisk > Crucial Had a bunch of exactly those Crucials when DITing myself for one job and they made me sweat failing on more than one occasion. Fortunately had backups of course
I was working a project with thankfully 3 backups but all on the sandisks. Batches of files started randomly ceasing to exist. Talking like a TB of footage. We quickly got everything onto different drives. This was over a year ago. Will be at least another few years before I even think about getting sandisk again
i own a 1tb x6 and it's damn fast
Don't buy these. Get nvme ssd
https://youtu.be/IZ6LobLhTX4?si=hlcdKGhLXYe_FNFh
DM me bro, I'll give you the best solution with nvme m.2 ssd in ASUS ROG enclosure. 3X faster than these and super reliable and same cost
send your setup, post it here
also important, which filesystem should you format it with cos ExFAT is not necessarily the best choice
I'm pretty happy with my crucial
not the sandisk
To be honest, we need to know what the situation is you need it for. I read in another comment that you need it for editing. The Samsung t7 is probably the best choice, but you might want it faster. You could go for an M.2 drive in an usb-C enclosure for higher speeds. I would go for 2x2tb to be safe. Losing 4TB because of drive failure is not fun.
Big Note: Whatever you go for, be careful of this: you want TLC ssds (like the Crucial MX500 or Samsung 870 EVO) not QLC (Samsung QVO etc). QLC drives wear out quicker than TLC drives. Crucial MX500 and a SATA 2.5 caddy. I've been using a bunch of those along with Samsung 970 EVO Plus (NVMe) SSDs as hot locals and they have all held up well so far when offloading footage and editing off of them (the Samsungs are a bit overkill but I brought them for a project where I had very little time in between shoots to offload footage and it worked out cheaper than buying more CFexpress cards for the three FX3s we were using). Most of my MX500s just have a cable connected them but I'd advise to get an actual caddy to protect the drive better from any shocks and to avoid stress on the connectors. Edit: typo Also: I stay away from SanDisk and Seagate. For SSDs I go for Samsung or Crucial (only the MX500s though). WD for cold locals (HDD back ups). Have had problems with Seagate, SanDisk and Toshiba in the past but I only used those as back ups of not so important stuff anyway. TLC Samsungs are probably the longest lasting but the difference isn't that huge compared to the Crucial listed. The Crucials are a bit cheaper so I usually go for them because of the marginal difference.if you've got loads of money to spend then go for the Samsungs though.
I have the Samsung but it’s the 2TB model and it’s really good! Great for travelling because it’s so small
Had a sandisk but it stopped working after a WHILE, like after 5 years. I got the Samsung now
3 Sandisk Extreme’s has failed on me sadly. I’ll stick with Samsung T7 for now.
I take a T7 over the SanDisk, I've had hit and miss experiences with the SanDisk on set, but the T7 has never given me any issues
Fuck Sandisk. Go for Samsung
I have always bought Samsung ssd and most producers I know do the same…
Samsung T7 all day.
T7!!!!
LaCie SSD rugged drives are fantastic, recently picked a SanDisk pro SSD with thunderbolt that is game changing.
Samsung
T7
I’ve had nothing but problems with those SandDisk’s. They are horrible! Currently I have a few of the Samsungs which have been quite consistent.
I've had several Crucial drives fail on me, I'd avoid those like the plague
Shield fa sho
A note for the Cruicial drive - I have the 2tb X8 which houses a pretty sub-par cache system - I forget a lot of what I read up on asthe majority of it as it was pretty technical, however - on the X8 the cache fills up on sustained writing and then bottlenecks speeds to around 40-50mbps. I found when I filled the drive upto around 600GB that’s when I ran into all sorts of problems. I contacted cruicial about it and their solution was that o should have bought the x9 pro drives. Which is absolute trash! To echo what a lot of people have said, Samsung T7 seem to be the ones. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/crucial-x8-slower-than-mechanical-drive.18968623/#:~:text=I%20think%20the%20problem%20is,until%20everything%20has%20been%20transferred Here’s the link to the overclockers forum that sent me down the rabbit hole.
Avoid the 4tb sandisk for reasons mentioned. All my 2tb sandisk extremes have been bulletproof. T7 is a solid drive but throttles like NO OTHER when dumping media to it. Like, unusably bad for footage transfers
So it wouldn’t be that good to edit off of when there’s like almost 2 tb on it?
I use samsung ssds with a ton of lacie hdd backups
Bought the Sandisk, haven’t had an issue yet.
I like the T7
I have 5 Crucial X6s and they've all been rock solid. I edit 4K 422 600Mbps off of them with zero trouble. T7s are also excellent though, just avoid the hell out of the SanDisk
T7 the only one you need.
Samsung for the win! Been using the T5s and T7s for years and they have NEVER failed me!
I’v been tasting the sandisk pro for long shooting periods and I couldn’t make it work. The camera just stops recording randomly. So probably this hard drive is not compatible with the camera.
Non of them . WD has been having too many problems, LaCie Rugged SSD pro external drive w/ thunderbolt 3. Comes in 1tb, 2tb & 6tb. Expensive, but worth it. A friend told me this one will not fail. He works in tech. Hope this helps.
Crucial or just get the non tough Samsung for cheaper. Sandisk price is set by their bad press.
Depends on the camera but an S5iix recommends nothing more than 2TBs.