Picking the Right Storage for Video Editing

If you have questions about picking out external storage, RAID storage, how much storage to get, SSD drives vs. regular hard drives, the difference between Thunderbolt and USB-C....all these questions and more get address in this fantastic resource put together by pro editor Larry Jordan! From LarryJordan.com

Picking the right storage is always a balance between what we want versus what we can afford. Most of us don’t have unlimited budgets. So, how do we determine the storage we need? This Q & A should help you better understand the basics of storage so you can ask more informed questions as you plan your next storage purchase...

...How much capacity should I buy?

Smile… However much capacity you buy, it won’t be enough. (I’m currently a 1-man shop and I have 176 TB of online storage capacity at the moment; and most of it is full.)

You can save space by editing camera native media – such as H.264 or AVCHD – which tends to create smaller files. But those files can be difficult to edit on older systems, or for multicam editing, or when rendering effects or color grading.

For the purposes of planning storage, here’s what you need to think about:

• What video frame size and frame rate are you editing?
• What video codec are you editing?
• How many cameras are editing? (Multiply storage requirements by the number of cameras you expect to edit)
• How many hours of material are you editing?
• Are you editing extended bit-depth files (10-bit or greater)?
• Are you editing VR files (these create files about twice the size of 4K)?
• Are you editing stereoscopic files (these double storage requirements)?

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