Hey there,

So, I pre-ordered the Inspire 1 X5 Raw and it was just delivered.  I went online to find out about purchasing more storage and can only find the 512GB for $1500 from DJI.

I'm sure there is something special about the DJI SSD but $1500 seems crazy.  

Curious what all of you think.

Thanks!

Yeah, this is crazy, it needs to come down in price to something a bit more realistic. It should happen eventually.

Yes.  Memory is cheap these days.  This is just an out and out gouge.

Not really surprised ...... P2 Cards have got me used to high priced memory.

Yes it's special - it comes from DJI and is meant for their latest shiny new toy.

Well, when someone gets one and can test it we need to know if there is something proprietary, or if other brands of SSD's will work.

A fast Samsung 850 Pro 512gb SSD is $217 on Amazon.

Pretty sure these are a more narrow frame than a standard SSD drive

All they lack is a mask and a gun.

harb@bigpond.ne Posted at 2016-4-2 08:20
Pretty sure these are a more narrow frame than a standard SSD drive

As long as the connection is standard you can buy them without a case. Might be an option.

Silly that I could buy 6 fast drives for the price of one DJI drive.

Has anybody tried to format the SSD from the DJI Go App?  All I get is an "SSD Timeout" error ...

1500 dollars is bad,

they want 1700 euro for one

Yes, this is much more than the real memory market will tolerate. This is a specialty item that is made in small quantities so they can charge twice the going price.

Samsung makes a 3D constructed SSD at 2 terabytes for $650.00

Samsung V-NAND provides up to twice the endurance of planar NAND. V-NAND decreases its electric field because its cells are slightly larger, and employs CTF-based insulators eliminating the risk of cell-to-cell interference, resulting in superior retention performance.

In comparison between 3-bit and 2-bit, Samsung 3-bit V-NAND shows endurance similar to that of 2-bit planar NAND, and even better performance in heavy workloads. V-NAND also shows a sustained P/E cycle for longer periods of time.

I hope that we can adapt some of the Samsung memory in the future

http://www.samsung.com/global/bu ... 850pro/3dvnand.html





Rich

Still outrageous ...!!!  For the price of two cards you can purchase a new inspire... Lol

Apparently the cards are locked so while standard, there is some firmware connection so you can't simply print and enclosure and use a new drive.  Until someone makes a serious effort to crack the lock and supply them at a reasonable price (I think 800 has ample profit margin) we are stuck until DJI lowers the price.  Also, if you do want to order spares, they don't ship for 40-50 days?!  But if you want a card and camera they have no limits and they ship 1-3 days.  Hmmm.

and this is exactly why i am growing to hate DJI. Who the hell do they think they are? RED?

No, I think you're all wrong about this one.  To sustain 1.7Gb/S  indefinitely you can't use off the shelf SSDs.

We have the same issue shooting with RED cameras at 5K /150FPS.   The constant flow of data means they can only use the best, highly speced drives available, and they are still expensive.   For RED cameras it's $1400 for 240GB and a whopping $2400 for 512GB.  Not gouging, just what it costs for the top specs in the industry.

Use cheap drives for editing and storage but your capture drives need to be hardcore.

No doubt they are making a margin on these but don't believe for one second they are buying these drives for $100 and selling them for $1500.

Just a reality of shooting RAW and professional filmmakers are completely used to this.

I'm just glad the first SSD comes with the camera.  Pretty good deal!

jimhare Posted at 2016-4-4 11:29
No, I think you're all wrong about this one.  To sustain 1.7Gb/S  indefinitely you can't use off the ...

Jim is correct, to get 1.7Gb/s cannot be done on your average SSD.
And the Samsung SSD does will not fit. You need the DJI SSD.

jimhare Posted at 2016-4-3 23:29
No, I think you're all wrong about this one.  To sustain 1.7Gb/S  indefinitely you can't use off the ...

Do you have one yet Jim?

Alastair Posted at 2016-4-4 13:40
Do you have one yet Jim?

Hey Alastair, no, don't have one yet, would love to get my hands on one!

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-4 05:36
Jim is correct, to get 1.7Gb/s cannot be done on your average SSD.
And the Samsung SSD does will n ...

Not really
Just take a Samsung Pro SSD and you'll be fine with the speed. (It's just a software limitation from DJI )
For the blackmagic cinema camera it fits also and those have a higher bitrate than the x5!

This is just, I don't know a word for this in english -.-

A normal little SSD for consumer is not enouth, thats true. Because they can't write the data over 30sec. in this high regions. But a better one like a Samsung Pro 850 is more than enough.
We shoot for years now with those SSDs and never had any problems.

To say only the DJI SSD will have that power is just a lie! You just want the maximum profit and will lose some clients with this strategy! Just saying...

I'm seeing lots of people mentioning SSDs but there are multiple categories of SSD. Most consumer ones for now still use SATA and are limited by that like the Samsung 850 Pro, which I doubt could run at the speeds necessary for the X5R... But check out the Samsung m.2 950 Pro or SM951 for a more accurate price comparison.

They seem to be around the right size and there are a few drives in that category by Samsung and Intel that can do those speeds as m.2. is much more flexible and you can use PCI-E rather than SATA.

domidragon90 Posted at 2016-4-4 19:36
Not really
Just take a Samsung Pro SSD and you'll be fine with the speed. (It's just a software lim ...

I do not understand what you mean.
trust me, the DJI SSD AVERAGE bitrate is 1.7Gbps. The max is 2.5Gbps and it indeed performs like that, so how is that a lie.
And that is why the SSD is $1,500.
I have the Samsung 850 SSD in mt Macbook Pro and it performs well, but even if it did fit into the X5R it could not come close to handling the performance of the X5R.

What DJI need to develop is a super high speed transfer device that is self contained and uses conventional SSD's for mass storage.
Something hat doesn't require a computer, that you can take with you and do your transfers on the job

harb@bigpond.ne Posted at 2016-4-4 22:14
What DJI need to develop is a super high speed transfer device that is self contained and uses conve ...

For now to get more data than one drive supplies, you would need multiple DJI SSD's.
But it is a nice idea.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-5 00:34
For now to get more data than one drive supplies, you would need multiple DJI SSD's.
But it is a n ...

Yeah thats what I mean......get 2 drives and have one constantly downloading in the field

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-4 15:56
I do not understand what you mean.
trust me, the DJI SSD AVERAGE bitrate is 1.7Gbps. The max is 2.5 ...

@Ken
Oh I belive you in this, dont' worry!
Our BlackMagic cameras do have average bitrates of 2.3Gbps and max. 3.1.
We use an older Samsung 840 Pro, 512gb and a newer 850 Pro, 1024gb for recording in RAW.
This SSDs had no problems with this datarates all the time and we had shootings with shots more than 40min without any problems.
And those cameras had a little bit higher bitrates than the X5R...

The m.2 SSDs are a bit more expensive, but are even faster and better.
(http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-int ... rds=samsung+m.2+ssd)
-> 350$ !!

So explain me why I have to use a DJI SSD not only cause for the profit and software limitation?
The performance of the pro series of Samsung is more than good enouth for those bitrates... (And thats only one SSD from one manufacturer)

I hope you understand what I mean.

The only reason why I actually DON'T buy an X5R is the high SSD price and that I'm not able to shoot in ProRes / DNxHD with 300-400mbit. (Cause of licence conditions?)
Otherwise I would like to upgrade from my X5. (After all the firmware probs are fixed)

@harb
also a nice idea. Maybe it will come someday.

domidragon90 Posted at 2016-4-5 22:07
@Ken
Oh I belive you in this, dont' worry!
Our BlackMagic cameras do have average bitrates of 2.3Gb ...

The SSD you are referring to has little more than 1/2 of the bitrate write speed so the DJI SSD write speed is much more powerful.
But regardless, this is how the X5R is offered and it uses the DJI SSD.
Just like batteries, you must use a DJI battery.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-5 22:24
The SSD you are referring to has little more than 1/2 of the bitrate write speed so the DJI SSD wr ...

Sorry Ken, I think there may be some confusion here over MB/s and Mb/s (or Mbps). The capital B makes a difference by a factor of 8 - that's megabytes vs. megabits.

The Samsung 950 Pro writes at 1500MB/s or 1.5GB/s which is 12000Mb/s or 12Gb/s which is significantly faster than the DJI one and weighs in at around 2999 CNY, ($322.57 or £249.95) for the 512GB version.

Even the 850 Pro standard SSD writes at 470MB/s which is 3760Mb/s or 3.76Gb/s so I take back what I said eariler about the 850 Pro possibly not being fast enough, it certainly is but it is too big and comes in cheaper than the 950 Pro.

In short, what domidragon90 says makes sense, I'd fully expect such drives to be fine for that bitrate and this once again seriously calls into question the asking price of the X5R SSD...

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-5 16:24
The SSD you are referring to has little more than 1/2 of the bitrate write speed so the DJI SSD wr ...

Thanks Hterag. I think thats exactly whats the problem here.
Thats the reason why I used to write Gbps for Bits and Gb/s for bytes.

Anyway, yeah the batteries I need to buy from DJI. This is not bad. The SSD is even not bad at all. But not for that FREAKING high price.
The battery of DJI is more expensive than a "normal" Lipo battery. But it's not 5 times higher! Additionaly, the battery has much developing and logic inside from DJI. They have to be very safe and all the status information etc. So it's ok, that it is 2 times more expensive than an Lipo battery from a supermarked. DJI also needs to get something for the work they have done. Thats ok and its normal.

Not so for the SSD. That price is just way too high for nothing. The Samsung SSD is way good enough, if not better, for recording this bitrate. Let's say, DJI did something special on their SSD, lower power consuming etc. So for the branding "DJI" and for those special things, it would be ok if the DJI SSD would cost about 450-500$. But not 1500$. Sry NO WAY.

For a RED SSD you pay too much too, thats why I don't use RED, but even those SSDs are way cheaper. In the end it's only a software limitation from RED/DJI that no one can use normal SSDs. Thats not what I like, but if the price is fair enouth, it's ok. And 1500$ for an normalish SSD is just to heavy. Sry.

domidragon90 Posted at 2016-4-6 00:21
Thanks Hterag. I think thats exactly whats the problem here.
Thats the reason why I used to write G ...

You said the REDMAG  SSD is less expensive than the DJI SSD.
The 48GB is $500 and the 240BG is $1,495 which is the same price as the DJI 500GB SSD and it's double the memory.
http://www.red.com/store/products/redmag-ssd

Hterag Posted at 2016-4-5 10:55
Sorry Ken, I think there may be some confusion here over MB/s and Mb/s (or Mbps). The capital B mak ...

Hterag, very good point about the bits versus Bytes. The $300 samsung is 8 times faster!

DJI's in the hot seat on this one.

Neraxus Posted at 2016-4-6 00:54
Hterag, very good point about the bits versus Bytes. The $300 samsung is 8 times faster!

DJI's in ...

Incorrect, the DJI is 2.7 Gbps, the Samsung is 1.5Gbps.
At least that's how I'm reading it.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-5 13:20
Incorrect, the DJI is 2.7 Gbps, the Samsung is 1.5Gbps.
At least that's how I'm reading it.

Ken, I'm curious where one would find the specs on the DJI SSD as I can only find assumptions based on the X5R bit rate. Just like the batteries, DJI isn't manufacturing the SSDs, they are sourcing them. Given that since the release of the Sansung 950 PRO SSDs they have been floating around the top 5 in bench marking rank I would put money on the fact that claims that the DJI SSDs are faster or have more capacity are BS. I'm 100% sure there is someone elses SSD in that black plastic and it will be fairly easy to establish it's abilities once it becomes known who's it is.

njabinc Posted at 2016-4-6 01:42
Ken, I'm curious where one would find the specs on the DJI SSD as I can only find assumptions base ...

The manual is all I can offer.
http://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/z ... %20Mannual-V1.0.pdf

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-4-5 18:20
Incorrect, the DJI is 2.7 Gbps, the Samsung is 1.5Gbps.
At least that's how I'm reading it.

The DJI is 2.7 gigabits per second, the Samsung is 1.5 gigabytes per second (which is 12 gigabits per second).

This is why there are standards; the standard for representing bytes is to use an upper-case B as in GB/s. On the other hand, bits are represented with a lower-case b as in Gb/s or Gbps. There are 8 bits in one byte.

These are not the same units of measurement... Unless the DJI SSD really is 2.7 gigabytes or 21.6 gigabits per second, in which case I'll be really impressed.


Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1541-2002

Red mag data rates are 225 to 300 MB/s people are conflating Gbps and GB/s. 2.5gbps = ~300MB/s. Regular ssd see sequential writes of double that rate. I find it humorous Dji points to red pricing to justify media costs. It's rather different with a $50k+ body vs a $1.5k one. From pictures on rcgroups by someone who took apart a mag, Inside is what appears to an oem version of a Samsung SSD This drive is rated at 500+ mb/s and costs under $200 http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/memory-storage/MZ-M5E500BW

Dji is free to price their products as they wish, but please stop making factual misrepresentations suggesting that this pricing reflects the actual component costs or that somehow there is a magic highly perform ant drive in there.  There is no magic here and once they have competition in the raw camera space, I am sure we will see this pricing immediately be cut. Forum posts aren't going to move the needle on pricing, but I thought it important to correct the mis information regarding off the shelf components.

And no, you can't use your own ssd or a 3rd party card as they locked the media, most likely though custom firmware.

I1d Posted at 2016-4-6 03:56
Red mag data rates are 225 to 300 MB/s people are conflating Gbps and GB/s. 2.5gbps = ~300MB/s. Regu ...

Totally agree, I1D!
The comparison with the price of Red mags vs DJI's SSD is disingenuous, as you pointed out: The cost of Red camera and lenses runs into the 7 figures and the price of a mag, while higher than DJI's, is relatively much lower when compared to the cost of Red's other equipment. Canon's 1DX MkII DSLR costs US $5999 but the cost of a Lexar or Sandisk 256 GB CFast2.0 card is $675 and will record about 40 minutes of DCI 4K video in MJPEG at up to 800 gb/s. There is no proprietary Canon lock on the footage files that can only be downloaded through Canon software, as in the case of the X5R SSD. Any CFast2.0 card reader will do, and the data can be dumped to any internal/external hard drive via USB3.

Had DJI gone the CFast2.0 route (the cards are capable of around 550/450 GB/s - that's gigabytes - read/write speeds or more than double the max bitrate of the X5R and are being used in the high-end Arri cameras) that would have meant that these lighter, more robust and non-proprietary cards would have enabled app. 15 minutes of X5R 4K Cinema DNG footage at a much lower price point and with no need to use proprietary software to data dump to external recording devices. Three of these cards would have enabled continuous shooting (provided you had enough batteries) at a price just a few hundred dollars more than one DJI SSD for 1.5x the footage.
Assuredly there are operators who will pay the price to obtain several additional DJI SSDs for more than the X5R itself costs, because their business justifies the investment in terms of daily rates they can charge for the quality footage they can provide upscale clients. For the indie and doc film maker, however, the stumbling block to justify the decision to purchase an X5R will be the price of extra SSDs, and the unwieldy media download circus that is Cinelight.

That's right, my misstake with the RED, had another one in the head. The red mags are way too expensive too. Thats why I don't like RED. If I had the money I would buy an ARRI or a very good sony/canon instead.

Anyway. The Samsung SSD had over 10gigabits/s, about 2500megabytes/s. The X5R writes with 2.5gigabits, thats about 200-300megabytes/s like a BlackMagic Cinema Camera and the most other RAW cameras.
So the SSD can write more than 5 times the rate of a RAW camera. Thats more than enough.

Like rbendjebar said, there are other flash storage who had much more power and are even cheaper.

DJI is free to say what price they want. Thats one thing. The other is to say the DJI SSD had more magic than everything else. That's just not true.
If DJI want 1500$ for one SSD, they can do it, the question is, how many people will buy a X5R when the SSD is that freaking high price for nothing. But thats not our beer and will at least not be our problem, cause I just wont buy an X5R if the price of a SSD is that high.

For me I am a user of DJI products, S1000, S900, Inspire 1 v1 and v2, and also Ronin M. But I'm also a Blackmagic cinema camera BMCC 4K user.
I also target to buy a X5R to upgrade from my X3 but am also stuck by the price of the extra SSD.

However, one thing, a fact is a fact. New SSD in the market has SUFFICIENT bitrate to be used for continuous writing of 4K RAW DNG footage.
I used 2nos. of Samsung 850 EVO 1GB on my BMCC 4K for my shooting.

Frankly speaking, just like domidragon90 said, I am also completely okay for DJI to charge extra premium for their "self-invented" file system for their SSD because they are the game decider and they set the rules. If you want to use DJI products, then you have to follow the rules. Just like RED users. But one thing is that they just have to honestly admit that mathematically speaking, other SSDs have the required bitrate to do the job.

For the samsung m.2, the write speed is much higher: Max. write speed of 1.5GB/s (that is 12Gb/s). It shall excel in most circumstances including 4K raw footage 60fps.

Fact is a fact. Just admit it. Any excuses will make your brand look bad.