The ULTIMATE Hard Drive for Video Editing | SanDisk vs G-Technology vs Samsung

Please leave any happy comments about drives you use. Please feel free to leave happy comments about my inaccuracies with my analysis.
And buy drives from a camera or electronics store. I don't get affiliate money for any of that.
Full disclosure, I didn't try any LaCie hard drives. I had one, over 10 years ago, that failed. Since then I've never gone back. I'm sure they're good and mine was an anomaly, but I just personally haven't used one since and didn't include one in these tests.
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[@DCuerpoJr]

I have the Samsung T7 2TB SSD and noticed its read/write speeds cut in half when the drive is over 50% capacity. I've got 750GB of free space in it right now and the read/write speeds are around 350 MBps. Since most of my projects are 750GB - 1.25TB in size, I'm going to upgrade to a 4TB portable SSD for more headroom.

[@ShaunHautly]

Good call! I noticed that with a drive I had a few years ago. "Defragging" often helped. I like the Mac's are constantly defragging automatically (I think).

[@michael-4k4000]

thats interesting, they shouldn't run slower if they are over half full. I have a couple of those drive. 2tb is not what it used to be

[@DCuerpoJr]

@@michael-4k4000 It's what I've experienced with the Samsung T5, T7 and now the T9 SSDs. And I have multiples of each. I did some digging and found the primary bottleneck for these SSDs is the cache size. The T7 2TB has an 80GB cache while the T9 4TB has 175GB cache. So file transfers under 80GB on the T7 will approach the max read/write speed and the same goes for files under 175GB on the T9. File transfers above those sizes will start to reduce to less than half the max speed until the cache can be cleared. I tested this on all three variants and found that to be true.

[@Tiffers963Hz]

Thanks Shaun, just the comprehensive video I needed. You're the man. Thanks for sharing your wisdom - you've really helped me save money with my buying decision. Blessings to you.

[@ShaunHautly]

My favorite kind of comment! Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm glad I was able to help a little. Good luck!

[@djeddy1976]

good video, I'd wait for the 4tb G-40..supposed to be out in June... btw editing h.264/265 is always gonna give you issues regardless of the drive. those are delivery formats. not made for editing. you should convert that footage to an intra-frame based codec (like pro-res or xavc-i) and edit off of that.

[@ShaunHautly]

When I do huge projects, I always convert to a ProRes Proxy, but I’ve been super impressed with editing on the M1 with h.265 and h.265. It doesn’t seem to have a problem with the processing. Even on 4K/120 footage.

[@martin_wood]

That used to be true, but the M1 Max whips through h.264 and handles h.265 well too. I haven’t used proxies since

[@ShaunHautly]

I’m excited to upgrade next year.

[@chiokeblacksheare8917]

You're great. Here I am, "all in", and all I was looking for was an SSD to back up my pictures Lol Super straight to the point, good information and clear. I'm also a film nerd, so I had to stay around for that too! Haha

[@ShaunHautly]

Love to hear it! Thanks for the happy comment!

[@tivolee1666]

Bro you need to get to the point faster! Irritated me

[@ShaunHautly]

Sorry, I hope you skipped ahead to find what you were looking for.

[@JackHannibal1]

Really helpful. Appreciate the walk-through of your thinking and process.

[@ShaunHautly]

Glad it was helpful!

[@SnakebiteCortez]

THis was super helpful resolving my latest purchase. I'm already working with T7s but everytime I have to make a new storage investment, or any technology it becomes deep dive into the gear abyss. Been really enjoying how you cover stuff. Thank you. Do you ever see yourself covering NAS systems? I'm about to make the leap. Everything says go with synology. But would love to hear your take.

[@ShaunHautly]

I've never used a NAS system, and don't anticipate doing so anytime soon. I have no need for that volume of local storage. I have a handful of T7's that I rotate in and out depending on the project. I'm hesitant to have all my storage in one "drive," and there's no need for the RAID speed boosts for me. I think my next evolution would likely be to start offloading everything to the cloud, and pulling down projects onto local drives when I need to edit them, and then backup back into the cloud. Just need the costs to be right for storage and the internet speed to make it not bottleneck.

[@SnakebiteCortez]

@@ShaunHautly thank you for the reply brother and the content

[@brandknewme]

Excellent video. Thank you, sir!

[@ShaunHautly]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mych408]

Hey this video really helped! I liked the comparison with all the drives and seeing what they actually do vs the advertised speeds. However I do think your bottle neck isn’t the drive but rather your computer. Let me explain, in video editing CPU matters a bit more when it comes to processing footage, along with your GPU. I currently have a PC setup that hosts a 12 core CPU and a 6700xt GPU. Before I upgraded my CPU I was having the same issue scrubbing through footage and it only got worse when I applied color grades and effects. I researched the issue and found that my CPU and GPU were holding me back. I saw tests with other KZbinrs with my same workflow on their systems and realized it. I’m yet to upgrade my GPU but with the CPU upgrade alone, there is a considerable difference in performance and I’m 100% sure by the time I upgrade the GPU I’ll have an easier time applying vfx to 6K footage. I edit off 2 M.2 ssds and have a t5 ssd I edit directly off of with no issues scrubbing through footage. My PC has a 10gbs (usb 3.2 gen 2) usbc port I plug my external drive to which is why I thought it was weird your thunderbolt port was having issues. I’m sure if you build your own PC with pcie thunderbolt 4 ports and high end components or upgrade your iMac to the M1 Pro or Max, your problem will go away.

[@ShaunHautly]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree completely (and am always looking for a reason to upgrade my gear). I did buy an M2 Max MacBook Pro and returned it after a week after I didn't notice any substantial differences to these same tests. It DID sing with Motion and some more graphic intensive programs, but as far as the normal nonsense, I remained close enough to the baseline to return it. Maybe next year!

[@mkorsmey]

Nice video! Thanks for the comparison! Do you ever edit from your internal computer hard drive or always an external drive?

[@ShaunHautly]

Always an external. It's easier to backup and keep things organized. But maybe I should just to test it with this library!

[@marcusbarnes5929]

Which drive would you recomend for timemachine? I need at least 8tb as I have 4tb internal. So there's 2 different versions of SanDisk G drives? Which one is the newer version?

[@ShaunHautly]

Hard to say off the top of my head. Either should work just fine. Especially if it's just for backup and you don't need fast transfer speeds.

[@ikemokagbue]

Good video. Clear and concise! Thanks.

[@ShaunHautly]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the happy comment!

[@Daebiya]

incredibly helpful video. Thanks!

[@ShaunHautly]

Glad it was helpful!

[@asianboss6355]

You never mentioned what was the initial hard drive you were using which coz the laggyness, was it an old ssd with read/write speed of 200?

[@ShaunHautly]

It was the Samsung EVO I mentioned. And it only had the issue once. I couldn't reproduce that lag again.

[@Skasparoff]

Thanks for this sobering video in our production maximalist greed! (not sure I use right words in English, but you helped a lot to not let us throw the money away)

[@ShaunHautly]

I got the words! It was nice this week as my returns processed and I was refunded $2700 USD for those drives. Still editing as fast as always.

[@TheFandangovideoguy]

Great Work! I know I'm late commenting on this video and that a few things have changed...but...I have been editing 4k video with my m1pro macbook pro 2021 which has thunderbolt 4 ports (USBC) and the speeds are fine...but the new generation of SSDs use a dual channel 3.2 (I dunno technical terms but read about it and discover that macs cannot use the new faster SSDs!) and so the only option for mac users is to get thunderbolt 3/4 SSDs such as the Sandisk professional pro G40 which is significantly more expensive than the regular USBC...I can see that you tested this drive and didnt seem too impressed with it. Will it make a significant difference for video editing or are the Samsung T7 or Sandisk extreme as fast as required for video editing? No point in getting a thunderbolt SSD if I won't see a major improvement...I use mostly Sony cameras FX30/FX3 and I don't use the heaviest codecs or the highest quality 4k-but maybe 2-3 streams. I hope you have some additional insight. I will stay with mac computers forever! and I prefer Premiere...go figure! LOL ..thanks for the video

[@ShaunHautly]

This is interesting! I didn't know about the dual channel and its incompatibility with Macs. I, too, film with Sony cameras, and I stick to h.265 for the most part. I think the hardware acceleration for these codecs in the M-series processors goes a long way. But even older, bulkier footage seemed fine. So I'm still thinking the bottleneck has nothing to do with the hard-drive. Mathematically, even 600 megabit footage is still WAY below the transfer speeds of any of these drives. Think about how slow our SD cards are, and we can write that footage onto them at 100 MB/S. So these hard-drives aren't the bottleneck. Unless we're viewing multiple streams, and that starts to get into our processors more and how the individual software renders the footage and applies effects and titles/graphics. It's fascinating to think about, but I have no answer for us yet. Maybe this Spring I'll do more tests...

[@YAKUILLASIN]

Facing the same dilemma right now. I shoot with Black Magic and the files are huge. I've resorted to putting the files on my desktop to avoid lag in premiere.

[@ShaunHautly]

I was testing internal drives vs external and still didn't notice a huge difference. I am still looking for someone who knows a better answer than me.

[@stefanboiadjiev5521]

Great video! Very useful Thank you!

[@ShaunHautly]

You're welcome! It was a fun one to make, especially when the result was so different than I was expecting.

[@shaunashleychin]

Heya Shaun! Thank you so much for the video. I just wanted to ask or rather confirm that, are we able to store our footage of the day on the SSD, then create their proxies (I assume they will end up the same destination as the original files i.e., the SSD) and we can still edit these videos smoothly?

[@ShaunHautly]

In most software, you can choose where your proxies live once created. I usually keep everything on the same drive in the same FCP project just for simplicity. But you could also create your proxies and put them on your internal hard-drive to edit on the go, and then reconnect to your external drive when you're ready to export at full quality. Proxies should always be pretty smooth. They're usually pretty small files.

[@shaunashleychin]

@@ShaunHautly Thank you so much for replying! Oh I see. So am I right to assume that I can just edit everything including the proxies on an SSD? Also will the large files like 4K 120p 10 bit 4.2.2 cause lag?

[@ShaunHautly]

You should be able to. And I can't say whether or not the big files will cause lag. I experienced a little bit of manageable lag, but it depends on your drive, your processor, your graphics card, your RAM, the number of other programs you're running, and even more things that I don't understand. Just give it a shot, and if it doesn't work for you, return it!

[@shaunashleychin]

@@ShaunHautly Alright! I'll give it a go. Perhaps I could chime in again once I get the answer. Thank you so much for your help and guidance!

[@DreTheEngineer]

soooo what was the bottle neck bro?

[@ShaunHautly]

If only I knew! I tried so many things and haven't been able to reproduce that stutter as bad as it was. I've opened TONS of apps (and tried to fill my computer's memory), I've tried all the drives, and tons of different footage. Never figured it out.

[@midibenni]

I think its the internal memory speed and size of the M1 i-mac. (8 or 16gb) I using intel 9900K pc cpu + 2080rtx super and 32gb ram (not the hottest and newest pc config), and theire is no stuttering on 4k material, what so ever. all external harddrives connected via usb 3.0 and its fast enough. and i import gameplay material of 1 hour 4k videos files (12-20GB files) cut + editing them.

[@JRidgely]

I edit 6K B-Raw on a M1 Ultra Studio. I have a 12TB G-Tech Hard drive and experience bad lag but not on the internal SSD. You test results are interesting but I think for 6K B-Raw the 4TB Sandisk Professional G40 thats out now would be a lot better.

[@ShaunHautly]

I regret not running my test with the internal SSD of my Mac as a comparison. I may give the G40 another shot, too.

[@GarudAtma]

I am confused, should I buy lacie d2 (5 years) or SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE (3 years)

[@ShaunHautly]

I guess my advice from this video is that in my testing it really doesn't end up mattering TOO much. The hard drive was never the bottleneck for me. Same performance on most drives. Go with what you trust, and return it if it's not working for you.

[@GarudAtma]

@@ShaunHautly thanks

[@ChaoticBun]

So your theory was correct the T7’s came out with 4TB. Ive been hunting for weeks what hard drive to get ive been stuck with my old disk spinner for years nd just found out about SSDs! My desktop mac is from 2017 with only 500gb of storage. I can’t edit ANYTHING on it. It’s been such a nightmare and is extremely slow. HOWEVER! I also have a mac laptop that i finally got final cut on thats from 2021 with 32gb storage, so im going to start using that for video editing and hopefully do it right once i top it off with a great SSD card! You addressed the exact same issues ive been having and now I’m so anxious that i’m about to buy a ssd card with the little money I have and it possibly ends up being a slow disappointment 😩. I film long vlogs 1 hour+ of footage and have to edit it with a LOT of the animated quirky zoom ins and so forth which can make editing get super slow with little storage. Overall sorry for the rant i’d just love your direct opinion if you think the samsung 7S 4tb is best etc. i watch so many videos but get overwhelmed on what to finalize on and that seems to be the most popular favorite. Overall im on the same boat high speed no lag with multiple projects like 3 and the ability to edit a bunch without the rendering taking years to work out.

[@ShaunHautly]

A T7 is a solid drive. I'm not sure if you need the 4TB, it really depends on how big the project files are and how long you keep them. I own a handful of 2TB T7's, as none of my projects are usually bigger than 1TB. But I also delete most of my projects when I'm done with them, so I can reuse the space. Buy one, give it a shot, and if you don't like it, or it's too laggy, return it. I don't think the SSD will end up being your bottleneck. Good luck!

[@ChaoticBun]

thank you! just got it in the mail super exited to use it your video was amazing@@ShaunHautly

[@ajlskate]

Great vid! Would you recommend the Sandisk Professional 22TB drive if I need that amount of space? 4TB isn’t enough for me. I do have large 4K files to edit and want to know if you think this larger spinning driver would cause me lag or if it will be the same as a SSD? Thanks!

[@ShaunHautly]

While this video seems to indicate that all hard drives operate about the same, I still choose to edit off SSD's, and Archive onto HDD's (spinning). If you need a ton of space, there isn't a reasonably priced SSD option, but I edit multiple client projects, all in 4K, on a 4TB SSD. But as always: Buy one, give it a shot, and return it if it isn't working for you. I returned most of the drives in that video. Had no issues.

[@ajlskate]

@@ShaunHautly Thanks for the response Shaun. I need around 20TB of space so SSD isn't an option. But in your experience the HDD 22TB didn't slow down the actual edit process or scrubbing timeline compared to an SSD right? That should be the best option for me.

[@ShaunHautly]

Give it a shot! I haven't noticed any huge issues yet. But I do mostly use mine for archiving.

[@ayoubo012]

Hey bro, did you find any better drive for something that over 22TB?

[@ajlskate]

yes the 40tb drive from glyph@@ayoubo012

[@mortalbloke]

Nice Vid! Wonder how your test would have run on the older usb 3.0 drives that were 70 - 100 MB/s

[@ShaunHautly]

I was thinking about that, too. Also, all my USB 3.0 drives were running through a USB-C to USB-A adapter and could have potentially lost some performance in there as well... I have to assume that those OLD ones would have struggled with 300 mbs footage...

[@sknemani]

I can’t quite wrap my head around your observation that there was no difference in edit performance with higher drive speed. I am curious now. Did you try applying image stabilization, noise reduction and complex grades or even regular grades on those clips with different drives? I wonder if once you start applying these regularly commonly used effects you will see a difference. Scrubbing might be happening just on proxies regardless of drive!

[@ShaunHautly]

I did not apply any effects, I had assumed effect performance would largely be processor intensive as no extra effect data would be coming off the drive. However, now I'm intrigued, too! I'm getting a new computer this winter, and it'd be a good time to repeat this test with M1 vs M2 Ultra (or whatever I end up with), and adding common effects this time around. Thanks for the happy comment!

[@sknemani]

@@ShaunHautly that would be awesome to know. I would assume it would make a difference. Especially for render on the fly when we are editing after applying effects. I mean I am guessing totally based on the recommendation in general that we have a separate and very fast scratch disk for video editing.

[@ottebya]

duuuuude what was the bottleneck actually and how did you get through it? haha I need to know that almost more than anything else yea

[@ShaunHautly]

I haven't figured it out yet. I still have that library on a drive, and I've tested it on some other computers with faster processors than mine, and it's still stuttering in the same places. I've tried different cables, different amounts of memory, different graphics cards. It all seems to be about the same. Which is frustrating, but also kind of a relief?

[@Filmitvfxstudios]

yep im editing red fooltage and its a nightmare footage processing red footage in pp

[@janissevalenzuela]

Can you make a video about RAID NAS setups? For photographers and videographers

[@ShaunHautly]

It would be a while, because I have never used one. I'm not the right person to make that video right now. :-/ My workflow is to edit all video footage on a 4TB SSD (I have two), and archive all projects on a 22TB HDD (I have two that mirror each other for redundancy). That's it. All my photos are stored in the cloud with Adobe Lightroom CC and Apple iCloud. When the day comes that I outgrow that, I'll update everything!

[@johnnysidea]

@@ShaunHautlyMay I know how did you mirror your HDD in advanced?

[@indie12]

thank you. very logical .

[@ShaunHautly]

Glad it was helpful!

[@DarthFungHole]

Wave your arms and hands around, wave your arms and hands around and wave your arms hands around some more! I found all of that very distracting. The info was useful though. Thanks X

[@ShaunHautly]

Sorry, I was excited.

[@PavloKhmel]

This is useful video!

[@ShaunHautly]

I'm so glad to hear that! I was worried that everyone would just think it was a waste because the results weren't pivotal. Thanks for the happy comment!

[@garamirezm]

The SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 SSD comes now on 4TB, so case closed!

[@ShaunHautly]

It's definitely the fastest, but is it overkill for the price? That's what I keep waffling about. The T7's come in 4TB now... (I think) and are way cheaper.

[@filmzfilmz]

Bra great video

[@ShaunHautly]

Thank you! I hope it was helpful.

[@OliGudbjartsson12]

Great vid

[@ShaunHautly]

Thank you!

[@mgportraits]

I had a G drive mobile and it only lasted for a year and a half. Kind of Pricey for that kind of reliability. Did not last that long. My advice: get the extended warranty.

[@ShaunHautly]

Agreed, and back it up!

[@zzznosty]

great analysis but the conclusion is a mobile drive? kmon bruh that is not the ultimate drive for video editors

[@ShaunHautly]

There’s no one right drive for everyone. For me, I appreciate the durability of the mobile drive (compared to my two desktop spinning external drives). The speed is good, and for the size projects I do, they fit on these drives pretty easily. Try and see what works best for you. If you’ve got one you love, throw it in these comments and I’ll give it a try on my next go-around.

[@zzznosty]

@@ShaunHautly i just got a 20TB ironwolf pro drive, and learned about creating an NAS server, which is more in line with a long term video editors build than something like a mobile drive, just for capacity reasons. that was my point, maybe im more niche as a full time video creator and because i consistently move around terabytes

[@Fr_g]

That SanDisk 4tb has been known to die a lot so be careful with it and backup your data

[@ShaunHautly]

Oh! Good to know. Thanks for the heads up. I was just sent one by a collaborator for an edit.

[@tzunamidezign]

you should check out the Crucial x9 or x10. Both come in 4 TB. Very portable.

[@ShaunHautly]

Crucial has a few products I've been wanting to try. Maybe I'll do those next! Thanks for the rec.

[@owenmundy]

You never explained what was the source of the actual bottleneck?

[@ShaunHautly]

That's because I never broke through it. I hit the same bottleneck with the traditional spinning hard-drives that I hit with the solid state Thunderbolt 3 drive. So, presumably, the bottleneck could be anything from my processor or graphics card, to my RAM or something. All I know is that no hard-drive changed my experience in any noticeable way.

[@keathmees1875]

Good video, but the host is too damn handsome

[@ShaunHautly]

I've been trying to fix that. Sorry! I used to be so ugly that I would get cropped out of GoFundMe profile photos.

[@AhmedKhalil-oh6ti]

Save us the effort and jump to the f conclusion 😂

[@ShaunHautly]

Haha! I couldn't resist. I got there eventually. :-)

[@Tiffers963Hz]

​@@ShaunHautly Unlike others who are impatient, so rarely learn and grow, others, like me, loved your indepth approach. Keep doing you Shaun. 🙌