Introduction

How is it going everyone? It’s been a minute since my last post on the blog but I’m happy to finally be back after traveling around Asia for a while.

To be more specific, I have been visiting Seoul and Bangkok, both being impressive cities featuring mind-blowing architecture and a rich history. I thought it would be a nice idea to show you guys some of the photos I have been able to capture but also to talk a bit about my current setup when it comes to backing up my work and editing content while on the go.

Sunrise at King Power Mahanakhon building, Bangkok

These days it’s all about maintaining an efficient hybrid workflow for me. I want to be able to capture stills but also videos in the highest quality possible, without worrying about the weight and footprint of my overall gear. In terms of my camera setup, I transitioned to a Canon EOS R system a while ago, which honestly leaves nothing to be desired when it comes to the photo and video side of things.

A highly professional camera setup like this requires an equally capable part of gear when it comes to the overall data management and post production side of things. For many years now I exclusively trust SanDisk Professional products and have them deeply integrated into my workflow. All of their gear meets my professional requirements as a hybrid creator and till today I’ve never had a single one of their drives or cards failing on me. And believe me, I have been in some very demanding environments over the last few decades.

Below are some impressions of two previous projects, for which I used one of SanDisk Professional’s toughest drives, the ArmorATD. It was exposed to super harsh conditions in the dry and dusty desert of Tenerife as well as the wet jungle environment of Madeira. Needless to say that I still use this exact drive on a daily basis, without ever having any problems at all. This should give you a pretty good idea of how much I trust SanDisk’s products.

On this recent trip to Asia I took SanDisk Professional’s recently introduced PRO-BLADE system with me. I talked about the system in a prior article some months ago, so in case you haven’t already, make sure to check it out here. The post covers most of the technical specs and features and will provide you with a very good overview about the system itself.

The SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE system

Different components of the PRO-BLADE system

This time though, I’d like to share some personal insights on how I use the PRO-Blade system within my own travel-heavy workflow and how I feel about it in general, when it comes to the overall performance and reliability.

But before we start with the trip to Asia, let’s do a quick recap about the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE system and its individual components.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

The PRO-BLADE system

The SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE system is based on a modular architecture and consists of three individual components, each of them serving a special purpose in order to speed up different steps within your overall workflow as a creative.

Each of the components amazes with high-grade build quality and best of the industry specifications. SanDisk Professional clearly aims at the professional hybrid creator as well as mobile production teams with this setup and the overall design language is pretty impressive as well. So let’s have a quick look at each of the products before moving over to my trip and how I personally use the system.

PRO-BLADE SSD MAG

These SSD MAGs are basically very compact high-performance SSD drives, with the smallest footprint possible, in order to pack less bulk without compromising on speed. Each of these drives features super fast transfer speeds of up to 2000MB/s while offering capacities of up to 4TB.

The housing of each MAG is made out of high-grade aluminium, helping to cool down the drive and to sustain the high transfer speeds even during heavier, long-term usage. These PRO-BLADE SSD MAGs are indeed super small and lightweight, so scaling up and carrying as much storage space as needed will never become an issue.

PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT

The PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT is a modular SSD enclosure, which enables you to swap PRO-BLADE SSD MAGs, in order to carry several terabytes of storage without excess bulk.

The housing features a cooling aluminium heat sink to further sustain the fast transfer speeds during high demanding workflows. Furthermore, the PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT offers USB-C (20Gbps) for speeds of up to 2000MB/s and it can be attached to your USB-C compatible camera rig to record directly onto the loaded PRO-BLADE SSD mag. This feature makes it an all-in-one solution from recording to processing your final results.

PRO-BLADE STATION

The PRO-BLADE STATION is a high-performance desktop enclosure, which offers 4 PRO-BLADE SSD MAG slots on the front.

4 slots allow for hot swapping the MAGs in high demanding environments

This allows for fast hot swapping of the mags in order to edit, copy and move massive amounts of data from the SSD MAGs right onto your machine or other storage devices, like the SanDisk Professional Shuttles. It uses the NVMe™ technology and offers unbelievable transfer speeds of up 3000MB/s via Thunderbolt™ 3 (40Gbps). Furthermore, it features a completely new designed flow-through active ventilation system to help cooling down the inserted MAGs and providing constant high-speed performance during long sessions. And of course it seamlessly can be daisy-chained with the rest of your production setup.

Flexibility while traveling

SanDisk Professional created the PRO-BLADE system with mobility and performance in mind, both being two of the most important factors within my very own workflow. As a hybrid shooter, who is constantly travelling between the studio and far-away destinations on the other side of the globe, I need my setup to have the smallest footprint possible without compromising on speed.

They have always been the leading brand when it comes to high performing gear, on which professionally working creatives like myself can rely on. Personally, I have been to some of the most extreme environments to work on client projects and whether it is extreme temperatures, humidity or dust, SanDisk’s products always performed flawlessly. And I’m happy to tell you that with this system they have taken it to a completely new level.

But first, here are some more photographic impressions of the recent Asia trip:

Alright, I hope you enjoyed these photos. Now let’s get back to the topic:

The PRO-BLADE lineup is by far the most flexible storage system, whether you are a solo creator or part of a whole creative team. Never has it been that easy to deal with high loads of content in such a way.

One way is to carry a bunch of PRO-BLADE SSD MAGs and the TRANSPORT with you, in order to have huge amounts of high-performing storage space available. The other one is to bring the PRO-BLADE STATION with you as well, so that you can move and further process content right at the location, without having any downtime at all. This is especially important in demanding high-pressure projects, where you might work with a whole team and a fixed schedule with tight delivery times.

It is even possible to record right onto a SSD MAG straight from camera, connecting the TRANSPORT enclosure or available third party handles. The PRO-BLADE system is a truly flexible and modular eco system shining in every scenario imaginable.

The PRO-BLADE setup during my stay in Bangkok

Lots of power and capacity with the SSD MAGs

When travelling, I always have to make sure not running out of storage space, as most of my projects include photo as well as high-resolution video work. Furthermore, I usually need to bring a bunch of other things I’m currently working on with me as well. This means, that I do not only back up and edit new content while on the trip but also do need to continue with post production of other projects, mostly in a 4K workflow within DaVinci Resolve. So for this trip, I decided to bring the TRANSPORT and 4 of the SSD MAGs with me to Asia, while leaving the PRO-BLADE STATION in the studio, being fully connected to my desktop editing environment.

Backing up recent work I captured in the streets of Bangkok

Swapping SSD mags during my editing session on the rooftop

South-east Asia is one of the most humid areas in the world, so you have to take extra care of your gear not getting soaked or exposed to the humidity too much. It’s also very hot out there, so gear in general can easily get stretched to its limits and simply overheat, which would result in not being able to continue working anymore. During the trip I backed up big amounts of footage and edited basically around the clock and I can happily report that the PRO-BLADE setup worked like a charm. I didn’t expect anything less from SanDisk Professional but I just wanted to mention it here, as I heard a lot of stories of other brands products failing in such situations.

Another big plus is that SanDisk Professional made sure that everything stays cool due to the materials being used for the drives and enclosure. This way the high transfer speeds can be maintained at all times, even after many hours of editing high-res video work.

The small footprint allows for working wherever you are

Accessing large amounts of content has never been that easy

The PRO-BLADE setup allows for a true mobile workflow as a creator

The PRO-BLADE MAG and TRANSPORT combination features super fast transfer speeds of up to 2000MB/s while also offering up to 4TB space per MAG. This means I can work on native 4K or even 8K footage in H.265, without rendering proxy files first. And furthermore I don’t need to worry about running out of space, while being on a trip. This is a huge improvement for my own workflow and saves me hours of time. And all of this power comes in such a small package. It’s just the TRANSPORT enclosure and a handful of the super small MAGs and you’re ready to go for whatever task comes your way.

Again, the PRO-BLADE system perfectly fits into my highly mobile workflow as a travel photographer / videographer, without compromising on any of the performance that is otherwise only known from desktop solutions.

Back in the studio

Next to traveling, I spend quite some time in my studio, where I usually process and finish most of my projects after I captured them on location.

And while it definitely is nice to have such a powerful mobile solution with me when traveling, it is at least equally important to have a solid and high performing setup at your desktop location.

The PRO-BLADE STATION is integrated into my desktop setup

Back at the office working on some projects, utilising the power of the PRO-BLADE STATION

All 4 SSD MAGs are inserted into the STATION, which allows for seamless access

From my very own experience, there is nothing worse than having to deal with a cumbersome process when it comes to further managing your content. Not only does it cost a lot of time, and time is money, but it also exposes you to the risk of losing content.

I see so many creators failing at this and don’t get me wrong, I used to be like that as well. Dealing with a bunch of separate hard drives instead of a solid RAID solution and having no clear strategy to back up content or how to move it from one storage location to another are just some of the obstacles one has to overcome. Efficient data management is a whole topic on its own and would go way beyond the scope of the post. So for now, let’s focus on how I further process the content I bring back home from a trip, such as the one to Asia.

And this is exactly where the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE STATION comes into play.

Moving a SSD MAGs from the TRANSPORT to the STATION

SSD MAGs easily slide into one of the 4 slots available at the STATION

Like I said in the prior section, I usually have the PRO-BLADE STATION fully connected and integrated into my stationary editing setup. This way I can put all of my four SSD MAGs into the STATION’s slots and immediately continue working on my projects or start offloading everything right onto my RAID-based storage powerhouse by the click of a button. Personally, I also use a SanDisk Professional Shuttle 8 within my workflow and you can read my prior article about it here.

Below you’ll find a little speed test video, showing the performance of the PRO-BLADE on my MacBook Pro. There are a lot of factors playing a role in the final transfer speeds, such as the file system formats the disks are formatted to and the connection available on your machine. But as you can see the results speak for themselves:

What I really love about the PRO-BLADE STATION is that it perfectly fills the gap between my purely mobile hard drives, which I have with me on trips, and my RAID system, which is my stationary content management setup at home.

With the PRO-BLADE system I can now seamlessly continue working on my projects when I’m back in the studio, all of this without waiting for the data to be transferred first. The STATION can either serve as an offload workstation or as a stationary modular high-capacity storage setup.

Personally, I think it can’t get any better than this and SanDisk Professional did an excellent job coming up with a highly flexible storage system, which meets the expectations of today’s professional hybrid creators and their ever evolving workflows.

Final thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this post and my thoughts on the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE system.

Today’s creatives face a constantly increasing complexity and demand of different types of media formats. Especially being a hybrid shooter means to stay flexible at all times, therefore professional gear has to meet these requirements without getting in the way of one’s creative workflow. And while these days a lot of manufactures offer fast and high-capacity products, most of them lack the overall flexibility to integrate these tools into a truly professional setup. This is where SanDisk Professional always has been the industry leader at, focusing on premium materials and outstanding performance but also on the actual integrability from an end-to-end workflow perspective. There is a big difference between something just looking fancy and something actually working as expected and as a professional creator who makes a living from his work, I need my setup to perform under any circumstances.

The PRO-BLADE eco system is a true evolvement of decades of experience and it’s really nice to see that a brand listens to its customers and their actual real-world requirements. Personally, the PRO-BLADE system is my new true workhorse setup and I will continue to use it on a daily basis, wherever my creative life and future projects will take me.

That’s it for today’s blog post about my experience with the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE. Don’t hesitate to reach out in case you have any further questions and make sure to check out the further information below!

Talk soon,

Chris

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