Reality Check: What Does a 4K Production Workflow Require?

Storage

I touched on this before, but it bears repeating: Your storage needs directly depend on how you edit your footage. If you demand an external recorder with ProRes HQ just for your HD footage, then 4K is going to mean considerably higher data rates for you. If, however, you accept the LongGoP recording done in the camera at considerably lower data rates, then your options grow exponentially.

I know many who now use the little USB 3.0 "pocket" drives almost exclusively. I used to edit with a full-size drive in a toaster-like "dock" connected via eSATA. Either way, 100 MB/sec provides plenty of bandwidth. But the problem I had was that I wanted to access my project folders from multiple machines. I might be editing one project on my PC, but on my iMac, I want to push some finished files to YouTube, or a client has sent me a raft of new photos for a different video. Being able to access my media drives from multiple machines would make things way more convenient.

The ioSafe 214 NAS solution

I own a Netgear ReadyNAS as part of my backup strategy. It's a 4-drive RAID where the loss of any one drive does not mean the loss of data. But it's an older model, and a slower one. I had an opportunity to test out a new NAS solution from ioSafe, the ioSafe 214--or, as I like to call it, the ioNAS. The 214 holds two drives in a fireproof, waterproof enclosure. It also touts speeds of over 100 MBps. I have mine striped in a RAID 1 mirror, so the same data is written to both drives. The failure of one drive means my data is still safe.

If you need more storage, and faster speeds, ioSafe has a larger model, the 1513+ that holds five drives and offers four ethernet ports delivering over 300 MBps read speed so there's a lot more performance in the bigger box. It starts shipping summer 2014.

The ioSafe under the hood

The Synology software inside these NAS solutions is quite powerful, offering various user levels to access media, it can back up the NAS to an external drive, be a USB print server, security camera recorder, mail server, even a web server, and a whole lot more. This last feature could be extremely helpful when you want to share a preview video with clients; you can share it directly from the NAS, and not upload it to the web. So your upload time is... zero. You just use the built-in sharing software.

In my usage, I was able to reliably read and write to the ioNAS from both my computers at the same time. Moreover, as a test, I opened and played multiple video clips on two different computers. When I had the NAS playing four different HD clips, two on each computer, I reached the limit of what the hard drives could do over the network. I would get a little bit of skipping in various clips. I do not think, however, that I reached the limit of what the NAS could do--only the hard drive. Having one drive try and play four different HD clips means it has to constantly jump between four files. With spinning platters, that's hard. With SSDs, that's easy. So an SSD version of the NAS would, I think, perform even better.

ioNAS speed test results

When I run the speed test on the ioNAS, it always delivers more than 100 MB/sec, which means that it's never the bottleneck for my 4K footage which is currently about 10 MB/sec. In several weeks of use, I've not had a single playback issue. Moreover, the convenience of having the media readily accessible wherever I want has been a boon to my productivity. It's not stuck on one machine. It's like I have my own, personal, massive, insanely fast Dropbox. Not to mention the ioNAS is redundant, and safe from most any calamity. And, unlike anything online these days, nobody is going to hack the ioNAS and force me to change my password tomorrow.

The ioSafe on my desk

I have it sitting on my desk, three feet from me and I have to admit that the iMac's fans are louder than the ioSafe NAS 214. The only time I ever hear it is the first time I access it in the morning, and it has to spin up the drives that went to sleep after being inactive. After that, it's like it's simply not there. It is a bit monolithic on my desk and I think it might be a bit nicer if it were rackmountable, and out of the way, but it does everything without a peep.

Conclusion

So, before jumping the gun and blowing gobs of money on insanely powerful hardware to "handle" 4K, you need to critically assess what kind of 4K you will handle, what software you will use to edit it with, and how you will edit it (transcode, or leave native). These three points will help determine if you need the latest and greatest hardware, or whether a few modest improvements are all that is needed.

Leave room for testing, and leave some of the budget for after you start your foray into 4K. You may not need the expensive, high end SD cards you thought you needed- but now you do need a better backup / archive solution. Whether your file management is sneakernet with one drive per client, or a networked solution, stepping back to visualize the whole production chain will enable you to make changes where they will be the most effective.

DISCLOSURE:

I bought my Panasonic GH4 with my own money, for my own work. I have no connection with Panasonic. I made the choice to use Adobe Premiere CC of my own accord and I pay regular subscription price for my Creative Cloud license, the same as everyone else. I purchased my Alienware X51 to be my main edit station in March 2013. It is an i7 Haswell with an Nvidia GTX760 GPU. It has 16 GB of RAM and an internal 1 TB drive. The ioSafe 214NAS is on loan to me for review. They pay shipping both ways, which is good because it's very heavy. I have no other connection to ioSafe. The ioNAS (as I call it) uses my existing gigabit ethernet in my office. No other hardware was provided or purchased to integrate the ioSafe 214 into my office. My HGST Touro drive is a client drive, supplied by a client for use on their projects. I did not pay for it. I purchased my Netgear ReadyNAS before it was a Netgear Product. It was made by a company called Infrant and their products were so awesome, Netgear bought Infrant. I am a customer of Dropbox. No relationship exists between Dropbox and myself.