Storage Speed is Critical to Video Editing Performance

[Update – Dec. 11, 2023. My latest tests show this article is incomplete. SSDs improve output speeds even if all media is stored on HDDs, but MUCH faster if both media and export destination are stored on SSDs.

Here’s a new article with better, more complete, information.]

Regardless of which NLE you use for editing, we are all looking for ways to make editing go faster. While buying a new computer is an easy way to increase the performance of an editing system, it is also the most expensive. Recently, I discovered an inexpensive purchase that can transform the speed of your existing system.

What is it? An SSD RAID.

Let me explain.

With the recent release of Final Cut Pro 10.7, Apple added a new feature which provides faster export performance by harnessing the power of multiple media engines for those M-series chips that support it. (Um, just nod your head wisely and say, “OK.”)

I have an M2 Max Mac Studio with two media engines and an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, which only has one. A perfect testing environment. I was 18 tests into a 24 test suite when I remembered the fine print. macOS Sonoma is also required and I haven’t upgraded – yet. (Sigh… not till 14.2 is released, hopefully next week.)

NOTE: I upgraded. Here are the results of testing export segmentation in Final Cut Pro.

But something more important jumped out at me. Take a look at this chart.

When I run the exact same project on the exact same computer, using an SSD RAID for media storage and export destination, export speeds are 2.5 TIMES faster on a Mac Studio and 2.3 TIMES faster on a MacBook Pro than if I use a 4-drive HDD RAID.

Switching to an SSD RAID also improves render performance by the same amount.

DEFINITIONS

• SSD: Solid state drive. NVMe SSDs are 4X faster than SATA SSDs.
• HDD: Hard disk drive.
• RAID: A collection of multiple SSDs or HDDs to provide greater capacity and/or performance.

THE SYSTEM ISN’T MAXED OUT

These charts reinforce why storage speed is so important. In the top set, the CPUs are barely working. The GPUs – not shown – are running about 50%. The gating factor is the speed of the storage.

NOTE: The blue boxes indicate data read and write speeds. Read is the speed of data from local storage into your computer. Write is the speed of data from the computer back to local storage.

In the bottom set, running the same project on the same computer but connecting an NVMe SSD RAID,  CPUs are working harder, GPUs are running about 90%, but LOOK at the data rates Roughly 2.5 times faster reads and 2.1 times faster writes!

Storage speed, not processor speed, is critical to good performance.

THE M1 ISN’T THAT SLOW

When comparing the M1 Pro to M2 Max chips, the M2 was 4% faster when using the HDD RAID, and 13% faster when using the SSD RAID.

In other words, the speed of your storage has a greater impact on the performance of your system than the speed of the CPU, or the number of cores.

SUMMARY

This is not to say that a newer computer, more cores, faster CPU speeds won’t make a difference. They all do. But none of these upgrades compare to the performance increase provided by faster storage.

NOTE: With the exception of some multicam editing, no video editing format – up to 12K – exceeds the data transfer speeds of Thunderbolt 3/4.

If you are looking for an inexpensive way to boost performance, consider moving all media and exports to an NVMe SSD or NVMe SSD RAID for active editing. Use HDDs for longer-term storage, backups and archives.

NOTE: An NVMe SSD connected via Thunderbolt 3 will be as fast as an SSD RAID connected via Thunderbolt 4 (required for RAIDs). The difference isn’t speed, but storage capacity.

Two brands that I recommend are Samsung (T7 or T9) and OWC (Thunderblade, Express 4M2, Envoy Pro FX). I’m currently recommending against using SanDisk gear.

NOTE: You can use the internal SSD drive of any current Mac to improve performance. But all too often, to save money, we buy the least amount of internal storage possible and there isn’t enough room for media. External SSDs are cheaper, expandable and more than fast enough.