Samsung: A workflow game changer
Posted on Jun 24, 2021
Director and DOP Peter Naylor was battling with slow transfers and a busy schedule – until he got his hands on the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch
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Filming across the charming landscapes of Norfolk and beyond, filmmaker Peter Naylor is inspired by the outdoors. “I’m not known for working in-studio,” he explains. “I much prefer to be in the real world.”
Diving deeper into his professional methods, Naylor says: “I ran a production company for a while, but stepped away to work as a freelancer on a greater variety of projects. I’m mostly involved in commercial shoots. It’s not what I’d describe as traditional documentary content – the term ‘lifestyle’ seems more fitting.”
A post-lockdown thaw has led to a wonderfully busy schedule for many filmmakers and freelance creatives in the UK and worldwide, and Naylor is no exception. With a handful of projects lined up, he was in need of a portable SSD capable of going above and beyond. He trialled the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch – and it didn’t let him down.
“I’ve had the portable drive on set, primarily to be used as a backup. It’s a crucial part of any workflow, but I must say, things have been different from our standard process – purely because of the speed. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch has really made our lives easier, with a faster all-round process.”
Smooth playback
Naylor recalls working on set with the Samsung portable drive: “At the end of the shoot days, we were backing up as much as 500GB of footage – and all that data was transferred in under 20 minutes, which is outstanding. On one day, the client handed me their drive to receive their own backup, and the same amount of data required three hours to transfer.”
At its best, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch offers read and write speeds of 1050MB/s and 1000MB/s, respectively, meaning the days of hour-long transfers are behind us. That’s a suitably speedy 9.5x faster than an external HDD.
“Our second production was food-based,” continues Naylor. “So, it required plenty of reviewing. It was essential to ensure shots were sharp and the styling was captured perfectly. Of course, with that, playback needed to be fast and smooth.
“On set, I’ve been using a very modern laptop and, paired with the Samsung portable drive, the capabilities are just incredible. I colour-corrected some 6K ProRes Raw footage recently, and even with those huge files, the rendering and editing process itself was virtually flawless.”
Modern processes certainly require tools that can keep up. It seems this surprised Naylor most of all. “It’s a device that lets you look at your whole workflow and how it can be handled. Everything I’m shooting is at least 4K, everything is ProRes Raw 4:2:2 or higher, so these are very sizeable files.”
He adds: “You know you have to back those up, and without fast transfer drives like this, the idea is constantly in your head. You’re thinking, ‘That’s going to take an hour, so I need to make time’, whereas with the Samsung drive, you pop it in and it’s done in 20 minutes. That’s incredibly freeing.”
It’s not just all tech, though. The Portable SSD T7 Touch also features a sleek and compact design, equipped with an intuitive fingerprint scanner for up to four users. It’s fast, secured with AES 256-bit encryption and built with the user in mind.
“It’s perfect for working remotely,” says Naylor. “With a laptop, you can rig a little pouch to the back and the Samsung sits there very nicely. You can also carry more portable drives in less space than some single HDDs, which is crucial at times. I’m about to go on a shoot abroad and need to pack light, so I’d really like to purchase a few of these for myself by then.”
In closing, Naylor is yet another happy soon-to-be customer. His final thoughts on the drive are concise. “It just does the job and does it very well. You can’t ask more of a piece of kit.”
Visit the Samsung website for more information.
