SD Card for Disk Cache? Would it be possible?

[Brian Charles]

[Pedro Amaral] “Would using one of these SD cards be any advantage to hold cache in AE? “

Short answer: No.

[Pedro Amaral] “Would it be too slow to read from?”

Much slower than the SSD in the Macbook. Depending on the speed from 3 to 10 times slower. If you’re looking at the Transcend JetDrives, they’re really for storing data that doesn’t require the fast read or write speed.

[Pedro Amaral] “Will AE even recognise and accept the SD Card as a drive as Disk Cache destination?”

It will, but its not worth it.

[Chris Wright]

from article :”Transcend says that users can expect read and write speeds of up to 95MB/s” sorry 4k needs 1152MB/sec. but there are SD cards out there that can do this, but you can still do ProRes HQ @ 28MB/sec. so it all depends on what files you’re using as long as your media drive is separate from your cache drive. Since cache requires the fastest, it might be better to use the sd for media instead.

Thunderbolt 2 is fast enough for 4k. NOT thunderbolt 1. so don’t go buying plain thunderbolt thinking you’re golden.

SD cards do exist but they require new motherboards with 4x m2. support.
at m.2 4x 1.16 GB/s read speed, one single sd card is faster than EIGHT hd’s in raid. 4k with one card? 4K film DPX 4096 x 3112 is 1152MB/sec(1.15GB/sec)… so bam!, you’ve just nailed 4k land with ZERO hard drives. Yep, its fast enough for cache(the old man).

[Brian Charles]

[Chris Wright] “at m.2 4x 1.16 GB/s read speed, one single sd card is faster than EIGHT hd’s in raid. 4k with one card? 4K film DPX 4096 x 3112 is 1152MB/sec(1.15GB/sec)… so bam!, you’ve just nailed 4k land with ZERO hard drives. Yep, its fast enough for cache(the old man).”

Isn’t M.2 the new mSATA? So for SSD’s not SDHC?

I’m not sure this applies to SDHC cards in any way which is what the OP was asking.

[Chris Wright]

it may seem a little confusing at first, because it is a relatively new technology. I was specifying the newest NVMe rates which is m.2 x4 NOT x2 or old pcie. x4 uses more pci lanes to transmit data hence 4 lanes = more bandwidth. There a dizzying array of ssd types out there so be sure you buy the right one. And when I post, I always add a little extra in there to help the economy. buy more stuff!

here are the main differences of msata vs m.2
//techi talk
https://rog.asus.com/308552014/labels/guides/ssd-guide-pci-express-m-2-msata-and-sata-express-the-differences-explained/
///more wiki stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Mini-SATA_.28mSATA.29

here’s the link to the actual newest 4x lanes speed of pci
https://www.anandtech.com/show/8045/asrock-z97-extreme6-review-ultra-m2-x4-tested-with-xp941/11

and SDHC CAN hold data. Just well, you’re kinda going back in time to 2005 or so.

[Brian Charles]

Sure but the OP has a Retina MacBook Pro with an SDHC card slot. Which is why I did not recommend using it for an After Effects disk cache, the internal SSD is far more efficient.

[Pedro Amaral]

Hey Brian,

Thanks a lot for your replies.
I kind of suspected it would be asking to much to have the card reader doing the heavy job but it would be awesome if it would work somehow.

The SSD should work just fine for now.

Thanks!

[Pedro Amaral]

Hi Chris,

Thanks a lot for your replies and for sharing all the info.

Not sure if my new Retina Macbook Pro motherboard would support it but it would definitely be such an awesome feature to explore in the future!
Its tiny, unnoticeable, doesn’t bother anyone with cables, space or weight… One day in the future maybe!

Thanks a lot again for helping out.