New "Mini-Mag" media format for RED cameras

Complete mini-mag setup

You may think that the world doesn't need another expensive storage format when generic storage is getting cheaper and faster all the time - but this new RED format guarantees performance in situations where your footage is almost inevitably going to be worth many times more than your memory

Red have released a new smaller form factor SSD card. The new mini-mag card standard requires a new SSD side module that supports this newly styled media. The new cards are 50% smaller but they are also 50% faster allowing the use of redcode compression settings as low as 2:1 for 6K @ 12fps and 4:1 for the more usual 6K @ 24fps. The big news however, is that the new media is also much cheaper with the new 512gb mini-mag only costing $2450 compared to the older 1.8“ 512GB SSD which cost $3900. $2450 was also the price of a 256GB 1.8“ SSD so you can also look at it as double the capacity for the same price.

Faster offloading

The new mini-mags also need their own card reader. The new card reader not only supports Firewire 800, and USB 3.0 but also eSATA 6G. The latter reducing card offloading times significantly.

At present there is only a 512gb sized mini mag available and so far there is no word of whether the older Red One camera will be supported by the new media standard (it would need its own side module and probably a firmware update to support the new media too). So far the supported cameras are Scarlet, Epic and of course the Dragon cameras in all their forms.

Red were starting to have supply problems with the 512gb 1.8“ SSD’s and are hoping that the move to the new mini-mags will solve this problem, as well as making it easier to make higher capacities easily available in the future.