Trouble using SSD Extreme Pro with BlackMagic Cinema Camera EF & Aluratek Docking Enclosure

Hi there,

I recently purchased a Blackmagic CInema Camera EF.  I read the manual carefully, line by line and followed all of the instructions for formatting my SSD card (SanDisk Extreme Pro 240 GB) in the camera.  Because I’m only working on Mac computers, I set the format to HFS+.   

I shot some test footage (five 1 min.  shots)  in Pro Res HQ.   I had also purchased an Aluratek 3.0 Docking Enclosure in order to off-load the footage.  I followed those instructions carefully as well and placed the SSD card in the reader. 

This is where the issues kick in.  My computer (Mac Pro 2012 with 3.6 GHZ Intel Xeon, 16 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, Mountain Lion)  was not able to recognize the drive at first.  Then, after a good while,  my computer finally recognized the drive, but I was no able to view any of the footage.  Then my computer crashed unexpectedly, meaning that it just turned off without warning (this has NEVER happened to me before).  I went to reformat it again at the boot level and saw that the BlackMagic had created a disc partition which was indeed Mac OS Extended Journaled, but the actual disk was MS Dos Fat!   We reformatted the SSD using disc utility in the computer and set it all to HFS+ (Mac OS). 

Then, we shot some more test footage (this time just one clip in Pro Res HQ). This time, the drive was recognized more quickly, but we still had trouble viewing the clip. Then the computer CRASHED AGAIN.  This caused much worry as I don’t want use of the camera to cause damage to my computer.

Please help!

Thank you!

as far as I know FAT32 should be the file system you use. I do not have any black magic camera but as far as I know there is not a camera on the market that uses Mac file systems. 

First I would try to narrow down what is causing the issue. Since the SSD seems to work correctly in the camera this indicates the camera and SSD are working correctly. The only other variable is the 3.0 doc you are using. If you have another SATA to USB cable or can connect the SSD internally (like on a desk top) see if you can view and transfer the data using some other way of connecting the SSD. It is possible the doc is what is causing the system crash.