Beta Tester Review: On-Set BTS Shot Straight to Planck SSD

This tiny SSD packs quite a punch.

Meet Plank. A little drive that also shares a name with the smallest unit of measurement in the universe.

It's pretty fitting because this drive is tiny.

So small that I often found myself forgetting that it's even plugged into my phone.

Do want to note Plank sent me a beta unit to test, but it's only because I first backed the Kickstarter using my own funds, and they didn't dictate what I could or couldn't say in this preview.

All these tests were filmed on an iPhone 15 Pro running the newest public OS release, as well as an iPhone 16 Pro running the iOS 26 beta.

So, this drive has quickly become my go-to for drives.

While functionally, it's nearly identical to other drives I've tested on the channel and that I've talked about, the form factor means that it's incredibly convenient to use.

It's honestly why I backed the Kickstarter in the first place because as soon as I looked at it, I was like, that's what I'm looking for. The the size, the weight, plugs in, everything.

To test out the drive, I've been using it to capture behindthe-scenes footage and creative shots on a few of my larger shoots.

These are shoots where I'm using cameras like Red cameras, Sony cameras, just higherend than phone cameras.

I was filming both 24 frames per second as well as 4K 120 frames per second footage in ProRes as well as H.265.

The drive performed as expected the entire time, and the only time that I ran into any issues using this little guy was when I was filming multiple 4K 120 frames per second ProRes files in a row.

It was Charleston. I was filming in a very, very hot shed. I was hot. It was hot.

I understand why it was having some issues.

And it was hard to say if it was the phone that was overheating, if it was the drive that was overheating, if it was a combination of the two.

But either way, it didn't overheat and have issues any more frequently than any other drive I've ever used in my life, or even just using your phone without a drive on it. Uh, it performed exactly as I expected.

And if I let it rest for about 30 seconds, I could hit the ground running once again and would be good to go.

I've noted the size of the drive, but I really can't stress enough how convenient this little guy is.

For all the shoots that I was doing, I was running just the phone with the drive.

No extra rigging other than the occasional ND filter that I was throwing on as needed. As I was primarily focusing on either running camera for these bigger shoots or rigging the lighting or just helping out on set, the fact that I could just throw the phone in the pocket and not worry about the drive disconnecting or having any issues or anything breaking meant that I had a worry-free rig.

Another plus with this drive is other drives I've used have issues connecting to a phone uh using some of the cases I use because they weren't quite long enough. Uh, with this one, they made it just long enough that you with whether I'm using my Moment case or my Polar Pro cases, it has a firm enough connection and I'm not worried about the phone just falling off, it's in there pretty tightly with no extra adapters. One other thing I love about the drive is that when I'm done filming, it's easy to just throw the drive into my laptop and have the footage readily available. just one tiny downside given the shape of the drive that if I use it on my laptop, it does tend to cover some of the other ports, but I wouldn't really call that a complaint because that's a result of the form factor that um I wouldn't change for the world because this form factor is what makes it work so well with my phone.

So, it's just worth really noting.

I'm going to continue to put the drive through the paces, but I have to say that I'm nothing but impressed by the drive so far. The convenience, the speed, and the physical form factor means that it only makes my normal rigs even better.

If you're looking for an SSD for your phone, this is a very solid drive to check out. As always though, remember that this is just a tool to aid you in storytelling because ultimately it is not about your gear, it's about the story that you're telling.

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