# Disk in kontakt keep hitting 100 via external drive



## Sang O Lee (Dec 16, 2020)

Hi guys.

Over the black friday, I've accumulated a lot of sample libraries which made my D-drive (2nd internal SSD) full. I decided to store my leftover 300gb worth of libraries to a 2TB external harddrive which I own.

The problem is when I load the libraries in Kontakt from the external harddrive, the disk % hits 100 whenever I press a note. But it shows no problems when I load the same library from the D-internal drive. My external disk still has like 500gb storage space left, so what could be the issue..?


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## colony nofi (Dec 21, 2020)

So - you can have setup issues when using SSD's and spinning rust at the same time for sample libraries.
The main issue is caused by the pre-load. When using just SSD's you are able to run very low pre-load amounts, but that is not suitable for slower HDD's. 
The only way around it is to use higher pre-load - which will use more RAM. But such is the juggle.

Regarding the spinning external disk - HDD's slow down to a significant level once they are more than 50% full - just due to the way they store data from the outside to the inside of each platter. I would run a speedtest on the drive as well - and I wouldn't be surprised to see figures of under 100MB/s. (depending on the drive)

Anyway, try mess with pre-load. That would def be my first bet.


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## PaulieDC (Dec 21, 2020)

You REALLY want/need to get off of spinning drives. Here's a solution I have in my tower, two sets actually. You don't HAVE to do this but if you're game, you can start with 1 piece at a time:

Get this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01798WOJ0 (PCIe x4 card) for $24. You'll want to use an available x8 or x16 slot if you don't have a dedicated x4 slot, those are rarer. Don't worry that the slot is twice as long as te card connection, it'll work fine.

Now you'll have two slots for M.2 2280 drives, one SATA and one NVMe. SATA is cheaper but does require a SATA cable, just like it was a 2.5" SSD. The NVMe drive pumps data right through the card which is nice. The card provides power to both.

Start with a cheaper SATA drive, it will still be WAY faster than spinners. A https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0B/dp/B073SBW3VD/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=m.2%2Bsata%2Bdrive&qid=1608610359&s=electronics&sr=1-3&th=1 (2TB WD Blue SATA M.2) is $199. Or go with a 1TB for now. Then later save for an https://www.amazon.com/Black-SN750-NVMe-Internal-Gaming/dp/B07M9VXSXG/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=m.2+nvme+drive&qid=1608610629&s=electronics&sr=1-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEySUNUQkhWTFY3RzFUJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUExMDM2MzA1M1NRRDUwVVNORTFKQSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNDA0MDI2MTZGRVlHQlhBNUc4JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ== (NVMe drive) which is even way faster when used in the PCIe adapter. Or start with that and your disk meter will barely pop if you have ample ram.

WD and Samsung drives have been the most reliable in my world, both home and work.

Just one way to boost your environment, not THE way.  I run OT and Spitfire on NVMe's and load time is just seconds for a track.


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## Harry (Dec 21, 2020)

Can you explain what you mean by pre-load and how to adjust it. Does the same thing affect SSD drives? 
I have some samples eg Spitfire on SSD but use normal HD drive for the DAW file - does that affect things? 

Thanks


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## rudi (Dec 22, 2020)

Here is a simple example. Imagine you have a large sampled stereo grand piano - 88 notes, each note may have 8 or more velocity layers, and several round robins to vary the sound slightly. That results in a huge instrument, and if you tried to load the entire instrument:

1) it would take a while to load
2) it would use up huge amounts of RAM

So instead of loading the _entire _instrument, you only pre-load the _start_ of each sample. That way the moment you hit a key the sample starts playing. While the start part plays, the sotware loads the rest of the sample for that note. The result is that it sounds as if you had the entire sample loaded.
There are several benefits to that approach:

1) the instruments loads quicker (although only partially)
2) samples that are not used are not loaded fully
3) you can play samples than wouldn't fit in your RAM if fully loaded

Of course that's a simplified description. The implementation is based on how fast your hard drive(s) are - the faster the better. If you have slower drives, the amount of pre-load will have to be increased as it will take more time to fetch the data. The more RAM you have the more pre-loaded date you can have. So a combination of fast drives (SSD) and plenty of RAM will give you a smoother experience.


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