# Will SSD via USB2 do the streaming trick?



## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 24, 2016)

can any of you IT knowledgable members confirm or not whether SSD via USB 2 is enough to stream samples via disk?

Thank you in advance


----------



## germancomponist (Jan 24, 2016)

It depends on what library you want to use. In the very past I also streamed samples from normal USB1 harddrives.


----------



## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 24, 2016)

Oh, I thought there is no difference in what library?
It concerns behemian violin and some lass mainly. So UVi workstation and Kontakt 5

What do you say?


----------



## germancomponist (Jan 24, 2016)

Experiment!


----------



## proxima (Jan 24, 2016)

Any SSD connected via USB2 will be a waste. USB2 is at most about 35 MB/sec, or less than the speed of even slow hard drives. The only advantage an SSD provides over a hard drive connected via USB2 would be the seek time (the time it takes for a hard drive to physically get to the file you're trying to access), but I doubt it would be sufficient to be worth the additional expense.


----------



## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 25, 2016)

proxima said:


> Any SSD connected via USB2 will be a waste. USB2 is at most about 35 MB/sec, or less than the speed of even slow hard drives. The only advantage an SSD provides over a hard drive connected via USB2 would be the seek time (the time it takes for a hard drive to physically get to the file you're trying to access), but I doubt it would be sufficient to be worth the additional expense.



I guessed it but couldn't find proper info, so thank you!


----------



## TGV (Jan 25, 2016)

proxima said:


> Any SSD connected via USB2 will be a waste.


That's not true. As an "side"-grade option, it does make sense. Upgrading your computer with a larger SSD can be expensive, so if you need a small SSD for a few libraries, it can be cost effective.

Let's say USB2 streams at 20MB/s. A stereo sample takes 176kB/s, so you can stream around 100 voices from a USB2 disk, although details depend on other factors, such as concurrent IO tasks and CPU usage.


----------



## proxima (Jan 25, 2016)

TGV said:


> That's not true. As an "side"-grade option, it does make sense. Upgrading your computer with a larger SSD can be expensive, so if you need a small SSD for a few libraries, it can be cost effective.
> 
> Let's say USB2 streams at 20MB/s. A stereo sample takes 176kB/s, so you can stream around 100 voices from a USB2 disk, although details depend on other factors, such as concurrent IO tasks and CPU usage.


The point is that you can easily saturate your USB2 interface with a hard drive, even a slower 2.5" model. The only advantage SSD provides is in seek time. Frankly, I bet a decent network attached storage device with a gigabit ethernet connection could outperform a USB2-connected SSD for sampling, but I haven't tried it.


----------



## EvilDragon (Jan 25, 2016)

Ethernet has its own latency, though - eSATA or TB would be much better than that.


----------



## mbagalacomposer (Jan 25, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> can any of you IT knowledgable members confirm or not whether SSD via USB 2 is enough to stream samples via disk?
> 
> Thank you in advance



Have you considered SSD with a thunderbolt connection? I've had good experiences with that sort of setup.


----------



## proxima (Jan 25, 2016)

EvilDragon said:


> Ethernet has its own latency, though - eSATA or TB would be much better than that.


Of course. The OP doesn't say what interfaces they have available, but eSATA or TB would certainly be worthwhile if available (especially eSATA since the enclosures are essentially a pass-through to the drive). A rough rule would be eSATA ~= TB > USB3 > USB2 > 100 Mbit ethernet, with gigabit ethernet placed somewhere in there around USB3 and USB2 depending on the network protocol, the speed of the NAS, the usage (small files versus large), etc.


----------



## TGV (Jan 25, 2016)

proxima said:


> The point is that you can easily saturate your USB2 interface with a hard drive, even a slower 2.5" model.


A conventional spinning hard disk, especially the 2.5" slower models, will have trouble with 20 voices. It has to jump between sectors 88 times per second (44.1kHz, 512 bytes buffer) to 20 different places. That's too much for a moving head, while an SSD can do that easily. I'm not claiming a USB drive is ideal, but it can be a temporary solution for storage problems.


----------



## JohnG (Jan 25, 2016)

TGV said:


> I'm not claiming a USB drive is ideal, but it can be a temporary solution for storage problems.



I don't mean to be categorical, but I think this is terrible advice because it suggests that a USB streaming solution with SSD might be somewhat satisfactory. 

I say it won't. Only in the most remote, extremely limited circumstances (so limited that I can't imagine them) would I recommend streaming samples via USB2. If you are merely _loading_ them so that they are fully in RAM, that is one thing, but not for streaming, which is what I think is being discussed.

Internal or Thunderbolt would be my two choices, though if EvilDragon recommends eSata that bears investigation.


----------



## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 25, 2016)

It is a budget consideration, unfortunately.

So I get that it is a rather limited solution that largely SSD is far more at speeds then the USB2 connection can handle.
And so streaming is a no go.

Bummer.

The whole thing is: I hook my apogee duet firewire to the only connection I have with the MBPro. The other two are the USB2 connections.

That would mean either switching to a USB audio interface and use the FW800 for the SSD.
But it comes down to all kinds of investments I would rather avoid.
These are obviously my concerns, but I hoped for some better performance in the requested config then is inficated my all.

Thank you all for contributing in my question, and my knowledge has increased therefore. My budget not unfortunately.


----------



## Ian Dorsch (Jan 25, 2016)

It looks like options for Thunderbolt SSDs are still pretty limited. Is there a particular drive or enclosure that anyone has had good luck with?


----------



## tav.one (Jan 25, 2016)

Ian Dorsch said:


> It looks like options for Thunderbolt SSDs are still pretty limited. Is there a particular drive or enclosure that anyone has had good luck with?


You can try this: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1240
I'm also thinking about buying a 2 bay enclosure by Lacie and setting up a RAID0 system.

I'm also facing the same issue, USB 3 drives going though USB2 ports in 2011 21.5 inch iMac, Even 5 tracks of Mural don't play in my DAW. My iMac does have a Thunderbolt port.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 25, 2016)

There may be issues with USB 2 and some setups, but you are not going to saturate it (or FireWire 400 for that matter) with LASS. I forget how many voices that is, but it's in the range of 150 - 200 stereo voices.

John G is absolutely right... but you're using the EW Hollywood stuff, right John? That's a special case - and I'm not saying that to dis it, I'm saying it both places and makes good use of the high demands on hardware.

Ideally I wouldn't use USB 2 for samples, but I think Gunther's answer is right: it depends what you're doing.


----------



## JohnG (Jan 25, 2016)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> John G is absolutely right... but you're using the EW Hollywood stuff, right John?



Honestly, Nick, I wouldn't try to stream any sample libraries via USB2. It's asking for frustration. If you have enough RAM to load stuff fully into memory that's another matter.

DEFINITELY not Hollywood Strings, as you said.


----------



## proxima (Jan 25, 2016)

TGV said:


> A conventional spinning hard disk, especially the 2.5" slower models, will have trouble with 20 voices. It has to jump between sectors 88 times per second (44.1kHz, 512 bytes buffer) to 20 different places. That's too much for a moving head, while an SSD can do that easily. I'm not claiming a USB drive is ideal, but it can be a temporary solution for storage problems.


That would imply the bottleneck for sampling is not USB2 but the drive itself. Your assertion can't be correct: an internal 2.5" 5400 RPM drive can support more than 20 voices! 

While "average" seek time might be 12ms or so on a 5400 RPM drive, practically speaking the files are stored physically nearby, and there are several layers of caching (including on the drive itself) at work. 

The other posters may well be correct: LASS might run fine from a USB2 interface, including onto a hard drive. If one is on a budget, this would be the cheapest solution and will leave you with at least a 1 TB drive that will be useful for backups in the future. Granted, relative to just a little while ago the cheapest SSDs aren't very expensive (starting around $65), but hard drives are still cheaper.

Bottom line for the OP: others report that LASS isn't very demanding. You can get a portable external hard drive, try it out, and return it if the performance doesn't work well for you. Save your money for a new laptop or desktop.


----------



## babylonwaves (Jan 26, 2016)

Silence-is-Golden said:


> That would mean either switching to a USB audio interface and use the FW800 for the SSD.
> But it comes down to all kinds of investments I would rather avoid.


maybe i've overlooked this detail but why don't you just daisy chain FW device. you can run an audio interface and an SSD on one bus. unless you run tons of audio channels, it is worth a try.


----------



## WorshipMaestro (Jan 26, 2016)

Great ideas here, but the OP has been pretty clear his budget is very limited.

Here's an option that has worked for me in the past. Hitachi, now HGST, makes a 7200RPM USB drive that is quite quick. It used to be branded the Mobile Touro Pro, but is now the Touro S. It's a USB3 drive (so will still be useful when the OP upgrades his computer in the future), but works great with USB2. I've seen transfer rates of 65-70 MB/s (MegaBytes, not Megabits) over USB2.



Hope this is useful.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 26, 2016)

JohnG said:


> Honestly, Nick, I wouldn't try to stream any sample libraries via USB2. It's asking for frustration.  If you have enough RAM to load stuff fully into memory that's another matter.
> 
> DEFINITELY not Hollywood Strings, as you said.



Well, I haven't used USB2 for samples, just for backups. But I have used FireWire 400, which has technical differences but less bandwidth, with standard hard drives no problem.

My only argument is that I think it would take some doing to saturate the bus with LASS.


----------



## Silence-is-Golden (Jan 26, 2016)

WorshipMaestro said:


> Great ideas here, but the OP has been pretty clear his budget is very limited.
> 
> Here's an option that has worked for me in the past. Hitachi, now HGST, makes a 7200RPM USB drive that is quite quick. It used to be branded the Mobile Touro Pro, but is now the Touro S. It's a USB3 drive (so will still be useful when the OP upgrades his computer in the future), but works great with USB2. I've seen transfer rates of 65-70 MB/s (MegaBytes, not Megabits) over USB2.
> 
> ...




@WorshipMaestro : good suggestion, which I am looking into. Thismay be the best ( budget driven) track to follow.
Also @other recent posters: indeed firewire is what I currently use with my iMac. The 800 speed, which works very good.

Daisychain with firewire however, seems a rarely supported feature, in theory yes, but not with my current adapter, which on the website said it was possible, but in the smaller letters said :not in combi with audio interface.....which I found out after having purchased it.

Again all valuable input!


----------



## Maestro77 (Jan 26, 2016)

Great topic, guys. I'm about to hook up SSD's to a new Mac Pro using a USB 3.0 docking bay. Not as fast as thunderbolt, I'm guessing, but your thoughts on that?


----------



## chimuelo (Jan 26, 2016)

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/lexar-usb-3-0-portable-ssd-256gb-review/

These will have 1TB soon but running a pair of these sure looks sweet.
I'll be getting a pair for swapping if I have a failure.
But I dont see PLAY loading well from one of these unless you are using 16bit Silver.


----------

