# NVME vs SDD vs HDD [M1 vs PC] with Kontakt [tested]



## rougue (Mar 27, 2021)

Thought I would share my findings.
*How long does it take to load a 24Gb Library from disk so it is visible and "usable" in Kontakt?*

Moving amongst PC and Mac and using exFat had become incredibly bothersome. I had been using a WD Black 12TB 7200rpm USB3 drive. I pulled out an old Samsung 840 EVO 120Gb SSD to compare. Was surprised at how dire the exFat performed - and seems like my Mac *resents* exFat. Have just invested in a new giant SSD.

Computers:
M1 Macbook Air 16Gb [Big Sur].
Intel G4400 16Gb [Win10] w/ UASP support.
Intel i7 980 12Gb [Win10) [no UASP].

Storage:
Samsung EVO 840 120Gb SSD [via UGreen USB3 5Gbps adaptor].
WD Black 7200RPM USB3 drive.
G4400 internal: Sabrent Rocket 512Gb NVME.
M1 Macbook Air internal NVME.

Note 1: Paragon HFS software was used on one windows machine. My M1 doesn't seem compatible with any NTFS software at the moment (apart from a dubious one from iBoySoft). But Big Sur can still read NTFS (not write).

Note 2: Kontakt was used in Standalone mode (via Rosetta on Mac).

Note 3: this was incredibly tedious and pedantic.

Note 4: I am skeptical about the accuracy of these results, but might be worth sharing nonetheless.

Time in minutes and seconds:


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## rougue (Apr 2, 2021)

I need to update this.
I bought an 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD in a UGreen 6Gbps enclosure.
And a 2TB WD NVME put into an Orico 10Gbps USB-C (USB3.1) enclosure.

To load the 24Gb Kontakt library from the SSD takes* 34 seconds*.

From the external NVME: *14 seconds* (whilst simultaneously writing to that NVME (copying libraries)).

These are obvious improvements over my 7200rpm hard-disk (taking 7+ minutes to load the same library).

Orico also has a 20Gbps USB-C NVME enclosure (USB3.2). If you're working a lot with big libraries, I think these would really improve work-flow.


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## ashX (Apr 2, 2021)

Thanks for your info, man! Wondering why you haven't tested Internal SATA3 on two other devices, I mean I understand it about i7 980 that it doesnt have nvme in its motherboard but I assume two other machines do have sata.
Btw, was it tested with library batch-resaved or not?


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## rougue (Apr 2, 2021)

Actually i also had the 120Gb SSD on internal SATA3 in the i7 980 and that took about 60 seconds.

in my G440 PC i had the NVME which took about 30 seconds. I think it is a superior NVME to the WD Blue NVME i just used, so surprised the external USB-C NVME operated faster - but that could have been the M1 working it's magic.

The other internal drives were 5400rpm and that would have been miserable.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 12, 2021)

Always love tests. I have to wonder, what motherboard / ports are you are have with the Pentium and the very very old i7?


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## Pictus (Apr 14, 2021)

Here http://www.scanproaudio.info/category/test-labs/
and https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/core-wars-amd-intel-cpus-tested
we can see that for KONTAKT the 3950X is not much far behind the 10980XE.
For a Ryzen 9 5950X not to perform better than a I7-5960x is a very odd result.


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