# One 8TB M.2 NVMe SSD for ALL Samples and Audio Drive?



## gsilbers (Aug 25, 2021)

Old skool thought is that I need many drives for better performance but these new M2 SSD seem very fast. 

Would one of these on an external drive USB-C (Mac mini intel) handle both project audio and sample libraries? 




These are the specs

The NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 interface delivers exceptional performance of up to 3,500MB/s seq. read and 3,000MB/s seq. write speeds
and with a thunderbolt3 case




Im still a little unclear on the m.2 spec and specially the connector type. seems the above would work together right? pci-e type. 

price is not that bad for speed vs size. im used to normal ssd so this is all new to me. any help would be appreciated


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## gsilbers (Aug 25, 2021)

OR anything else I might be missing?


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## mscp (Aug 25, 2021)

If you're using more than one library or layering, split them into smaller NVMEs connected to different ports/buses. The speed only effectively makes a difference under two circumstances (that I know of...there could be more):

1. RAM/SSD swap files -- particularly with the new Macs;
2. Large files (e.g: video renders).

NVME speeds won't matter much when dealing with several hundred files being read simultaneously from the same stick.

That's based on my own personal experience, so take it with a pinch a salt.


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> Old skool thought is that I need many drives for better performance but these new M2 SSD seem very fast.
> 
> Would one of these on an external drive USB-C (Mac mini intel) handle both project audio and sample libraries?
> 
> ...



For the enclosure, I don’t usually buy from Amazon when a product only has 22 ratings.

I run “most” of my libraries from one external 2TB m.2 in an enclosure nowadays, but your projects might be a lot larger than mine.

My plan was to grow to four 2TB m.2 (the cheapest is only $199, the Micro Center brand) and put them in the OWC m.2 dock. 

For now I LOVE having a tiny external drive to run everything.


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

fwiw …

…this is the cheaper 2TB I got. Apparently when it’s mostly reading (not writing) it should be fine.

Inland Platinum 2TB SSD NVMe PCIe... 

The OWC 4M2 is pricey but as @Phil81 mentioned… I like the idea of reading off multiple drives.






OWC Express 4M2 SSD Enclosure - Thunderbolt 3


Four easy-to-access NVMe M.2 SSD slots customizable for any workflow with up to 32TB of capacity and up to 2800MB/s performance. Includes a 1 year warranty.




eshop.macsales.com


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## gsilbers (Aug 25, 2021)

Phil81 said:


> If you're using more than one library or layering, split them into smaller NVMEs connected to different ports/buses. The speed only effectively makes a difference under two circumstances (that I know of...there could be more):
> 
> 1. RAM/SSD swap files -- particularly with the new Macs;
> 2. Large files (e.g: video renders).
> ...



Interesting. I thought the read speeds would cover all the small files as well.


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## gsilbers (Aug 25, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> For the enclosure, I don’t usually buy from Amazon when a product only has 22 ratings.
> 
> I run “most” of my libraries from one external 2TB m.2 in an enclosure nowadays, but your projects might be a lot larger than mine.
> 
> ...



ah you are right. should choose with better ratings. Mostly the UscC 3.1 enclosure are the ones with crazy good reviews. doesnt seem many need thunderbolt speeds.


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## gsilbers (Aug 25, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> fwiw …
> 
> …this is the cheaper 2TB I got. Apparently when it’s mostly reading (not writing) it should be fine.
> 
> ...



that might be about the same. with 4 x2tb in that case. Maybe better cuz its split.


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## mscp (Aug 25, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> Interesting. I thought the read speeds would cover all the small files as well.


I had thought so too a while ago -- until I tried it out myself. Apparently having several SSD or NVME drives for different sections are more efficient on my end.


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## jcrosby (Aug 25, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> Old skool thought is that I need many drives for better performance but these new M2 SSD seem very fast.
> 
> Would one of these on an external drive USB-C (Mac mini intel) handle both project audio and sample libraries?
> 
> ...



I run everything from an 8 TB MBP (internal). I hit the CPU limit way before polyphony would ever be an issues. I do full projects from the same drive as well, i.e. full hybrid templates with several hundred instrument tracks, plus tons of bounced and/or imported audio... An 8TB nvme has been a completely solid for me....

It's mainly going to be an issue of finding the right case that is accurately rated for those kinds of speeds... I can't see the amazon link (VI-C always seems to do this for me, Amazon links don't embed or show). IME the one area you should not skimp on is the enclosure. There's a lot of inaccurately specced generic enclosures on places like Amazon... Not to mention lower chance of failure. (I've always had hit and miss performance with cheap aftermarket enclosures... Tow (maybe three?) completely dying on me.)

Maybe I'm just biased at this point based on past experiences but enclosures are one area where I think it's worth buying from companies proven to be honest in speccing their devices.


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> ah you are right. should choose with better ratings. Mostly the UscC 3.1 enclosure are the ones with crazy good reviews. doesnt seem many need thunderbolt speeds.


Agreed that’s why I got a bit relieved when I saw the OWC 4M2. I don’t love the idea of another steel box with a power supply but … the reliability and RAID options will likely be worth it (for me).


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> I run everything from an 8 TB MBP (internal). I hit the CPU limit way before polyphony would ever be an issues. I do full projects from the same drive as well, i.e. full hybrid templates with several hundred instrument tracks, plus tons of bounced and/or imported audio... An 8TB nvme has been a completely solid for me....
> 
> It's mainly going to be an issue of finding the right case that is accurately rated for those kinds of speeds... I can't see the amazon link (VI-C always seems to do this for me, Amazon links don't embed or show). IME the one area you should not skimp on is the enclosure. There's a lot of inaccurately specced generic enclosures on places like Amazon... Not to mention lower chance of failure. (I've always had hit and miss performance with cheap aftermarket enclosures... Tow (maybe three?) completely dying on me.)
> 
> Maybe I'm just biased at this point based on past experiences but enclosures are one area where I think it's worth buying from companies proven to be honest in speccing their devices.


I trust an internal MBP 8TB internal (if one is willing to spend for that) but I get itchy thinking about 8TB external M2 enclosures in August 2021. Can’t wait till this comment seems so dated! :D


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## David Kudell (Aug 25, 2021)

If you want kind of the ultimate speed & capacity solution, look into the Glyph Atom Pro 8TB which is 2 NVme drives in Raid. You need Thunderbolt 3, but you’ll get the 2800MB/sec max of Thunderbolt with it. And no, it’s not cheap.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 25, 2021)

If you want to go with a single NVME Thunderbolt enclosure, I've had good luck with OWC's Envoy Express for $79. One nice feature is that the cable looks captive, but it's actually a standard cable with one end inside the enclosure, so you could go longer or shorter with a different cable if needed, or replace the cable if it fails, but you don't have worry about pulling the cable out of the enclosure in use.



Soundbed said:


> Agreed that’s why I got a bit relieved when I saw the OWC 4M2. I don’t love the idea of another steel box with a power supply but … the reliability and RAID options will likely be worth it (for me).


The only issue to keep in mind with the 4M2 is that the transfer limit for data over TB3 (in order to leave headroom for video if a display is connected) is 2800MB/s, or slower than some single NVME drives. In the 4M2, this means that each slot will only give you 700MB/s - faster than a SATA SSD, but nowhere near what each drive is capable of. You have to RAID the drives to reach that 2800MB/s speed. The OWC Envoy Express will give you over 1500MB/s with a single drive.

I've had a 4M2 since late 2018, and it's a very nice enclosure (the fan is a little noisy, but I now have it attached to my server, so it's not an issue), but NVME development has outstripped Thunderbolt speeds. This does mean that you don't necessarily have to find the absolute fastest drives if you're using Thunderbolt - you can just match drive performance to whatever enclosure fits your needs.


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> If you want to go with a single NVME Thunderbolt enclosure, I've had good luck with OWC's Envoy Express for $79. One nice feature is that the cable looks captive, but it's actually a standard cable with one end inside the enclosure, so you could go longer or shorter with a different cable if needed, or replace the cable if it fails, but you don't have worry about pulling the cable out of the enclosure in use.
> 
> 
> The only issue to keep in mind with the 4M2 is that the transfer limit for data over TB3 (in order to leave headroom for video if a display is connected) is 2800MB/s, or slower than some single NVME drives. In the 4M2, this means that each slot will only give you 700MB/s - faster than a SATA SSD, but nowhere near what each drive is capable of. You have to RAID the drives to reach that 2800MB/s speed. The OWC Envoy Express will give you over 1500MB/s with a single drive.
> ...


Thanks for clarifying! I didn’t realize the 4M2 has been around that long. I knew I could RAID them, but didn’t realize it would be critical.
Yes I do video too.


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## Soundbed (Aug 25, 2021)

David Kudell said:


> If you want kind of the ultimate speed & capacity solution, look into the Glyph Atom Pro 8TB which is 2 NVme drives in Raid. You need Thunderbolt 3, but you’ll get the 2800MB/sec max of Thunderbolt with it. And no, it’s not cheap.


Can it be found for less than $2400 ish?


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## rnb_2 (Aug 25, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> Thanks for clarifying! I didn’t realize the 4M2 has been around that long. I knew I could RAID them, but didn’t realize it would be critical.
> Yes I do video too.


Yeah, it came out at an advantageous time for those of us to grabbed the 2018 i7 Mac mini when it was released. I bought it as a photo/video drive, as it was the most economical way to get to 2TB (4x500GB) at the time - I only used it briefly for samples when I pulled one of the 500GB drives and replaced it with a 1TB set as a separate drive.


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## rnb_2 (Aug 25, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> Can it be found for less than $2400 ish?


You can get an OWC Thunderblade 8TB for $2099 (they have 1 open box with new warranty for $1928.75). Similar idea to the Glyph - four NVME sticks in RAID, 2800MB/s read/2450MB/s write (the Glyph is 2600MB/s write). The OWC needs a power supply, though, where the Glyph appears to be bus powered.

I'm not sure if those drives are worth the extra cost any more, honestly - the 4M2 can match the read speeds (not sure about writes - mine is RAID4, so doesn't write as fast as a RAID0 setup) for a few hundred dollars less using OWC's pricey drives, quite a bit less if you go with Crucial. The Glyph might be attractive for that kind of speed and capacity with bus power, though.


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## gsilbers (Aug 26, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> I run everything from an 8 TB MBP (internal). I hit the CPU limit way before polyphony would ever be an issues. I do full projects from the same drive as well, i.e. full hybrid templates with several hundred instrument tracks, plus tons of bounced and/or imported audio... An 8TB nvme has been a completely solid for me....
> 
> It's mainly going to be an issue of finding the right case that is accurately rated for those kinds of speeds... I can't see the amazon link (VI-C always seems to do this for me, Amazon links don't embed or show). IME the one area you should not skimp on is the enclosure. There's a lot of inaccurately specced generic enclosures on places like Amazon... Not to mention lower chance of failure. (I've always had hit and miss performance with cheap aftermarket enclosures... Tow (maybe three?) completely dying on me.)
> 
> Maybe I'm just biased at this point based on past experiences but enclosures are one area where I think it's worth buying from companies proven to be honest in speccing their devices.


very cool. thx


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## gsilbers (Aug 26, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> If you want to go with a single NVME Thunderbolt enclosure, I've had good luck with OWC's Envoy Express for $79. One nice feature is that the cable looks captive, but it's actually a standard cable with one end inside the enclosure, so you could go longer or shorter with a different cable if needed, or replace the cable if it fails, but you don't have worry about pulling the cable out of the enclosure in use.
> 
> 
> The only issue to keep in mind with the 4M2 is that the transfer limit for data over TB3 (in order to leave headroom for video if a display is connected) is 2800MB/s, or slower than some single NVME drives. In the 4M2, this means that each slot will only give you 700MB/s - faster than a SATA SSD, but nowhere near what each drive is capable of. You have to RAID the drives to reach that 2800MB/s speed. The OWC Envoy Express will give you over 1500MB/s with a single drive.
> ...



So technically that's still 3 times the speed of sataiii ssd transfer speed. seems still very good.


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## orangupingu (Aug 26, 2021)

I run 4x 2TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMEs with the ASUS ROG Strix Arion enclosure for two of the drives (2 internal, 2 external) and find they work quite well. One thing to consider is less up-front cost if one fails vs replacing an 8TB drive.


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## Nimrod7 (Aug 26, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> My plan was to grow to four 2TB m.2 (the cheapest is only $199, the Micro Center brand) and put them in the OWC m.2 dock.


I was thinking the same, but actually got disappointed (based on this review) by the fan noise on the enclosure.

Might be viable to install heatsinks on the NVMe's and disable the fan.


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## Soundbed (Aug 26, 2021)

orangupingu said:


> I run 4x 2TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMEs with the ASUS ROG Strix Arion enclosure for two of the drives (2 internal, 2 external) and find they work quite well. One thing to consider is less up-front cost if one fails vs replacing an 8TB drive.


Looks very nice.

For that speed 10Gbps I’m running a Sabrent currently. 10k Amazon reviews and still at 4.5 stars. (These enclosures are severely limiting the drive speeds but I haven’t noticed an issue and I consider them temporary, which is why I’m only investing ~$27 USD in the enclosures for now. I’ll probably get two before the OWC 4M2 and keep them for mobile rig / travel uses.)

Sabrent USB 3.2 Type-C Tool-Free Enclosure for M.2 PCIe NVMe and SATA SSDs (EC-SNVE) 


Nimrod7 said:


> I was thinking the same, but actually got disappointed (based on this review) by the fan noise on the enclosure.
> 
> Might be viable to install heatsinks on the NVMe's and disable the fan.


I’m expecting fan to be loud bc I already have a Thunderbay with spinning drives. I actually won it from production expert. (!?) Didn’t watch the review yet but I’m aware it has a fan w/noise and ok with disabling it etc. I’ll watch vid before making final decision. Thx


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## orangupingu (Aug 26, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> For that speed 10Gbps I’m running a Sabrent currently. 10k Amazon reviews and still at 4.5 stars. (These enclosures are severely limiting the drive speeds but I haven’t noticed an issue and I consider them temporary, which is why I’m only investing ~$27 USD in the enclosures for now. I’ll probably get two before the OWC 4M2 and keep them for mobile rig / travel uses.)


Yep, makes sense to go with something that gets the job done at good enough speeds while you look for a more permanent faster solution. I think there's definitely a limit to how fast you actually need to go for everyday use, but if you're constantly moving large file sizes then more speed is always better (at a sensible price of course).


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## David Kudell (Aug 26, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> Can it be found for less than $2400 ish?


Glyph runs sales every 4-6 months or so, the 8TB was $400 off during the last one.


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## Grilled Cheese (Sep 4, 2021)

I echo the OPs wishes. My dream drive is a single 8TB nvme loaded into a fanless thunderbolt 3 enclosure - one that will utilise the full speed of the drive (or close to).

Many of the enclosures I’ve looked at seem to cap out at around 1500 MB/s. Some (like the OWC 4M2) are limited to just 700MB/s per drive. Seems a shame to constrain the performance of drives that are rated to 3300 MB/s.

With some enclosures its also unclear whether they support 8TB drives.

It would be great to compile some options that tick all the boxes.

Also, my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that RAID 0 for samples is not beneficial to performance (polyphony and sample loading times)?


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## Soundbed (Sep 4, 2021)

Grilled Cheese said:


> It would be great to compile some options that tick all the boxes.


Let me know if you find something! My drives are getting full again.


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## Nimrod7 (Sep 4, 2021)

If you’re on Mac Pro or Windows Desktop, this satisfies both silent and full speed, but not the external part:




__





M.2 4x4 NVMe SSD Silent PCIe Card - Sonnet


Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Silent operation. Add your own ultra-fast SSDs for Mac, Windows, and Linux.




www.sonnettech.com





I was complied a list with external / external storage cases. Might someone else here find it useful:


Nvme Raid 3.0Sonnet Technologies M.2 4x4 PCIe Card500https://www.alternate.de/Sonnet/Fus...Card-Schnittstellenkarte/html/product/1652769Nvme Raid 4.0SSD7500 series500https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-ssd7500-overview.htmT3 SSD EnclosureTrebfleet Nvme T3 Enclosure140Dual NVMETrebfleet Dual NVME189NVME ExternalOWC Envoy Pro FX SSD 2TB499https://www.owcshop.eu/catalog/product_info.php/envoy-p-2026NvME RaidAmfeltec 6 m2https://www.amfeltec.com/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-6-m2-or-ngsff-nf1-pcie-ssd-modules/NvME RaidAmfeltec 2 m2https://www.amfeltec.com/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-m-2-ssd/NvME RaidNestor NA611TB3 Dual NVMEhttps://www.netstor.com.tw/product_...e=Thunderbolt&ArID=92&PID=PID_171026055872595NvME RaidOWC T3 Quad Enclosure299https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3EX4M2SL/SSD Raid QuadThunderBay 4 mini299https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB4MJB000/


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## rnb_2 (Sep 4, 2021)

Grilled Cheese said:


> I echo the OPs wishes. My dream drive is a single 8TB nvme loaded into a fanless thunderbolt 3 enclosure - one that will utilise the full speed of the drive (or close to).
> 
> Many of the enclosures I’ve looked at seem to cap out at around 1500 MB/s. Some (like the OWC 4M2) are limited to just 700MB/s per drive. Seems a shame to constrain the performance of drives that are rated to 3300 MB/s.
> 
> ...


This is a consequence of the pace of NVMe development outpacing Thunderbolt. When attached to an internal port, the latest NVMe drives will provide full rated transfer speeds (~3500MB/s), but Thunderbolt 3 (or 4) has a total bandwidth of 40Gb/s, or 5GB/s. However, the Thunderbolt 3 spec reserves some bandwidth for video data (up to 2x4k 60fps streams), so the actual maximum data transfer speed for non-video devices is capped at 2.8GB/s (making this the maximum that any RAID can hit, regardless of the number of drives). I don't think that Thunderbolt 4 changes any of this in a meaningful way - it just raises the minimum specs and codifies certain things to make sure that those minimums are hit.

One of the main upshots of this is that you don't go RAID with NVMe drives for performance, but for capacity and data security. When I got my OWC 4M2 in late 2018, I knew I wanted 2TB of storage in a single enclosure, but 2TB NVMe drives were prohibitively expensive; 4x500GB drives was much cheaper.

There are some single-drive NVMe Thunderbolt enclosures that claim to get closer to the 2.8GB/s maximum speed (such as some Orico enclosures), but I haven't seen any tests comparing them to other enclosures. I have a couple of the OWC Envoy Express enclosures and they work great, but their maximum claimed speed is ~1.5GB/s.

I haven't seen any rumors about Thunderbolt 5, but that will probably be the next opportunity for a speed boost for external drives. The PCIe/NVMe spec will probably continue to outpace Thunderbolt, though.


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## David Kudell (Sep 4, 2021)

The Glyph I mentioned earlier ticks all the boxes…2800MB/sec, fanless, and bus powered. It’s actually 2 4TB Nvme drives in raid.


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## Nimrod7 (Sep 4, 2021)

David Kudell said:


> The Glyph I mentioned earlier ticks all the boxes…2800MB/sec, fanless, and bus powered. It’s actually 2 4TB Nvme drives in raid.


Glyph drives are really hard to find in Europe and are way more expensive. Waiting for a trip to US to grab one.


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## Grilled Cheese (Sep 4, 2021)

Nimrod7 said:


> If you’re on Mac Pro or Windows Desktop, this satisfies both silent and full speed, but not the external part:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thank you for this!

However I don’t think there are any enclosures in that list that are:

External,
Supporting 8TB capacity without raid, and
Fanless.


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## Grilled Cheese (Sep 5, 2021)

David Kudell said:


> The Glyph I mentioned earlier ticks all the boxes…2800MB/sec, fanless, and bus powered. It’s actually 2 4TB Nvme drives in raid.


These look like a solid option, though very pricey. Even more preferable would be an empty enclosure so you can swap out drives.

One thing I’m still unsure about is whether RAID 0 configurations slow down sample loading times. I vaguely recall reading other discussions about splitting small files (i.e audio samples) across multiple drives and that this resulted in slower load times than non-raid configurations. It’s been a while since I’ve looked into this so I really don’t know if it’s true anymore. I‘m not aware of any benchmarks testing this with nvme drives specifically.

I’m exploring storage options in advance of an M1X Mac purchase, presumably later in the year or early 2022. Minimising sample load times is one of my top priorities.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 5, 2021)

Please don't get caught on touted NVMe read speeds. Those are usually sequential large block read speeds, so naturally they will be super fast at that. That would only matter for initial instrument load time but not for streaming.

For DFD streaming what matters most is random small block (4KB) read speed, and queue depth 1 for Kontakt (QD1). These are usually around or below 100 MB/s for SSDs . And that speed Thunderbolt connection is absolutely not required.

I would definitely suggest splitting things over a few SSDs. And at that point, they don't even need to be NVMe, making the whole thing a lot cheaper too. I have 8 Samsung 850/860 EVOs and they work great for any sort of streaming I throw at them. 

Also don't forget that sustained high read speeds on NVMe will throttle their performance too, plus they can get hot too, again that would throttle their performance.


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## Grilled Cheese (Sep 5, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Please don't get caught on touted NVMe read speeds. Those are usually sequential large block read speeds, so naturally they will be super fast at that. That would only matter for initial instrument load time but not for streaming.


DFD streaming is not an area of concern for me. Loading up instruments quickly is. When SSDs first came along they reduced instrument load times considerably compared to traditional hard disks. Nvme drives are now 6+ times faster than those SSDs so I would really like to know how much difference they will make to loading large instruments.

If nvme drives will improve instrument load times, then the last thing I want to do is constrain their performance by putting them in enclosures that limit their speed or configuring them in RAID arrangements that do the same.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 5, 2021)

To me the difference in loading time between NVMe and SATA SSDs does not compute vs difference in price per GB.


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## Grilled Cheese (Sep 5, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> To me the difference in loading time between NVMe and SATA SSDs does not compute vs difference in price per GB.


Okeydokey. Your opinion is noted, but I still haven’t learned anything. I don’t know how much faster a project with (for example) 20 GB of samples will load on nvme vs SSD. I’ve seen no benchmarks, so I can’t form my own opinion on cost vs performance, because performance is still unknown.

I’m hoping to get some real world statistics on this.


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## Kent (Sep 5, 2021)

Grilled Cheese said:


> Okeydokey. Your opinion is noted, but I still haven’t learned anything. I don’t know how much faster a project with (for example) 20 GB of samples will load on nvme vs SSD. I’ve seen no benchmarks, so I can’t form my own opinion on cost vs performance, because performance is still unknown.
> 
> I’m hoping to get some real world statistics on this.


https://vi-control.net/community/threads/nvme-vs-sata-will-it-make-kontakt-faster.69572/ have you seen this


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## rnb_2 (Sep 5, 2021)

Grilled Cheese said:


> Thank you for this!
> 
> However I don’t think there are any enclosures in that list that are:
> 
> ...


The OWC Envoy Express supports 8TB and is fanless, but maximum speed is "only" 1553MB/s. As ED noted, though, that number may not be particularly salient in this case (and I'd take his statements as a bit more than "opinion" on anything that has to do with sample loading/streaming). So, it ticks all three of those boxes, but may not utilize the performance of the NVMe drive inside as much as some enclosures.

The single-drive enclosures I've seen that claim >2000MB/s (like the Oricos) only say 2TB in the description, but who knows if that's still accurate (it would be in Orico's interest to mention 4 or 8TB compatibility, though). Samsung makes the X5 Thunderbolt SSD with 2800MB/s read speeds quoted, but they only go up to 2TB. It may be that the higher-performance chipsets can't utilize the >2TB drives, but nobody says if that's the case.


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## Soundbed (Sep 5, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> To me the difference in loading time between NVMe and SATA SSDs does not compute vs difference in price per GB.


I haven’t done blind tests with Kontakt but I believe you on speed. Because you’re a Kontakt legend. 

Because I also edit video, I love the smaller size for my portable rig and I am mostly reading from disk, the cheaper 2TB Inland (or PNY) are currently my pick. At under $200 they are cheaper than some 2TB SATA SSDs people are buying.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 5, 2021)

Yup if you do video NVMe is obviously gonna work better for that. That's a no brainer.


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## storyteller (Sep 5, 2021)

I commented on this in another thread somewhere. I recently went through a big testing process on Apple's internal NVME vs. external thunderbolt 3 SATA drives for my upgrade. The results were surprisingly very close. One Samsung 870 SATA performed as well as Apple's internal 2800 MB/s NVMe. Doesn't seem like that would be the case, but it is. This is what EvilDragon was referring to regarding random read speeds on 4kb. But here is where it gets crazier. Add in a second SATA SSD in that thunderbolt enclosure and you have higher voice counts than the NVMe. Granted, you will peak the CPU somewhere around this time... but the point is sample library reads only demonstrate a faster initial load on NVMe, but not any better performance.

I've always split drives based on orchestral sections anyway, but I was hoping to see the NVMes were superior. So the multiple SSDs via Thunderbolt 3 was a better performing, and more cost effective solution than the NVMes. In other tests, RAID consistently performed worse than the individual SATAs and the NVMe. I tried every conceivable setting for the RAID configuration. No dice.


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## David Kudell (Sep 5, 2021)

I tested this a while back when I got my Glyph. When I upgraded from SATA SSDs to that, loading time for a project went from something like 90sec down to 60-70. So a bit faster but definitely not the 5 times faster increase in speed that the drives will show in a speed test.

Instruments were a mix of Kontakt and Sine.


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## MegaPixel (Sep 14, 2021)

I just had a Samsung 4TB SSD EVO fail on me after 3 months, so all I can say is make sure you backup.

But I would recommend that you install your software and boot on 1 drive and keep your other data elsewhere, nvme bay 2 or on SSD and buy a large WD HD of spinning rust to backup to and do a cloud backup. Google Workspaces for something like $9 gives you 2TB I think it was.

I also have an old SSD EVO (just over 5 years old), old work drive, 5 year rule, replacement time, so I got that connected via sebrant ssd case and plugged in via usb when I want to use it, it works great and is still faster than a HD.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Nov 6, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Please don't get caught on touted NVMe read speeds. Those are usually sequential large block read speeds, so naturally they will be super fast at that. That would only matter for initial instrument load time but not for streaming.
> 
> For DFD streaming what matters most is random small block (4KB) read speed, and queue depth 1 for Kontakt (QD1). These are usually around or below 100 MB/s for SSDs . And that speed Thunderbolt connection is absolutely not required.
> 
> ...



Re-organizing my sample disks and will go this route (couple of external SATA SSD’s in my case so I can switch them between main PC and laptop)
Any idea what’s the minimum USB connection required to get the full speed out of the Samsung EVO SSDs?
Will USB 3.1 gen2 do?


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## Technostica (Nov 6, 2021)

Giscard Rasquin said:


> Re-organizing my sample disks and will go this route (couple of external SATA SSD’s in my case so I can switch them between main PC and laptop)
> Any idea what’s the minimum USB connection required to get the full speed out of the Samsung EVO SSDs?
> Will USB 3.1 gen2 do?


Gen 2 is more than enough for a single SATA SSD.


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## MegaPixel (Nov 6, 2021)

Giscard Rasquin said:


> Re-organizing my sample disks and will go this route (couple of external SATA SSD’s in my case so I can switch them between main PC and laptop)
> Any idea what’s the minimum USB connection required to get the full speed out of the Samsung EVO SSDs?
> Will USB 3.1 gen2 do?


Yes you will be fine, just make sure your usb hub is not maxed out with other devices connected to same hub / buss.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Nov 6, 2021)

Awesome, thanks guys. 

Actually good deal on a Samsung EVO 8TB currently here on Amazon Spain. 
Any thoughts on running a big template from only a 1TB internal NVME (most used libraries) and the rest from that 8TB SSD SATA drive via USB?


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## MegaPixel (Nov 6, 2021)

Giscard Rasquin said:


> Awesome, thanks guys.
> 
> Actually good deal on a Samsung EVO 8TB currently here on Amazon Spain.
> Any thoughts on running a big template from only a 1TB internal NVME (most used libraries) and the rest from that 8TB SSD SATA drive via USB?


My setup is:
- 1 TB NVME Sabrent Boot drive & nothing but main applications, however my documents is always used by a lot of stuff and the users/username/appdata folder also holds a lot of vst instrument data, sneakily but 1TB is fine)
- 4 TB EVO SSD (completed/archived songs, samples, vsts, ni (installs only), kontak libraries, etc etc)
- 8 TB HD WD Black Internal (Backup - ni installers but not the installed folders)
- 8 TB HD WD ??? External (mirror of internal 8tb backup)
- 1 TB Work drive (nothing but what is active work)
- 1TB External EVO SSD plugged in via usb (sits in a saberent external usb enclosure very cheap to buy)
- GDrive for archived songs, things I wont use much or need anymore but don't want to loose (£9 per a month gets you like 3 to 5TB of space or something)

I like to do manual raid 2 mirror, no fuss with raid or having issues when drives need replacing or wait times or if nas goes down etc. So I could loose both 8TB drives and the main SSD will be fine, or loose the SSD and boot drive and then the internal 8TB back and the 8TB external backups are there for recovery.

WARNING
4 TB SSD - Actually only gives you about 3.6TB of space.
8 TB HD - Only gives you around 7.2TB of space


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## MegaPixel (Nov 6, 2021)

The software I use for automated backup is called SyncBackFree, you can setup tasks to automate, or run them manually (which I do) and for each backup you can set it to ignore certain folders etc. Make sure you test it and work out its quirks before using it daily or weekly.

So you make folders but setup mirrors, it checks whats on and not on the backup drive and if the files are the same size and date, if not it will copy them over but nothing else.

If you delete something on the drive/folder your backing up then that will be removed from the backup location also in mirror mode.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Nov 12, 2021)

That’s a lot of drives 😅
Just received the Samsung 8TB QVO SSD. 
Doing some testing with CrystalDiskMark and can see that the RND4K speeds over USB are noticeably slower (110) than build-in SATA SSDs (380). 
Wondering if I’ll notice this decrease in read-speed in real life on big projects. Any guesses?
Still time to send back the drive 🤓

Curious to know as @EvilDragon mentioned it’s the small 4K random reads that count most for samples


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## MegaPixel (Nov 12, 2021)

Giscard Rasquin said:


> That’s a lot of drives 😅
> Just received the Samsung 8TB QVO SSD.
> Doing some testing with CrystalDiskMark and can see that the RND4K speeds over USB are noticeably slower (110) than build-in SATA SSDs (380).
> Wondering if I’ll notice this decrease in read-speed in real life on big projects. Any guesses?
> ...


And I just bought an Samsung EVO 2TB, to just put my kontakt libs on lol. I try to never fill SSD over 80%, 90% at most, they tend to die easily after that.

NOTE: QVO vs EVO
Be careful with QVO drives, lifetime on them is shorter than EVO and the PRO (or the PRO+). As my machine is used for work, I get the EVO drives for the 5 year warranty. But even though they may be fine for many years after that 5 year warranty limit, anything with work on them is replaced after 5 years. I never keep anything on my boot drive of importance so that can just go till it dies. QVO is rated at 3 years and has less cycles in it. It's a like a WD Black vs WD Blue.

RE: Speeds
It all depends on what kinds of files you are transferring, if your transferring large files you will see faster speeds, if your transferring lots of small files you will see really slow speeds.

RE: Speeds over USB
This can also depend on the buss and the amount of deivces on that usb buss all working at the same time and even the IRQ setup, can get messy. I try to connect my external drives to an unused buss.

RE: Machine configuration
It can also help if your mobo, bios, nvme, and ssd's are all setup in certain ways. The correct nvme slot used for the boot drive, ssd's not stacked on mobo ports but 1 on each stack (usually stacked in 2s). Putting 1 SSD in each sata port stack etc, try to only put slower drives or less used drives in the other sata port. nvme port 1 and port 2 can run at different speeds etc (bios setup and port 1 sata can effect this).

Benchmarks
Here's some real world tests from my system:

1. USB External EVO 1TB +5 Years old to NVME Boot drive - single file 4.5GB file: 400mb.
2. USB External EVO 1TB +5 Years old to 4TB EVO (new) - single file 4.5GB file: 410mb.
3. USB External EVO 1TB +5 Years old to 1TB EVO - Burst copied it in the 900mb region, started to fall after about 2 seconds but completed too quickly to level off at I would expect about 350 to 410mb.

4. External EVO to NVME Boots - 23,000 small files: 500kb to 6.5mb
5. External EVO to 4TB EVO - 23,000 small files: same
6. External EVO to 1TB EVO - 23,000 small files: same

7. Samples folder copy to 4TB internal EVO SDD to External EVO SSD: 100 to 350mb per second
8. Samples folder copy to External EVO SSD to 4TB internal EVO SDD: Was actually faster lol...


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## Giscard Rasquin (Nov 13, 2021)

MegaPixel said:


> And I just bought an Samsung EVO 2TB, to just put my kontakt libs on lol. I try to never fill SSD over 80%, 90% at most, they tend to die easily after that.
> 
> NOTE: QVO vs EVO
> Be careful with QVO drives, lifetime on them is shorter than EVO and the PRO (or the PRO+). As my machine is used for work, I get the EVO drives for the 5 year warranty. But even though they may be fine for many years after that 5 year warranty limit, anything with work on them is replaced after 5 years. I never keep anything on my boot drive of importance so that can just go till it dies. QVO is rated at 3 years and has less cycles in it. It's a like a WD Black vs WD Blue.
> ...



Thanks for the info. Actually not too worried about lifetime as it’s kind of a temporary solution but looks like it’s fine for now. 
Also checking disks with Hard Disk Sentinel so I suppose I should be able to see when the disk goes bad. 
Actually managed to hook the QVO up to a SATA cable on my PC so that’s getting decent speeds for an SSD (560 for sequential reads, 360 on 4K random reads in CrystalDiskMark) 
The random reads are a bit slower on the laptop over USB3 but sequential reads are the same. So happy for the moment as I’m not using my laptop that much and when I use it I don’t think I’ll actually notice that much of a difference anyway. 
Now back to making music 🤓


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