# SSD prices are finally dropping



## Nick Batzdorf

2TB drive for $270. The flash memory shortage must be over.

https://www.rakuten.com/shop/platin...are&siteID=NKa3hZyYoHA-EK6e3vQZu1.4sOpSZSydXw


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## heisenberg

SSDs in general are dropping but Micron is having trouble from the Stock Market's perspective so they have been, in my view, trying to juice sales over the past couple of months. 

Samsung will be releasing their 970 series in the coming weeks, so their 960 and remaining 950 inventory had a come down a bit recently. 

970 is supposed to be much faster and less expensive in relative terms.


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## Nick Batzdorf

What you're saying: [previous post].

What I hear: what possesses anyone to pay 50% more than any other SSD for a Samsung?


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## chimuelo

Warranty mostly.

But I must admit I’ve been buying SSDs since the Kingston 40GB and all still work fine.
Really like Samsung but for larger 2TB SSDs I’m going for MyDigitalSSD SBX Models.
I dropped 1100 bucks on a read intensive Samsung PM SSD and saw no difference in performance.
My love affair is over.
SBXs, large ones are on my short list.


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## colony nofi

Damn - US only. Even if a little slower than other drives - this is good value indeed!


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## heisenberg

These are sold in Canada as well with similar pricing. If one is located elsewhere I would check for local availability. Guessing these are available worldwide and cheap.


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## babylonwaves

heisenberg said:


> These are sold in Canada as well with similar pricing. If one is located elsewhere I would check for local availability. Guessing these are available worldwide and cheap.


can't find a similar offer in germany, that price is really good. weren't the micron SSDs the same like the Crucial SSDs?


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## cadenzajon

And the Micron 1TB SSD for $199.95 today from B&H:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1326540-REG/sandisk_sdssdhii_1t00_g25_ultra_ii_1tb_ssd.html
Use coupon code INTERNALSSD to get free shipping and the discounted price.


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## artomatic

Nick Batzdorf said:


> 2TB drive for $270. The flash memory shortage must be over.
> 
> https://www.rakuten.com/shop/platin...are&siteID=NKa3hZyYoHA-EK6e3vQZu1.4sOpSZSydXw




Thanks for the tip. Incredible deal!


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## blougui

To my knowledge, everything computer is so cheaper cross the Atlantic than in Europe !


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## EvilDragon

Because no VAT (except state tax but only in some states).


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## Eckoes

I’m in the market for my first SSD but I know next to nothing about them except they are supposed to be good for streaming samples, and they are really expensive.

This seems like a good price for 2TB of storage.

Is this a good drive and would it be a wise first time purchase?


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## chimuelo

Yes it’s a great buy, but many more large capacity NVMe and SSDs are coming.
Competition is great for us.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Eckoes said:


> I’m in the market for my first SSD but I know next to nothing about them except they are supposed to be good for streaming samples, and they are really expensive.
> 
> This seems like a good price for 2TB of storage.
> 
> Is this a good drive and would it be a wise first time purchase?



My philosophy of hard drives is the same with SSDs: buy any of them (except Seagate) and trust none of them, i.e. back them up. I've always gone for whatever's on sale or priced well, under the assumption that it costs millions to set up a factory - there's no Joe's Acme Living Room SSD Outfit.

Now, when I voiced the same basic point about memory factories, the argument came up that some memory is made to looser specifications. I'm not convinced; I think if it's good for a few months, it's good for the duration. It would be worth checking the warranty on this particular drive, i.e. it should be three years.

In any case, $270 price for 2TB of SSD storage is the lowest I've seen by a mile. My 1TB drive was $200, but they went way up after that, and this is 2/3 of even that price.

It's a SATA 3 drive, which means it works on both 600 gigabits/sec and SATA 2's 300gb/sec busses, but that has nothing to do with the drive's ability to play samples, just with how many voices you can run before saturating the bus - how much data it can carry. My opinion is that I don't give a ff; I have both on my machine, and I've never come close to saturating either one.

But then I don't run three stereo mic positions of any sample library - e.g. Hollywood Strings - simultaneously.

Oh, and there's now an M.2 bus format that's even faster. I'd personally rather spend my money on SSD storage, even if my Mac were capable of running M.2.


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## Nick Batzdorf

chimuelo said:


> Yes it’s a great buy, but many more large capacity NVMe and SSDs are coming.
> Competition is great for us.



That's also true - there's absolutely no pressure to buy this drive right now because it's a one-time deal that you'll never see the likes of again.


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## chimuelo

Well in that case jump on it.

But Digitimes claims since RAM Manufactures tooled up for SSD demand, they have a glut of devices as they underestimated the popularity of hybrids, mechanical and enterprise storage.

Wish they’d screw up with RAM like that.


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## galactic orange

I was looking at this Crucial MX500 1TB SSD on sale right now:

The Micron has double the space but a slower read and write speed? How much difference does this make for use as an external sample drive? A 2TB drive would let me keep all my samples on one drive.

EDIT: I honestly want to know if there is a downside to the 2TB Micron for sample loading. The Micron sounds like a great deal, but I'm a little wary if the speed will be reduced. It would be housed in a cheap plastic USB3 external case.


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## galactic orange

Related to that, is there a speed advantage to having samples divided between SSDs going into separate USB inputs? I'm not very knowledgable about these things.


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## Garry

galactic orange said:


> EDIT: I honestly want to know if there is a downside to the 2TB Micron for sample loading. The Micron sounds like a great deal, but I'm a little wary if the speed will be reduced. It would be housed in a cheap plastic USB3 external case.



The Micron description says:

Sequential reads/writes up to 560/510 MB/s and random reads/writes up to 95k/90k on all file types
Is it the sequential or the random read/writes that matter? For the Samsung T3 (recommended by Christian Henson), it doesn't differentiate (see https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T3-Portable-SSD-MU-PT500B/dp/B01AVF6UO8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1526539671&sr=8-3&keywords=t3%2Bsamsung&dpID=41cm4reYFmL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&th=1 (here)): 

Superfast Read-Write Speeds of up to 450 MB/s

Also, the Micron is internal SSD; for those like me looking at external SSD, this is currently Amazon's recommended choice (currently $289 for 1TB and $389 for 2TB; compared to $495/820 for the T3 respectively). Anyone have experience in using this with VIs?


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## Nick Batzdorf

The random read and write times really don't matter with any current SSDs, and the write time is totally irrelevant for streaming (reading) samples. SSD are not as fast as RAM, but their seek and read times are all fast enough not to be a factor.

Now, I'd still only buy SATA 3 drives, but that's because they're not from the early days of SSDs, and I'm guessing manufacturers have learned a thing or two. It's not because of their specs.

Garry, I personally would just use an external SATA enclosure for an internal drive. You'll save a lot of money that way and end up with the same thing.


galactic orange said:


> Related to that, is there a speed advantage to having samples divided between SSDs going into separate USB inputs? I'm not very knowledgable about these things.



Using two drives increases the bandwidth per drive, but it's unlikely to make any practical difference for streaming performance. However, having said everything I said about the SATA 2 bus being way fast enough, the USB bus actually could be a bottleneck (unless it's a USB 3.1, and I doubt that).

I'd use a different connection. Does your computer have an internal SATA bus?


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## chimuelo

Random Reads were important before Controllers starting caching.
Cache on CPUs and caching on SSDs has improved so much that even read speeds aren’t a big deal.
Transaction times are crucial, and number of simultaneous streams or polyphony are important.


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## Nao Gam

Nick Batzdorf said:


> My philosophy of hard drives is the same with SSDs: buy any of them (except Seagate) and trust none of them, i.e. back them up. I've always gone for whatever's on sale or priced well, under the assumption that it costs millions to set up a factory - there's no Joe's Acme Living Room SSD Outfit.
> 
> Now, when I voiced the same basic point about memory factories, the argument came up that some memory is made to looser specifications. I'm not convinced; I think if it's good for a few months, it's good for the duration. It would be worth checking the warranty on this particular drive, i.e. it should be three years.
> 
> In any case, $270 price for 2TB of SSD storage is the lowest I've seen by a mile. My 1TB drive was $200, but they went way up after that, and this is 2/3 of even that price.
> 
> It's a SATA 3 drive, which means it works on both 600 gigabits/sec and SATA 2's 300gb/sec busses, but that has nothing to do with the drive's ability to play samples, just with how many voices you can run before saturating the bus - how much data it can carry. My opinion is that I don't give a ff; I have both on my machine, and I've never come close to saturating either one.
> 
> But then I don't run three stereo mic positions of any sample library - e.g. Hollywood Strings - simultaneously.
> 
> Oh, and there's now an M.2 bus format that's even faster. I'd personally rather spend my money on SSD storage, even if my Mac were capable of running M.2.


What's bad about seagate? I got an ssd like the one above but I also got a 3tb seagate hdd, some people don't like them, others think they're ok.


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## chimuelo

They were the Kings of SCSI when I used Gigastudio and 10k Cheetahs.
Their Hybrids are good OS Drives, but they’re quality going from SCSI to SATA seems to be less successful than Western Digital.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Nao Gam said:


> What's bad about seagate? I got an ssd like the one above but I also got a 3tb seagate hdd, some people don't like them, others think they're ok.



I did have four Seagate drives fail in a span of four weeks, on two different computers - three of them *just* out of warranty.

But that's not why I'll never patronize them again. It was their aggressively nasty response that pissed me off. Why deal with assholes when there are good companies?


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## Michael Antrum

Just picked up one of these brand new sealed 2TB SSD drives for £ 300 on eBay. Cheaper than a bare drive from most places...

G Drive Mobile SSD R Series

One of the reasons I had to bail on the Spitfire Wish list deal - I needed the SSD space more than I need LCOS...


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## Aceituna

I´m considering to buy an SSD drive unit.
What do you think about Kingspec units?
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/ACSC....html?spm=a219c.search0104.0.0.45676b15f3iD7X


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## Will Blackburn

Good comparison site - http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/


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## Nick Batzdorf

Are those benchmarks relevant?


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## heisenberg

Picked up a Micron 2TB SSD a couple of weeks ago. My sample library purchasing has shot through the roof. Beware.


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## thereus

What is the best external docking bay for SSDs?


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## Polkasound

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I did have four Seagate drives fail in a span of four weeks, on two different computers - three of them *just* out of warranty.



I had a Seagate backup drive (with barely 50 hours of run time on it) mysteriously delete all files and folders that were alphabetized T through Z. Since it was just a backup drive, I didn't notice the problem until it was too late. No recovery tools could find the lost files. They're history. And so is my relationship with Seagate.


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## Scrianinoff

For a new Daw I have installed 4 Micron 2TB SSDs, for a whopping 8TB of samples. I thought about the 970 2TB nvme, but that’s half the bang for the buck, 4TB for the same price, and no difference in sample performance. 

I tested a software raid setup in both windows 10 and in bios using Intel RST (no that is not Hardware raid!). Windows 10 is faster, and in playing thousands of samples at the same time, it is not the drives that are the bottleneck nowadays. And it’s great to be able to fit all samples on one volume. How one of those Micron drives alone would work I did not test. However it’s only marginally slower in Crystal Disk Mark than a Samsung EVO 860, from what I saw in reviews, and quite a lot cheaper. 

In my laptop I have a raid array of two 860 evo 2 TB drives and the array of four Micron 2 TB in the PC performs even better, not fair of course since double the number of drives and a faster CPU. 

If interested in more info about Windows vs Intel raid see my posts of a few years ago.


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## Will Blackburn

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Are those benchmarks relevant?



Please elaborate. How would they not be relevant? Its aggregated performance data


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## chimuelo

Storage is so cheap now Amazon can store recordings of you and sell it to Clappers NSA.
That way the NSA can concentrate on elections and other relevant issues.


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## Prockamanisc

I can confirm, I bought two of these and they're reading/writing at around 500 MB/s. I'm definitely going to buy more. I was able to make my setup wayyyy better because these were so affordable.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Will Blackburn said:


> Please elaborate. How would they not be relevant? Its aggregated performance data



Benchmark sites almost always post specs that mean absolutely nothing in the real world, but are instead intended to make people feel really intelligent when they quote those specs.

For example, I notice zero nada non kein 違います difference between the actual music-streaming performance of the same drive on my Mac's internal SATA 2 bus and the SATA 3 card I put in. Yet only delivering 300 m/S on a benchmark site would cause nerds' pony tails to wilt.


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## Will Blackburn

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Benchmark sites almost always post specs that mean absolutely nothing in the real world, but are instead intended to make people feel really intelligent when they quote those specs.
> 
> For example, I notice zero nada non kein 違います difference between the actual music-streaming performance of the same drive on my Mac's internal SATA 2 bus and the SATA 3 card I put in. Yet only delivering 300 m/S on a benchmark site would cause nerds' pony tails to wilt.



Yes Nick, aggregated data isn't 100pc reliable and results are based on a multitude of factors. What is irrelevant about using that data to get a general consensus?. What do you consider the more reliable option when prospecting a new drive ?


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## Nick Batzdorf

That's a good question, and I don't have a good answer.

In general I just go by the warranty and the price, but back everything up. My strong sense is that SSD performance specs mean nothing in our world, because they're all way faster than any other bottleneck.

I'll spare you the obligatory car analogy.


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## cadenzajon

Best deal I've seen in a while... 480GB SSD for $80 now at Micro Center via Amazon.
https://amzn.to/2L0yPAY

According to those with experience with Inland drives (not me although I'm likely to become one shortly!) it seems like a reasonably solid product.


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## good

cadenzajon said:


> Best deal I've seen in a while... 480GB SSD for $80 now at Micro Center via Amazon.
> https://amzn.to/2L0yPAY
> 
> According to those with experience with Inland drives (not me although I'm likely to become one shortly!) it seems like a reasonably solid product.



I purchased one. Thank you!


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## jamwerks

I wonder if RAM prices will also start to fall. Man they're high!


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## Manaberry

jamwerks said:


> I wonder if RAM prices will also start to fall. Man they're high!


In a year, something like that :D


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## Prockamanisc

God now they're even cheaper - $251! Use the code SAVE15 to save 15%. https://www.rakuten.com/shop/platinum-micro/product/CCMTFDDAK2T0TBN1AR1ZABYY/


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## Nick Batzdorf

A 1TB SSD for $150. A few months ago this drive would have been $275.

https://www.dealnews.com/Adata-1-TB-2.5-SATA-6-Gbps-Internal-SSD-for-150-free-shipping/17417381.html


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## jacobthestupendous

I just grabbed that 1TB Crucial MX500 for $139.99 at Amazon's little sale. It's showing as $184.99, but there was an extra $45 discount on it at checkout (possibly because I had it on a wish list?).


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## ironbut

2T drives have dropped as well.
I bought a 850 Evo for around $700 a year ago or so and now Amazon have the Samsung Evo 860 2T for about $500.
I don't need one right now but it is tempting.


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## babylonwaves

jacobthestupendous said:


> I just grabbed that 1TB Crucial MX500 for $139.99 at Amazon's little sale. It's showing as $184.99, but there was an extra $45 discount on it at checkout (possibly because I had it on a wish list?).


Wow. That’s a real price drop. I’ve paid 420 euros some month ago


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## galactic orange

I picked up one of the 2TB Micron SSDs for about $250. It's almost too much space. Almost.


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## jneebz

galactic orange said:


> I picked up one of the 2TB Micron SSDs for about $250. It's almost too much space. Almost.


Where?


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## heisenberg

galactic orange said:


> I picked up one of the 2TB Micron SSDs for about $250. It's almost too much space. Almost.



I got one a few months ago around that price. Just hit google and found a bunch of places that still have them on sale around that price. I don't think you will have trouble filling it.


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## galactic orange

jneebz said:


> Where?


Rakuten.com when they had a 15% off sitewide sale. Since then they've even had a 20% off sale. I passed it up about three times but finally decided it would be nice to have a larger SSD around.


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## desert

galactic orange said:


> Rakuten.com when they had a 15% off sitewide sale. Since then they've even had a 20% off sale. I passed it up about three times but finally decided it would be nice to have a larger SSD around.


Only US :(


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## Per Lichtman

I picked up an MX500 256GB on Prime Day. Embertone Walker 1955 Steinway D took up 187 GB so there wasn't much left. 256 GB is definitely the smallest I'd consider getting at this point but I would have liked to have sprung for at least 500.


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## ironbut

How is the experience with those Micron ssd's?
I guess it hasn't been very long but any failures or DOAs?


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## Per Lichtman

ironbut said:


> How is the experience with those Micron ssd's?
> I guess it hasn't been very long but any failures or DOAs?



No failures or DOAs
so far.


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## kitekrazy

Now only if graphic cards would drop since I only use them for gaming.


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## JEPA

Nick Batzdorf said:


> A 1TB SSD for $150. A few months ago this drive would have been $275.
> 
> https://www.dealnews.com/Adata-1-TB-2.5-SATA-6-Gbps-Internal-SSD-for-150-free-shipping/17417381.html


shipping Europa?


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## Nick Batzdorf

JEPA said:


> shipping Europa?



Sans idée, as they say in France. Sorry!


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## aaronventure

Here's the Micron on Rakuten. Micron 1100 2 TB SATA - $254.11 with code SAVE15

As for the worldwide shipping, has anyone used https://www.viabox.com/ ?



kitekrazy said:


> Now only if graphic cards would drop since I only use them for gaming.



GPU prices are also down to MSRP (after 2 years!), and they're bound to continue falling with the new NVIDIA series probably coming this year :D


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## blougui

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Sans idée, as they say in France. Sorry!


We would actually say : "aucune idée" ("sans" is rather "without" and we usually say, when we have no idea of...the price of something : aucune idée du prix )


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## Nick Batzdorf

J'ai tout oublié.


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## ChristianM

Nick Batzdorf said:


> J'ai tout oublié.


C'est le titre d'une chanson


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## burp182

Eggs du fromage.


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## robh

Murky Buckets.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Fetchez la vache.


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## Robo Rivard

Enculer des mouches.


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## InLight-Tone

Hey experts, I'm currently using Studio One Pro 4 and have abandoned the large disabled track template thing (well over 1000+ tracks) I was doing in Cubase in the past, in lieu of using presets instead and loading as I go with a basic lean master template of group tracks , sends etc already setup.

The only drawback is that a cue will take some 2-5 minutes to fully load up the Kontakt samples, which doesn't bother me too much as I need to breathe and go outside and get barefoot and ground myself on the granite slabs I'm currently living around.

I was wondering that if I invested in having my samples on m2/PCIE drives if the cues would load eons faster and reduce the wait period or if there is some other bottleneck I'm not aware of?


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## Robo Rivard

InLight-Tone said:


> Hey experts, I'm currently using Studio One Pro 4 and have abandoned the large disabled track template thing (well over 1000+ tracks) I was doing in Cubase in the past, in lieu of using presets instead and loading as I go with a basic lean master template of group tracks , sends etc already setup.
> 
> The only drawback is that a cue will take some 2-5 minutes to fully load up the Kontakt samples, which doesn't bother me too much as I need to breathe and go outside and get barefoot and ground myself on the granite slabs I'm currently living around.
> 
> I was wondering that if I invested in having my samples on m2/PCIE drives if the cues would load eons faster and reduce the wait period or if there is some other bottleneck I'm not aware of?


They will load eons faster!! SSD is the way to go with samples. I would NEVER go back to traditional hard drives for samples. But you sure need them for backups and saving files.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

InLight-Tone said:


> Hey experts, I'm currently using Studio One Pro 4 and have abandoned the large disabled track template thing (well over 1000+ tracks) I was doing in Cubase in the past, in lieu of using presets instead and loading as I go with a basic lean master template of group tracks , sends etc already setup.
> 
> The only drawback is that a cue will take some 2-5 minutes to fully load up the Kontakt samples, which doesn't bother me too much as I need to breathe and go outside and get barefoot and ground myself on the granite slabs I'm currently living around.
> 
> I was wondering that if I invested in having my samples on m2/PCIE drives if the cues would load eons faster and reduce the wait period or if there is some other bottleneck I'm not aware of?


For the best performance you want to spread your libraries across multiple drives, not have any sample libraries on your OS disk and sometimes I will move my project file to the desktop of my machine for working on my session. Unless you have your projects on decent storage too. In regards to projects though, it is really only relevant I would say with audio files in your project. So i have a separate drive for my audio. I have a 7200rpm Western Digital Black 1TB!


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## Shad0wLandsUK

InLight-Tone said:


> Hey experts, I'm currently using Studio One Pro 4 and have abandoned the large disabled track template thing (well over 1000+ tracks) I was doing in Cubase in the past, in lieu of using presets instead and loading as I go with a basic lean master template of group tracks , sends etc already setup.
> 
> The only drawback is that a cue will take some 2-5 minutes to fully load up the Kontakt samples, which doesn't bother me too much as I need to breathe and go outside and get barefoot and ground myself on the granite slabs I'm currently living around.
> 
> I was wondering that if I invested in having my samples on m2/PCIE drives if the cues would load eons faster and reduce the wait period or if there is some other bottleneck I'm not aware of?


And for understanding more about the setup and process I would highly recommend this video on macprovideo from our resident @Peter Schwartz : https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/orchestration-302-midi-orchestral-designing-templates

I am sure he would be happy to talk with you about his reason too a little


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## Nick Batzdorf

Robo Rivard said:


> Enculer des mouches.



Si, ils son très ennuyeux.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> For the best performance you want to spread your libraries across multiple drives, not have any sample libraries on your OS disk and sometimes



Is that actually true with SSDs?

Serious question.


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## Per Lichtman

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Is that actually true with SSDs?
> 
> Serious question.



It depends on whether you’re saturating the bandwidth or not and what your CPU usage is like. If you open up Resource Monitor on Windows or Activity Monitor under OS X you can see whether your total transfer speed goes up with one approach vs. the other, or you can measure load times or polyphony (or check for a CPU bottleneck).

Under many circumstances, each SSD represents its own disk transfer or streaming pipeline. Having your multi-mic strings on one pipeline while playing a high polyphony piano part with 5-8 mic positions on another is one situation where you might benefit in terms of polyphony. In terms of load times, it depends on whether your plug-in(s) support concurrent loads: PLAY libraries on one with Kontakt libraries on another is one way to take advantage.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Right, those are the questions.

Has anyone has ever actually saturated even a SATA 2 bus streaming samples? I haven't, and I'm skeptical, but if so it's very rare.

And I've posted before that my load times are identical on SATA 2 and SATA 3 buses. By extension that would imply that the number of drives isn't likely to make a lot of difference.

That's my thinking, anyway.


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## Per Lichtman

That’s what I’m saying: I’ve saturated a Samsung 840 Pro’s bandwidth before.


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## Per Lichtman

Just to clarify, whether it’s the bus or drive that’s the bottleneck, depends on the specific drive and bus, but if either is an issue, then adding a concurrent version of the bottleneck (either drive or bus) does improve performance.


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## Simon Ravn

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Is that actually true with SSDs?
> 
> Serious question.



I haven't tested it but... mine are spread over 6-7 drives. Remember that random read speeds on SSD's are only at around 40mb/sec at QD1. I don't know if sample streaming can use benefit from higher queue depths than 1. So... 7*40 is definitely more than 1*40..


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## Per Lichtman

Just FYI, it's easier to saturate bandwidth during sample loads than overload an SSD during streaming due to the CPU usage. I'm using an older i7-3820 on my main system so it's rare for the streaming to be the issue, but I'm doing some tests now to see whether I can come up with a SSD drive limiting scenario for streaming even on an older system like that.

EDIT: But even on this system, the SSD/bus combo can be a limiting factor during load times, for sure.

EDIT 2: Testing is going slowly because a lot of the stress test scenarios have ended up crashing the host and then taking several minutes to close using "Kill Process Tree Override."


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## Nick Batzdorf

Per, I think I posted above that I had the same drive on my Mac Pro's internal SATA 2 bus and on a SATA 3 card.

Loading a Quantum Leap piano takes :08 on either one.

Now, that's not pushing the bus as hard as you're doing with a template, and I'm using a much older computer and a Mac rather than a Windows machine. And I don't know how to crash a computer by loading files, because it does it at its own speed.

But I'm curious to see what you find out.

Simon, I really want a QD1! What is it?


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## Per Lichtman

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Per, I think I posted above that I had the same drive on my Mac Pro's internal SATA 2 bus and on a SATA 3 card.
> 
> Loading a Quantum Leap piano takes :08 on either one.
> 
> Now, that's not pushing the bus as hard as you're doing with a template, and I'm using a much older computer and a Mac rather than a Windows machine. And I don't know how to crash a computer by loading files, because it does it at its own speed.
> 
> But I'm curious to see what you find out.
> 
> Simon, I really want a QD1! What is it?



Sorry, I should clarify: the crashing is during streaming, loading is going fine. 

As for QD1: Queue Depth 1.
https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/queue-depth


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## cadenzajon

As cheap as I've seen it... 960GB SSD for $110.49:
https://www.rakuten.com/shop/adata/product/ASU650SS-960GT-C/

Use the coupon code "SAVE15" during checkout (will need an account with them) to get the full savings.

I use these for my VI storage and have never been disappointed by their performance.


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## artomatic

Thanks for the heads up. Great deal!

Edit: Just cancelled my order after reading the reviews


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## tack

Not all SSDs are created equal, and when you go for rock bottom prices, quite often you get rock bottom performance and reliability. Newegg reviews on that ADATA drive certainly leave much to be desired.

(I once bought a similarly cheap 1TB Sandisk SATA M.2 and the performance was dreadfully inconsistent. It also happened to die on me last weekend, although that can happen to any drive.)


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## Andrew Aversa

$180 for Samsung 860 EVO 2TB. Lowest it has ever been.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/accessories/apd/aa103490


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## ironbut

That link is showing $279 now but even so,..
I can't wait to see what Black Friday prices will be like!


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## Pictus

tack said:


> Not all SSDs are created equal, and when you go for rock bottom prices, quite often you get rock bottom performance and *reliability.*



True...
https://3dnews.ru/938764/page-3.html


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## jneebz

zircon_st said:


> $180 for Samsung 860 EVO 2TB. Lowest it has ever been.
> 
> https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/accessories/apd/aa103490


You see $180?


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## Josh Richman

jneebz said:


> You see $180?



Whoa?! How is that possible? Are you talking US dollars?


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## MartinH.

Says 279.99$ for me too. 

Afaik Amazon (and probably other big stores too) will put articles "on sale" if you have them in your virtual shopping basket for a long time but don't buy them. Conversely stuff you googled for a lot could possibly get more expensive (like it is with flights - sometimes cheaper to book those from a private browser tab that doesn't have all the search history data).


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## Wunderhorn

MartinH. said:


> (like it is with flights - sometimes cheaper to book those from a private browser tab that doesn't have all the search history data).



These days a private browser tab isn't enough. Several layers of protection Adblock, Ublock Origin, Canvas Blocker, Facebook Purifier, Greasemonkey etc. are in order, and and some of those need to be "trained" with some of your own custom additions.
Even better, use a Tor browser to do your shopping research.

Anyway, if you can hang on 'til Black Friday you might see even better deals.


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## MartinH.

Wunderhorn said:


> These days a private browser tab isn't enough. Several layers of protection Adblock, Ublock Origin, Canvas Blocker, Facebook Purifier, Greasemonkey etc. are in order, and and some of those need to be "trained" with some of your own custom additions.
> Even better, use a Tor browser to do your shopping research.
> 
> Anyway, if you can hang on 'til Black Friday you might see even better deals.



Crazy... I'm clearly not up to date on this. Thanks for the info.


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## Andrew Aversa

Looks like the sale ended. Sorry, folks. It *was* $180 at the time I posted it. 

Re: TB written, that's not a great measure of SSD quality as even the 'worst' drive on that list still has quite incredible durability. My ISW dev drive has been in operation for 4 years, hosting every project we've worked on including revisions, updates, patches, sample re-renders, compressed versions, etc. I still have only about 5TB written in that time!


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## jneebz

Wunderhorn said:


> Anyway, if you can hang on 'til Black Friday you might see even better deals.


Exactly what I’m doing. I think we will see some great deals on 2TB...


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## robgb

Pictus said:


> True...
> https://3dnews.ru/938764/page-3.html


Thing is, it's not always the brand. Drives have historically been hit or miss and brand and/or price has little to do with it.


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## Pictus

robgb said:


> Thing is, it's not always the brand. Drives have historically been hit or miss and brand and/or price has little to do with it.


True, it is the model, not the brand.
It is a combination of proper controller with proper cells...
As an example the Crucial MX300 275GB can stand 2659 TBW, but the
newer model MX500 250GB only 1075 TBW.


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## kitekrazy

So I would imagine is the larger ones are for storing samples they will last a very long time since they won't get written too as often.


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## MartinH.

Pictus said:


> True, it is the model, not the brand.
> It is a combination of proper controller with proper cells...
> As an example the Crucial MX300 275GB can stand 2659 TBW, but the
> newer model MX500 250GB only 1075 TBW.



How do they get these numbers? How many drives per model do they kill to get an average value out? How could they account for varying quality of the components they're sourcing from other manufacturers?

I wouldn't give tooo much about these statistics. If it breaks it breaks, make sure you have a solid backup solution. 

Google once released an in depth statistical evaluation of HDD (not ssd) failure rates, that was quite an interesting read.


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## ironbut

kitekrazy said:


> So I would imagine is the larger ones are for storing samples they will last a very long time since they won't get written too as often.



I've always figured this to be true and have my libraries on evo's and my system and recording/working drive on the evo pro's.
Anywho, I subscribe to a forum populated by a lot of audio archivists (Library of Congress, British Library, etc) and they advise having a regular schedule of re-copying their drives at least once a year. 
I don't have the research on issues with long term data storage handy buy it's what I plan to do.


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## Pictus

kitekrazy said:


> So I would imagine is the larger ones are for storing samples they will last a very long time since they won't get written too as often.



They will last longer...

*--------------------------------------------------------------*



MartinH. said:


> How do they get these numbers?
> How many drives per model do they kill to get an average value out?
> How could they account for varying quality of the components they're sourcing from other manufacturers?



Check https://3dnews.ru/938764



> I wouldn't give tooo much about these statistics. If it breaks it breaks, make sure you have a solid backup solution.



These statistics are not perfect, but they give a good idea.
SSDs are **much** more predictable than HDDs.
Backup is a must for anyone who values your data...



> Google once released an in depth statistical evaluation of HDD (not ssd) failure rates, that was quite an interesting read.



A good one https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html


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## Pictus

ironbut said:


> I've always figured this to be true and have my libraries on evo's and my system and recording/working drive on the evo pro's.
> Anywho, I subscribe to a forum populated by a lot of audio archivists (Library of Congress, British Library, etc) and they advise having a regular schedule of re-copying their drives at least once a year.
> I don't have the research on issues with long term data storage handy buy it's what I plan to do.



*M-Disc optical media reviewed: Your data, good for a thousand years*
https://www.pcworld.com/article/293...ewed-your-data-good-for-a-thousand-years.html


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## JEPA

ironbut said:


> I've always figured this to be true and have my libraries on evo's and my system and recording/working drive on the evo pro's.
> Anywho, I subscribe to a forum populated by a lot of audio archivists (Library of Congress, British Library, etc) and they advise having a regular schedule of re-copying their drives at least once a year.
> I don't have the research on issues with long term data storage handy buy it's what I plan to do.


may you share the forum? is open to the public? i am interested in archive work. Thanks!


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## charlieclouser

I've had zero failures with Samsung - other brands not so much... (OCZ aka Toshiba, etc.)

I'm mostly on 850 (both 1tb and 2tb Pro and 4tb Evo) and I'm now moving to 860 Pro 4tb as the prices drop. 

I keep four sets of off-line archives on HGST 4tb and he10tb drives (two sets on each format in case helium drives fail all of a sudden after X years). Growth in mechanical drives seems to be nearing the limit at around 12tb - 14tb for PMR drives, and I'm a little leery of SMR drives so I will steer clear. If we see a 16tb PMR drive I will rotate out of the 10tb drives to those. 

I've just spent a few days emptying and wiping over 40 older drives in sizes of 350gb, 750gb, 1tb, 2tb, 3tb, and 4tb - some go as far back as the original Apple-supplied 350gb boot drives from my G5 machines - the means many of them are 15 years old or more.

Not one failure or issue of any kind. Every drive spun right up, made no weird noises, and mounted instantly on a 2013 Mac Pro cylinder running Yosemite - all were bare drives inserted into an OWC Thunderbolt dual-drive dock. Every file was readable, no need for trusty Disk Warrior or anything. These were all stored in anti-static bags and original retail boxes in un-climate-controlled storage in SoCal, with no desiccant packs (I know, I know...). 

So... mechanical drives continue to impress, but I like the idea of a pocketful of 8tb Samsung T6 SSDs (whenever they come out) over a shelf full of heavy-ass spinners.


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## ironbut

The forum is actually a list.serv subscription from ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections).
You can join their mailing list at http://www.arsc-audio.org/index.php.
Super interesting (at least to me) stuff about restoration and preservation of all recorded sound.
BTW you don't have to join to get on the mailing list (arsclist).

Actually, after thinking about the time it would take to wipe my ssd and make a fresh copy from a clone, it might be a little paranoid to do this on a schedule like archivist do.
I'll probably just make sure my backup clones are good and current and replace the internal ssd (mac pro 5,1) when it takes a dump.

The only drives I've had problems with are a couple of noisy Hitachi spinners and a couple of super early OWC ssd's.
I still use the original 500G drive that came with a 2006 Mac Pro for some back ups sometimes.


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## Leandro Z

Hi everybody! Im thinking about buying some SSDs for my next build! For the guys that got the Micron 2TB, what do you think so far about them for reading sample libraries? 
I would like to have all my libraries in SSDs for my next build (2 x 2tb Micron is one idea) + M2 for the system. Any other recomendations?
Thanks!


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## Pictus

Leandro Z said:


> Any other recommendations?



I prefer Samsung, check https://vi-control.net/community/threads/ssd-prices-are-finally-dropping.71604/page-5#post-4291262


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## Leandro Z

Pictus said:


> I prefer Samsung, check https://vi-control.net/community/threads/ssd-prices-are-finally-dropping.71604/page-5#post-4291262


Yes! I saw that, but considering I will just use them to store and read libraries Im not worried about that "how many tb you can write". 

If anybody can comment their experience so far with those cheaper Micron, it would be great. By the way, is there any store that can offer me some discount or deal if I buy several hardware? Thanks!


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## KerrySmith

Leandro Z said:


> Yes! I saw that, but considering I will just use them to store and read libraries Im not worried about that "how many tb you can write".
> 
> If anybody can comment their experience so far with those cheaper Micron, it would be great. By the way, is there any store that can offer me some discount or deal if I buy several hardware? Thanks!



I have a Micron in my VEP server for some libs. It's doing okay, but I'm not putting a ton of strain on it. I have all of the data backed up on another, which I think is the way to go with those. So, if you go Micron, maybe buy 2 and clone them.


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## heisenberg

Leandro Z said:


> If anybody can comment their experience so far with those cheaper Micron, it would be great. By the way, is there any store that can offer me some discount or deal if I buy several hardware? Thanks!



I put in. 2TB Micron in about 6 months ago for sample libraries. It has been fine. It is pretty full already.


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## gsilbers

im seeing mixed info on the micron 1100 series. some users benchmark say its about the evo series, other say not that fast. anyone compared both for daw and library drive use?


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## desert

Can’t wait for BF sales, my SSDs are full


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## ptram

gsilbers said:


> some users benchmark say its about the evo series, other say not that fast


When comparing SSD speeds, you see bar graphs showing huge differences. They are, on the contrary, just the tip of a set of otherwise incredibly long bars. These things are FAST. Differences can be measured, but not really perceived in actual use.

Paolo


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## Pictus

Usually the bigger model is the faster and also has bigger lifespan.


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## gsilbers

Pictus said:


> Usually the bigger model is the faster and also has bigger lifespan.


sorry... you mean bigger as in gb size or is there something else? 
Im looking at this one 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Micron-110...m=312166934630&_trksid=p2045573.c101006.m3226


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## Pictus

*Gigabyte size.
*
I found a review of the 256GB version
https://www.nikktech.com/main/artic...n-1100-256gb-ssd-review?showall=1&limitstart=


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## Land of Missing Parts

B&H has a 48 hour flash sale on Samsung 960 Evo M.2
$110 -- 500gb
$220 -- 1tb


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## keyman_sam

Land of Missing Parts said:


> B&H has a 48 hour flash sale on Samsung 960 Evo M.2
> $110 -- 500gb
> $220 -- 1tb


Can you use these for the new Mac mini?


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## Dewdman42

Land of Missing Parts said:


> B&H has a 48 hour flash sale on Samsung 960 Evo M.2
> $110 -- 500gb
> $220 -- 1tb



That's kind of interesting. Anyone have any real world experiencing comparing the performance of those against SATA SSD on a cheesegrater macpro? I know the specs are outrageously high, but do we actually see any real world difference with DAW use?


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