# Hard drive types



## Luka (May 9, 2020)

Is HDD fine for putting all your sample libraries on an external hard drive or is SSD a better choice?
Or is there even another type of hard drive that I don't know of?

Thank you!


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## jbuhler (May 9, 2020)

For sample libraries you want SSDs.


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## J-M (May 9, 2020)

Luka said:


> Is HDD fine for putting all your sample libraries on an external hard drive or is SSD a better choice?
> Or is there even another type of hard drive that I don't know of?
> 
> Thank you!



Always SSDs if you can, way faster load times! Pure audio files on HDDs is fine.


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## GNP (May 9, 2020)

If you have tons of libraries that exceed more than 2-5 TBs, I'd still say unfortunately you'll need normal 7200 RPM harddrives. SSDs currently still (disappointingly) do not have that kind of storage capacity, as fast as they are. They're also alot less expensive.

Just make sure you get the high-performance ones, not the "eco" ones.


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## Zero&One (May 9, 2020)

There’s also hybrid drives. I’ve not used one for samples so can’t comment. But these bridge the gap of speed/storage.
We do have them in SANs at work.


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## d.healey (May 9, 2020)

The only thing I use HDD for these days is backups. SSDs are the way to go (although they're about 4x the price of an HDD), and an NVME for your system drive.


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## Zero&One (May 9, 2020)




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## goalie composer (May 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> The only thing I use HDD for these days is backups. SSDs are the way to go (although they're about 4x the price of an HDD), and an NVME for your system drive.


What drive (type and manufacturer) are you using for your project drive? I'm considering making the switch from a 7200 to an SSD for a project drive but need something fast, reliable and has enough write capacity.


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## Technostica (May 9, 2020)

GNP said:


> If you have tons of libraries that exceed more than 2-5 TBs, I'd still say unfortunately you'll need normal 7200 RPM harddrives. SSDs currently still (disappointingly) do not have that kind of storage capacity, as fast as they are.


You can buy SSDs much larger than that but they are targeted at enterprise clients usually.
So they are expensive but the Sata ones can sometimes be found relatively cheaply.
I picked up a pair of 4TB Micron drives for under £250 each.


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## d.healey (May 9, 2020)

goalie composer said:


> What drive (type and manufacturer) are you using for your project drive? I'm considering making the switch from a 7200 to an SSD for a project drive but need something fast, reliable and has enough write capacity.


My main project drive is no longer available - https://www.crucial.com/products/ssd/mx300-ssd

My most recently purchased drive is - https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500/ct2000mx500ssd1


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## easyrider (May 9, 2020)

Luka said:


> Is HDD fine for putting all your sample libraries on an external hard drive or is SSD a better choice?
> Or is there even another type of hard drive that I don't know of?
> 
> Thank you!



SSD


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## easyrider (May 9, 2020)

GNP said:


> If you have tons of libraries that exceed more than 2-5 TBs, I'd still say unfortunately you'll need normal 7200 RPM harddrives. SSDs currently still (disappointingly) do not have that kind of storage capacity, as fast as they are. They're also alot less expensive.
> 
> Just make sure you get the high-performance ones, not the "eco" ones.



eh?


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## VladK (May 9, 2020)

GNP said:


> If you have tons of libraries that exceed more than 2-5 TBs, I'd still say unfortunately you'll need normal 7200 RPM harddrives. SSDs currently still (disappointingly) do not have that kind of storage capacity, as fast as they are. They're also alot less expensive.
> 
> Just make sure you get the high-performance ones, not the "eco" ones.



There are insanely fast 4TB m2 nVME PCIe-3 (and 2TB PCIe-4) SSD drives, relatively expensive - yes, around $800-900.


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## VladK (May 9, 2020)

Zero&One said:


> There’s also hybrid drives. I’ve not used one for samples so can’t comment. But these bridge the gap of speed/storage.
> We do have them in SANs at work.



Hybrid drives would not improve speed for samples. These are HDD with small solid state cache.
For samples you need fast sequential read.


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## jbuhler (May 9, 2020)

Currently, I have my sample libraries spread across 5 SSDs, all backed up on two 4TB HDs.


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## d.healey (May 9, 2020)

VladK said:


> There are insanely fast 4TB m2 nVME PCIe-3 (and 2TB PCIe-4) SSD drives, relatively expensive - yes, around $800-900.


I have most of my samples on NVMEs, to be honest I haven't noticed any improvement over SATA SSDs when it comes to sample streaming.


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## Zero&One (May 9, 2020)

VladK said:


> Hybrid drives would not improve speed for samples. These are HDD with small solid state cache.
> For samples you need fast sequential read.



I've never tested them so can't comment, I use 5 SSD's.
I would imagine over time their learning function of frequent library reads would benefit way over HDD's. The tests certainly show they are way faster than HDD, hence the interim performance suggestion and added storage benefit.


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## Zero&One (May 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> I have most of my samples on NVMEs, to be honest I haven't noticed any improvement over SATA SSDs when it comes to sample streaming.



It's the same in gaming, they've never really offered any performance increases in any tests. The extra storage connections and small form factor is certainly a benefit.


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## easyrider (May 9, 2020)

I have multiple SSD drives and use Stablebit Drive pool to consolidate them into one single large disk.
I can add SSD's to the pool to increase storage. Remove disks from the pool etc....

It makes managing libraries and storage space very easy. The pool balances the data across the drives automatically.

You can then hide the multiple drives in windows 10 and only see your single Drivepool


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 9, 2020)

Here's the principle: SSDs are way, way, better.

But if you have libraries you don't use very often, spinning drives still work fine.

You can just put your most-used libraries on SSD if it's too expensive to put everything on them - even though the prices have come way down over the past few years.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 9, 2020)

I began with a regular old 7200 hard drive. I put all my Komplete libraries there and they all worked fine. Many other libraries worked fine too and still do. But some of the more advanced libraries I bought took a looooooong time to load. So I bought my first SSD and moved the libraries that took the longest to load to it. I saw a definite improvement. After a while I got another SSD for the new libraries I was buying.

But there were still some libraries that loaded very slowly even on my SSDs. So I decided to try an NVMe M.2 drive. I moved those over and they loaded up- Snap! They are much faster than regular SSDs as long as they are PCIe and not SATA. SATA M.2s are the same as regular SSDs.A regular SSD can go as fast as 500 Mb/sec; a PCIe NVme can do 3200-3500 mb/sec.

My experience is that the speed benefit is in that initial load, not after, depending on how much RAM you have. But that can make a lot of difference while you're waiting for a piece of music or template to load.

I still have the 7200 drive with tons of stuff in it and I am as happy with the libraries on there as I am with the ones on my M.2. Those libraries load just as instantly and work fine.

I absolutely don't think an M.2 is necessary for a boot drive. The difference between how long it takes to boot up and how long it takes to load a huge template is huge. The M.2s do more good for you with your samples.

You don't need to spend a lot of money on SSDs unless you are a Samsung junkie. There are lots of SSDs out there that are great from other companies. You have to do your research on drives just like you do on anything else. Figure out what you want and wait for sales. Amazon Prime day is a great time to get them as is Black Friday. I always know what I want and what a great price for it is--then I can jump immediately into a flash sale on SSDs.

I keep my backups off my computer on external drives. In fact, I download all my original libraries to an exterior drive first, before putting them on my computer. So I have a backup before I even have a library installed.


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## dzilizzi (May 9, 2020)

I have way too much stuff. I put the libraries that need to be on an SSD to run well on one of my four 1TB drives. The rest go on HDD's. Most of my drives are external. 

And backups are all less expensive 5900 RPM drives.


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## VladK (May 9, 2020)

Don't mistake NVMe SATA with NVMe PCIe. 
M.2 NVMe is form factor.

nVME SATA drives have the same speed as 3.5" SATA SSD have because they use the same SATA interface. And SATA 3.0 specification supports only up to 600MB/s whether in a 2.5”, mSATA or M.2 SSD form factors.

But NVMEe PCIe drives are connected to PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 bus directly, and are times faster. 

PCIe Gen 2 x2 lanes is capable of up to 1000MB/s, Gen 2 x4 lanes - up to 2000MB/s, Gen 3 x4 lanes - up to 4000MB/s, and Gen 4 x4 - up to 6000MB/s

Seagate Firecuda 520 I use was tested as

Max Sequential ReadUp to 5000 MBpsMax Sequential WriteUp to 4400 MBps


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 9, 2020)

I'm totally happy with SATA 2 speed. My large template - roughly 40GB - loads in less than 90 seconds.

And with Logic's new feature to load only what it needs to play the session, that template is ready to go in literally 12 seconds.


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

Alright. I want to buy an external SSD of ideally 2 Tb.
What do you recommend? Brand, model…

Or what specs should I be looking for?


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

What do you guys think about the Samsung T7?


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

I think that the T7 is made for travel, that's why it has the fingerprint security, which you pay for. It is $379 for 2 TB. You can get a regular Samsung EVO for $300 or so, depending on whether you use their case or buy your own.

I haven't loved my two Samsungs, so I would go with a Crucial MX500. $229 for 2 TB. 
But that won't be a popular opinion here, as Samsung is the Spitfire of SSDs. 

There are often flash sales on Amazon on SSDs. Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday are also good times.


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## JohnG (May 22, 2020)

d.healey said:


> I have most of my samples on NVMEs, to be honest I haven't noticed any improvement over SATA SSDs when it comes to sample streaming.



I don't think I've seen any improvement either, with NVMe over SSD. They are certainly fast but, like @d.healey, I can't tell any difference.


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## Technostica (May 22, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> I haven't loved my two Samsungs, so I would go with a Crucial MX500. $229 for 2 TB.
> But that won't be a popular opinion here, as Samsung is the Spitfire of SSDs.


There was a time when Samsung were noticeably better than most other consumer drives but that is no longer the case.
But the Samsung premium tax still applies and many still pay it.
A mixture of conservatism and people not being up to date maybe!
When I consider the botched 840 and 840 EVO drives (not 840 Pro) and how long they took to (partially!) fix them, I don't consider them trustworthy.
Intel have issued product recalls for less.


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

Is 540 MB/s a good enough speed?


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

JohnG said:


> I don't think I've seen any improvement either, with NVMe over SSD. They are certainly fast but, like @d.healey, I can't tell any difference.


As I'm sure you know, if the NVMe drives are hooked up to a SATA cable they are the same as regular SSDs and there is no improvement in speed. I'm just pointing this out because some people feel that a chewing gum sized drive is faster, which is not true. 

But try this experiment: If you have a library that loads sluggishly on a regular SSD, time it, and then move it over to the NVMe that is connected to the motherboard or to a recent gen PCie card. In every case for me, there was a tremendous difference in speed. For example, a library that took 8-10 seconds to load opened in an instant. 

But after it's loaded, it's the same.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

Luka said:


> Is 540 MB/s a good enough speed?


It depends. 7200 rpm can be just fine for some libraries. For example, most of my Komplete instruments load up quickly from my 7200 drive. It's true for a lot of my libraries and I've never felt any need to move them.

But some load very slowly, so I move them to a SSD.

And some still move slowly on the SSDs so I move them to the NVme.

I don't waste the speed when I don't need to.


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> It depends. 7200 rpm can be just fine for some libraries. Most of my Komplete instruments load up quickly from my 7200 drive. I've never felt any need to move them.
> 
> But some load very slowly, so I move them to a SSD.
> 
> ...



The 540 MB/s was on an SSD… Is that a bad speed for an SSD?


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

Luka said:


> The 540 MB/s was on an SSD… Is that a bad speed for an SSD?



You sure you don't mean 5400 mb/sec?

2.5" SSDs sustain over 500MB/Sec (three times the speed of a conventional HD).

PCIe SSDs sustain 2600MB/Sec (fourteen times the speed of a conventional HD).

m.2 Ultra SSDs use 4 PCIe lanes and sustain 3200-3500MB/Sec (seventeen times the speed of conventional HD).


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## Technostica (May 22, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> But try this experiment: If you have a library that loads sluggishly on a regular SSD, time it, and then move it over to the NVMe that is connected to the motherboard or to a recent gen PCie card. In every case for me, there was a tremendous difference in speed. For example, a library that took 8-10 seconds to load opened in an instant.


Thanks for this as it’s very rare for people to comment on the difference.



TigerTheFrog said:


> As I'm sure you know, if the NVMe drives are hooked up to a SATA cable they are the same as regular SSDs and there is no improvement in speed. I'm just pointing this out because some people feel that a chewing gum sized drive is faster, which is not true.


SATA and NVMe/PCIe SSDs can both be had in the M.2 format and others; e.g. SATA (2.5”), NVMe (U.2 & PCIe card).
Some M.2 slots support both SATA and NVMe/PCIe SSDs as they are wired to both the SATA and PCIe controllers on the system. Some are only wired for one of the two.
But you can’t hook up an NVMe/PCIe SSD to the SATA controller as they are not compatible.

SATA offers the same performance whether connected via a SATA cable or an M.2 slot.
PCIe/NVMe offers the same performance whether connected via a PCIe Card or an M.2 slot; provided that both have the same PCIe bandwidth. 
Currently PCIe 3.0 x4 (Four lanes) is the most common. There is the newer PCIe 4.0 which has around double the bandwidth of its predecessor.
Plus some enterprise drives use 8 lanes (or even more!) thus doubling the bandwidth.
PCIe 3.0 4x can reach ~3.5GBs so PCIe 4.0 8x can reach ~14GBs.
I’m referring here to the maximum system buss speeds as drive speeds will depend on implementation.



TigerTheFrog said:


> You sure you don't mean 5400 mb/sec?


540 MB/s is typical for a SATA SSD and they are usually quoted in MB/s not Mb/s



TigerTheFrog said:


> PCIe SSDs sustain 2600MB/Sec (fourteen times the speed of a conventional HD).
> m.2 Ultra SSDs use 4 PCIe lanes and sustain 3200-3500MB/Sec (seventeen times the speed of conventional HD).


That’s an arbitrary distinction as any PCIe connector on a PC can potentially be anything from 1 to 16 lanes.
M.2 can be 2x or 4x lanes, not sure if 1x exists?
PCIe slots can be between 1x and 16x although SSDs tend to use at least 4x.
U.2 may well always be 4x although that’s a guess.


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> You sure you don't mean 5400 mb/sec?
> 
> 2.5" SSDs sustain over 500MB/Sec (three times the speed of a conventional HD).
> 
> ...





It's from this one… So I understand I have to at least look for "PCIe"?


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## easyrider (May 22, 2020)

Luka said:


> It's from this one… So I understand I have to at least look for "PCIe"?




No, that is a usb 3.1 external SSD.

if you want an external SSD just get a standard SSD and a USB 3.1 enclosure....


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

easyrider said:


> No, that is a usb 3.1 external SSD.
> 
> if you want an external SSD just get a standard SSD and a USB 3.1 enclosure....



Yes, I'm looking for external… So what is the best speed I can hope for?


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

You need to connect with a USB 3.0 connector which can give a maximum of 640 MB/s.


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## Technostica (May 22, 2020)

Luka said:


> Yes, I'm looking for external… So what is the best speed I can hope for?


That depends on the type of ports the PC has.
For USB 3.x 5Gbs you only require a SATA SSD to saturate the buss.
For USB 3.x 10Gbs you require a low end PCIe/NVMe SSD to saturate it.
You are unlikely to have higher than that unless you have a Thunderbolt 3 port!


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## easyrider (May 22, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> You need to connect with a USB 3.0 connector which can give a maximum of 640 MB/s.



a standard SSD won’t reach that speed....


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## Luka (May 22, 2020)

Technostica said:


> That depends on the type of ports the PC has.
> For USB 3.x 5Gbs you only require a SATA SSD to saturate the buss.
> For USB 3.x 10Gbs you require a low end PCIe/NVMe SSD to saturate it.
> You are unlikely to have higher than that unless you have a Thunderbolt 3 port!



I do have a thunderbolt port, and USB 3.1 Gen2 on my 5K iMac, if I'm not mistaken.


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## Technostica (May 22, 2020)

The second one supports up to around 1GB/s whereas the first around 3.5GB/s.

TB3 drives are expensive.
1GB/s is hardly slow so it depends how much you want to spend.
If going for USB then check reviews to find a drive that can saturate the 10Gbs buss.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 22, 2020)

Luka said:


> Is 540 MB/s a good enough speed?



Yes.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 22, 2020)

There are at least two things that go on with getting the most speed.

First, there's the maximum speed of the drive.
Second, there's the maximum speed of the way you connect the drive. 
The result is only as good as the slowest of the two. 

In case you don't understand how PCIe cards handle data, this video is helpful.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 24, 2020)

I should mention that the latest USB spec (2013) is USB-C Gen 2. This can deliver up to 10 Gb/sec for a PC.

This is the speed of a 2011 Thunderbolt. Current Thunderbolt is up to 40Gb/sec.

Anyway, there are *M.2 NVMe exterior enclosures* for sale that connect to USB-C Gen 2 and you should be able to get the maximum speed of the _drive_ (not the USB optimal speed) using them. You don't need a motherboard or PCIe connection if your computer has one of these or a Thunderbolt.

In time, I expect there will be new technology and there will be SSDs that provide more speed than today's NVMe. They'll no doubt be even smaller and you'll need a microscope to find the little screw that connects them.


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## Technostica (May 24, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> It depends. 7200 rpm can be just fine for some libraries. For example, most of my Komplete instruments load up quickly from my 7200 drive. It's true for a lot of my libraries and I've never felt any need to move them.
> But some load very slowly, so I move them to a SSD.
> And some still move slowly on the SSDs so I move them to the NVme.


Interesting. Which ones particularly benefit in moving from a SATA to a PCIe SSD?


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 24, 2020)

Technostica said:


> Interesting. Which ones particularly benefit in moving from a SATA to a PCIe SSD?


One example that comes to mind is the Cinematic Studio libraries. I was really struck by the speed of the load when I moved them over. The Audiofier Randomizer instruments also loaded very slowly on my regular SSDs and now are improved.

There is also the issue in that my two Samsung SSDs are running much slower now than they did when I bought them, according to several speed tests. Much slower than my Crucial boot drive. Maybe I'm seeing such a big speed increase with the NVmes because the Samsungs just aren't delivering the speed they are capable of. I really don't know.

Eventually I will replace one of the Samsungs. No drives last forever. Then I can see what the time difference is in the loads. For now, the new drives I'm buying are NVmes.


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## Technostica (May 24, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> There is also the issue in that my two Samsung SSDs are running much slower now than they did when I bought them, according to several speed tests. Much slower than my Crucial boot drive. Maybe I'm seeing such a big speed increase with the NVmes because the Samsungs just aren't delivering the speed they are capable of. I really don't know.


There were major bugs with Samsung 840 and 840 EVO SATA SSDs that required multiple firmware updates to resolve. 
If by chance you have those then do update them.
The issue meant that read speeds could drop dramatically to below 100MB/s I seem to recall.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 24, 2020)

Technostica said:


> There were major bugs with Samsung 840 and 840 EVO SATA SSDs that required multiple firmware updates to resolve.
> If by chance you have those then do update them.
> The issue meant that read speeds could drop dramatically to below 100MB/s I seem to recall.


I have one 850 and one 860. But I'll look into it.


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## Technostica (May 24, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> I have one 850 and one 860. But I'll look into it.


It was only those two 840 drives with the issue.

What read speeds are you getting with 850/860 using a benchmark utility?


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## Technostica (May 24, 2020)

TigerTheFrog said:


> I should mention that the latest USB spec (2013) is USB-C Gen 2. This can deliver up to 10 Gb/sec for a PC.
> This is the speed of a 2011 Thunderbolt. Current Thunderbolt is up to 40Gb/sec.


It's moved on to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 which is 20Gb/s. Very snappy name to go with it. 

Intel have made Thunderbolt 3 available freely and USB 4.0 is going to be a super-set of TB3 which is encouraging.
The downside is that USB 4.0 will have many optional features but that's fair enough as not every USB port requires all of them.
Once USB 4.0 is baked into the Intel/AMD chipsets that will be a big step forward.


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## Reid Rosefelt (May 24, 2020)

Technostica said:


> It was only those two 840 drives with the issue.
> 
> What read speeds are you getting with 850/860 using a benchmark utility?



I'm in the middle of something now, but I'll take a look at them in the next day or two.


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## Buz (May 26, 2020)

It depends on the data density. A single 200GB instrument will see benefits, but a 20GB pack not so much.

By the way if anyone has unexpectedly slow loading with Kontakt libraries, add the sample folder to the Windows Defender exception list. Makes a world of difference.


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## Luka (May 26, 2020)

Buz said:


> Windows Defender exception list


That's Windows as in PC, not a Mac? So I don't need to worry about this on a Mac?


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## Buz (May 26, 2020)

I have no idea how Mac AV operates but it might still be worth keeping in mind I guess!


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## synthoid (May 26, 2020)

I've been using the Samsung T5 drives, but am running out of usb ports. Sure a larger hub or dock would help, but i wonder if there is a more elegant solution than hanging several of the T5 drives off the back of my iMac Pro. Something like the BlackMagic box but less expensive (ie. allow me to house several ssd's in one enclosure)?


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## gordinho (May 27, 2020)

synthoid said:


> I've been using the Samsung T5 drives, but am running out of usb ports. Sure a larger hub or dock would help, but i wonder if there is a more elegant solution than hanging several of the T5 drives off the back of my iMac Pro. Something like the BlackMagic box but less expensive (ie. allow me to house several ssd's in one enclosure)?



This is what several NAS enclosures offer you with a range of RAID options for backup, in case one drive dies on you. Btw, I have a time understanding why anyone would spend money on a nvme pcie drive for virtual instruments... I have only once had a need for such a system while streaming multiple high speed cameras in parallel. In the end I went with an array of SSD since several years ago it was cost prohibitive otherwise.


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