# SSD(s) ... How Important to Go Smaller, Multiple ??



## sostenuto (Oct 8, 2019)

Need to add new SSD to Desktop PC DAW(s). Running out of SATA slots. Options are: single 2TB or dual 1TB(s).
How much gain by spreading libs, versus all on single SSD ? 

(_edit_) Longshot possibility to go for 4 TB ..... which makes this concern greater .....
Both DAW(s) in large Server cases with multiple fans .... no issue with space for SSD(s).


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## ceemusic (Oct 8, 2019)

I don't know if this still holds true but it used to be better, EG using two 500GB SSDs over one 1TB SSD.
Two drives each sustaining ~540MB/Sec vs. a single drive sustaining ~540MB/Sec.


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## sostenuto (Oct 8, 2019)

ceemusic said:


> I don't know if this still holds true but it used to be better, EG using two 500GB SSDs over one 1TB SSD.
> Two drives each sustaining ~540MB/Sec vs. a single drive sustaining ~540MB/Sec.



This factor holds for sure ..... but get lost trying to work thru where bottleneck limitation comes in. Multiple SSD(s) will force SATA PCIe expansion card. Sounds lazy, and should take time to sort it.


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## Damarus (Oct 8, 2019)

1 Large SSD every time. You're not getting better performance with 2 separate drives (maybe if you RAID them).


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## tack (Oct 8, 2019)

Speaking only about Kontakt here (since that's what I measured):

Initial patch load times (up to the point background loading begins) is CPU bound even with relatively slow flash
Kontakt I/O appears to be single threaded with no I/O parallelism (queue depth 1) and shared across all instances living in the same process space
Background sample loading improves with low latency to disk (NVMe wins over SATA)
As a result of this (particularly #2), spreading your libraries over multiple drives won't improve performance, at least with Kontakt. (I've not measured other samplers.) Frustratingly it doesn't need to be this way in principle, but it is this way due to Kontakt's design (which makes more sense in the era of spinning rust).

There are non-performance reasons to do it, of course, such as managing the cost of expensive flash drives. But you're already in that territory now that you're maxed out, so that's moot.


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## sostenuto (Oct 8, 2019)

tack said:


> Speaking only about Kontakt here (since that's what I measured):
> 
> Initial patch load times (up to the point background loading begins) is CPU bound even with relatively slow flash
> Kontakt I/O appears to be single threaded with no I/O parallelism (queue depth 1) and shared across all instances living in the same process space
> ...



Thank-you for addressing this, as _currently_ heavy K5 /K6 library usage. 
Looked at NVMe briefly and but pros /cons seemed to null for my focused DAW usage .... _vs gaming or other needs._

Regards


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 8, 2019)

This is like asking whether you'll get more tired carrying a folded sheet of 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" paper in your back pocket on a hike.


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## tack (Oct 8, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> This is like asking whether you'll get more tired carrying a folded sheet of 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" paper in your back pocket on a hike.


Assuming the same stock, the 8.5"x14" sheet will objectively require more energy to transport.

Science FTW!


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## sostenuto (Oct 8, 2019)

Basis for question was various comments from more capable users mentioning spreading libs across ssd(s) versus all on one. 
Jus tryin to cover shortage of kno-how .... 

_Would actually tear paper in half and put half in each back pocket ....... _


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## ChrisLudwig (Oct 8, 2019)

Hi,
Spreading libraries across multiple drives is really only beneficial when using standard 7200rpm SATA drives. With SSD drives there can be issues with bandwidth of the SATA controller if you are running 4 or more SSD drives at once. Well at least if you are accessing that many at once like say in sample streaming. With 4 or more SSD drives running samples you would be better off performance wise using a dedicated PCI-e Raid controller card not the on board SATA controller.
It will far better sustained throughput for sample streaming.
personally I do not think it is beneficial doing raid arrays for sample drives. Raid in general I prefer only to be used in some archiving Raid 5/6 external backup solution. Raid is sometimes needed for 4k video production but with that you are looking at things like raid 10. Totally unnecessary for sample libraries or even project drives. 
Thank Chris


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## sostenuto (Oct 8, 2019)

ChrisLudwig said:


> Hi,
> Spreading libraries across multiple drives is really only beneficial when using standard 7200rpm SATA drives. With SSD drives there can be issues with bandwidth of the SATA controller if you are running 4 or more SSD drives at once. Well at least if you are accessing that many at once like say in sample streaming. With 4 or more SSD drives running samples you would be better off performance wise using a dedicated PCI-e Raid controller card not the on board SATA controller.
> It will far better sustained throughput for sample streaming.
> personally I do not think it is beneficial doing raid arrays for sample drives. Raid in general I prefer only to be used in some archiving Raid 5/6 external backup solution. Raid is sometimes needed for 4k video production but with that you are looking at things like raid 10. Totally unnecessary for sample libraries or even project drives.
> Thank Chris



Thank-you, Chris. Good to see this additional perspective. Actually, both Desktop, Win10 Pro, PC DAW(s) are aging, yet quite functional, stable systems. Their storage evolved over time to current hodgepodge of 7200 HDD(s) and smaller SSD(s) ..... as larger capacities were offered.

Your advices now cause me to think much more seriously about single 4TB SSD(s) for both systems, to allow for HDD longevity failures, and limited SATA slots. I can add a PCIe SATA expansion, but seems better to move to large SSD(s). Only $$$, right ? 

Regards


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 8, 2019)

sostenuto said:


> Basis for question was various comments from more capable users mentioning spreading libs across ssd(s) versus all on one.
> Jus tryin to cover shortage of kno-how ....
> 
> _Would actually tear paper in half and put half in each back pocket ....... _



Whether I'm more capable is always subject to debate, but in case my answer was cryptic in any way: it makes no difference.


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## Dunshield (Oct 16, 2019)

What about the situation where you're opening a project and samples are being loaded from Kontakt, and Omnisphere, and Vienna Ensemble, and Superior Drummer etc. Does it make sense to divide the sound libraries over different SSD's in that case? My DAW (Cubase) does seem to load all of these VSTi's in series - not waiting for the libraries to be fully loaded when it continues with the next VSTi - so I can imagine while Kontakt is loading samples from disk X, Omnisphere could be loading samples from disk Y and so forth.


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## dzilizzi (Oct 16, 2019)

My biggest problem with larger SSD drives is that the price has not been commensurate. In plate drives, you get more GBs per dollar in larger drives. But for some reason in SSD, 4TB drives have been more expensive than 4 1TB drives. This appears to be changing finally. But this is mainly the reason I now have 5 small SSDs rather than one or 2 larger ones. It isn't a problem on my desktop but my laptop runs out of USB resources. And? I don't need them all to be plugged in normally. 

I was thinking of buying an M.2 PCI card for my desktop. I have an empty slot. Though a SATA card would be just as useful.


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## ChrisLudwig (Oct 16, 2019)

Hi,
Technically yes they may load faster but not sure the differences would be very noticeable. 

Chris



Dunshield said:


> What about the situation where you're opening a project and samples are being loaded from Kontakt, and Omnisphere, and Vienna Ensemble, and Superior Drummer etc. Does it make sense to divide the sound libraries over different SSD's in that case? My DAW (Cubase) does seem to load all of these VSTi's in series - not waiting for the libraries to be fully loaded when it continues with the next VSTi - so I can imagine while Kontakt is loading samples from disk X, Omnisphere could be loading samples from disk Y and so forth.


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## ChrisLudwig (Oct 16, 2019)

Hi,
Yes, larger than 4Tb SSD drives only juts starting to be priced right. 
Make sure to read your motherboard manual to make sure the m.2 is definitely a NVN-e PCI-e slot and that it does not disable onboard SATA ports, which is the case on some motherboards.
Chris



dzilizzi said:


> My biggest problem with larger SSD drives is that the price has not been commensurate. In plate drives, you get more GBs per dollar in larger drives. But for some reason in SSD, 4TB drives have been more expensive than 4 1TB drives. This appears to be changing finally. But this is mainly the reason I now have 5 small SSDs rather than one or 2 larger ones. It isn't a problem on my desktop but my laptop runs out of USB resources. And? I don't need them all to be plugged in normally.
> 
> I was thinking of buying an M.2 PCI card for my desktop. I have an empty slot. Though a SATA card would be just as useful.


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## dzilizzi (Oct 16, 2019)

ChrisLudwig said:


> Hi,
> Yes, larger than 4Tb SSD drives only juts starting to be priced right.
> Make sure to read your motherboard manual to make sure the m.2 is definitely a NVN-e PCI-e slot and that it does not disable onboard SATA ports, which is the case on some motherboards.
> Chris


I was going to buy a PCI-e card that takes 2 m.2 drives. I was looking for a SATA PCI-e card but the ones I found weren't compatible. My motherboard only has 3 SATA, but also an m.2 that disables one of the SATA slots. So I have an m.2 and 2 SATAs. My last motherboard had 6 slots. I miss my SATA slots. I understand the card won't disable the current slots but add to them? Otherwise it is useless.


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## chimuelo (Oct 16, 2019)

No difference what so ever these days, back with GSIF it was a different story, and that was the era of multiple Raptors.
I have hot spares I drag along with me in case of a failure, and thats never happened.

With video it seems to be a different story.
I bought an 8 port Microsemi RAID Card to try with audio, didnt notice any differences.
Put that on our HTPC and run a dual RAID 6 Array, RAID 60 according to some.
It can handle 2 drive failures per array and can archive 10GBs of data 13 seconds faster than a single device, and 9 seconds faster than RAID 1, which is surprising, but it shows theres a slight advantage using multiple drives.

We wouldn't notice anything in audio, but Ive got dual parity and dual redundancy on my HTPC.

Imagine my relief.


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