# SSD better latency?



## robgb (Oct 20, 2020)

I took advantage of an Amazon Prime Day sale and finally moved into the modern era and bought a dedicated SSD drive for my sample libraries. I've moved over a couple libraries and am wondering, is the latency better with SSD drives or is it my imagination? I feel as if the moved libraries are much more responsive to my keyboard.

I'm probably imagining it (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but I'd be curious to know if anyone has any data on the differences, if any.


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## EgM (Oct 20, 2020)

SSDs have much better IOPS (input/output per second) so if a sample library has to load and stream a lot of small files there's an extreme difference compared to a normal platter drive.


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## chimuelo (Oct 30, 2020)

Can’t go wrong with SSDs but be aware of “sales” like this.

Adata had a great device for a great price, then once stocks were depleted, and for good reason, a great drive, they swapped out controllers and only after a consumer discovered this are we hearing about the cheaper parts.






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## easyrider (Oct 30, 2020)

robgb said:


> I took advantage of an Amazon Prime Day sale and finally moved into the modern era and bought a dedicated SSD drive for my sample libraries. I've moved over a couple libraries and am wondering, is the latency better with SSD drives or is it my imagination? I feel as if the moved libraries are much more responsive to my keyboard.
> 
> I'm probably imagining it (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but I'd be curious to know if anyone has any data on the differences, if any.



No, 

load times into ram are improved..that’s it.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 30, 2020)

I just noticed that Samsung has dropped the price on the 840 EVO 4TB SSD by $100. Now around $549. We might see some nice sales on that at the end of November...


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## Dracarys (Oct 31, 2020)

Yes, absolutely. When I was using 2 internal 2tb HDDs the performance was pathetic. I never understood how some guys said the performance was the same as long as you wait for the samples/session to load. Also, another huge issue was patches would be stuck playing every time I paused, so I would have to reset cache. Having your OS and DAW on a SSD will also improve performance. HDD should only be for storage and very light samples.


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## rgames (Oct 31, 2020)

It sounds like you're talking about sound card latency, and no, SSDs won't affect that. If you're runing the same sound card buffer then you're getting the same latency.

What SSDs might do is reduce the number of pops/clicks you hear when playing streaming samples at a given latency. You might be able to drop the sound card buffer to a lower value without hearing those artifacts.

If you don't use any streaming samples (highly unlikely if you're doing orchestral work) then yes, you likely will only see a difference in load times. In that case, the samples play only from RAM so the disc isn't a factor once the samlpes are loaded. But, as I said, pretty much everything orchestral runs with streaming from disc. If you're running only a bunch of synths then yes, you might not notice a difference.

SSDs are one the few pieces of computer technology that have had a measurable impact on peolpe's workflows over the past 10 years. Processor and RAM really quit making a difference 8 or 10 years ago. But SSDs have had a huge impact and are definitely the preferred technology from a performance standpoint. I still have a few HDDs for photo and video editing - the amount of space required brings cost into play and the performance gains aren't nearly as much as they are for streaming samples. But once costs come down I'll be 100% SSD. So will everyone else, most likely.

rgames


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