# Crucial BX500 SSD any good for samples?



## Toecutter (May 24, 2021)

Anyone using the BX500 (not MX) for orchestral samples streaming? Opinions?


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## callen1685 (May 24, 2021)

Yep I grabbed the 2tb version last month. Just copied all the samples from a 750 and switched the letter drive. All templates and projects running smooth so far!


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## Toecutter (May 24, 2021)

callen1685 said:


> Yep I grabbed the 2tb version last month. Just copied all the samples from a 750 and switched the letter drive. All templates and projects running smooth so far!


Thanks, that's the one I'm considering. On paper it looks good for streaming but you never know, there's always a caveat. Glad to hear it's running smooth!


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## easyrider (May 24, 2021)

What's the the price difference over the MX 500?


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## ptram (May 25, 2021)

I use one for streaming, among the others, and it is very good.the price difference with the MX series is however quite small. When on offer, it can be a very good deal, perfectly fine for reading.

EDIT: Not true: I don't have a BX.

Paolo


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## Toecutter (May 25, 2021)

ptram said:


> I use one for streaming, among the others, and it is very good.the price difference with the MX series is however quite small. When on offer, it can be a very good deal, perfectly fine for reading.
> 
> Paolo


Exactly! A local store was having it at a very good price (flash sale) but I didn't act fast enough, not knowing this model. Are you streaming Kontakt only libraries? Or do you use Spitfire, Sine, etc?


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## ptram (May 25, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> Exactly! A local store was having it at a very good price (flash sale) but I didn't act fast enough, not knowing this model. Are you streaming Kontakt only libraries? Or do you use Spitfire, Sine, etc?


I'm very sorry, but I see I DON'T have a BX500! I had purchased one, but then it never arrived, and replaced it with another MX500.

I have MX500, MX550, MX300 and MX200 Crucial drives, used with a mix of VSL, Kontakt, Spitfire Player, Sine, UVI Workstation, sforzando etc. libraries.

Paolo


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## callen1685 (May 25, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> Exactly! A local store was having it at a very good price (flash sale) but I didn't act fast enough, not knowing this model. Are you streaming Kontakt only libraries? Or do you use Spitfire, Sine, etc?


I'm running a bunch of Sine and Kontakt just fine. I've only got Kontakt based Spitfire libs.


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## Toecutter (May 25, 2021)

callen1685 said:


> I'm running a bunch of Sine and Kontakt just fine. I've only got Kontakt based Spitfire libs.


Thanks, my template is 80% Kontakt and the odd Spitfire, Sine and Engine libraries, so that's very reassuring. I asked in another forum and someone is running HOOPUS and a bunch of VSL stuff in the BX500.


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## easyrider (May 25, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> Thanks, my template is 80% Kontakt and the odd Spitfire, Sine and Engine libraries, so that's very reassuring. I asked in another forum and someone is running HOOPUS and a bunch of VSL stuff in the BX500.


The BX is fine....Just less warranty and write guarantee. If its only 20 bucks different than a MX 500 it makes sense to go with that.


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## Soundbed (May 25, 2021)

These drives are limited by the speed of SATA. So I’m moving to the inexpensive Inland M.2 form factor NVMe drives because they have finally come down to near parity in pricing.

example 2TB for $209


Inland Platinum 2TB SSD NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0x4 M.2 2280 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive, R/W up to 3,400/3,000 MB/s, PCIe Express 3.1 and NVMe 1.3 Compatible​


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## Toecutter (May 26, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> These drives are limited by the speed of SATA. So I’m moving to the inexpensive Inland M.2 form factor NVMe drives because they have finally come down to near parity in pricing.
> 
> example 2TB for $209
> 
> ...


Thanks Soundbed, I wasn't even considering NVMe drives but the price is excellent!  Are there any advantages other than load times? I always max out my CPU before getting to the SATA streaming ceiling.


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## easyrider (May 26, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> Thanks Soundbed, I wasn't even considering NVMe drives but the price is excellent!  Are there any advantages other than load times? I always max out my CPU before getting to the SATA streaming ceiling.


Loads times in Kontakt are no different…. @EvilDragon will confirm.

Unless Kontakt now as been updated to utilise this NVME technology….

Also bare in mind that depending on mobo and chipset Sata ports will be disabled when using NVME.


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## Toecutter (May 26, 2021)

easyrider said:


> Loads times in Kontakt are no different…. @EvilDragon will confirm.
> 
> Unless Kontakt now as been updated to utilise this NVME technology….
> 
> Also bare in mind that depending on mobo and chipset Sata ports will be disabled when using NVME.


I'm such a noob when it comes to NVMe, I only have one (OS). So what is the real advantage for samples? Future-proofing? Maybe Spitfire, Sine, Engine, UVI, etc can benefit from NVMes?

I have a ton of smaller SSDs that I'm switching to higher capacity ones. I also have an older PC that is gathering dust that I thought about using as an "old sample box" where I will keep all my least used libraries. That motherboard has 6 Sata ports and that's it.


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## Ry.Ja3 (May 26, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> I'm such a noob when it comes to NVMe, I only have one (OS). So what is the real advantage for samples? Future-proofing? Maybe Spitfire, Sine, Engine, UVI, etc can benefit from NVMes?
> 
> I have a ton of smaller SSDs that I'm switching to higher capacity ones. I also have an older PC that is gathering dust that I thought about using as an "old sample box" where I will keep all my least used libraries. That motherboard has 6 Sata ports and that's it.


For me, it's the read/write speed of the NVMe. 
NVMe is much faster (see attached screenshot). 

But for loading VST's? I still have all my instruments on the SSD. It's plenty fast for me. The NVMe is my OS drive.


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## easyrider (May 26, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> I'm such a noob when it comes to NVMe, I only have one (OS). So what is the real advantage for samples? Future-proofing? Maybe Spitfire, Sine, Engine, UVI, etc can benefit from NVMes?
> 
> I have a ton of smaller SSDs that I'm switching to higher capacity ones. I also have an older PC that is gathering dust that I thought about using as an "old sample box" where I will keep all my least used libraries. That motherboard has 6 Sata ports and that's it.


Tbh the main advantage of NVMe drives is moving data around fast and video editing….Samples tend to be static data….

I myself have One Nvme drive for OS…(Quick boot etc) and sata SSD drives all pooled together into a large single 12tb volume under one drive letter…

I’ve tested Nvme against Sata SSD and there is no speed increase when using Kontakt or other players…The data needed is just not saturating the bus….

Synthetic benchmarks show high read and write speeds but for streaming samples there is no real advantage….and in fact if you had a couple and lose Sata ports it could hinder your future storage capacity.


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## easyrider (May 26, 2021)

Ry.Ja3 said:


> For me, it's the read/write speed of the NVMe.
> NVMe is much faster (see attached screenshot).
> 
> But for loading VST's? I still have all my instruments on the SSD. It's plenty fast for me. The NVMe is my OS drive.


Numbers are one thing for moving data about but do a test and you’ll see negligible sample loads times when using a Nvme over your Sata SSD.


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## Soundbed (May 26, 2021)

Thanks everyone for your feedback! I also do video editing. It’s good to hear so many people have similar experiences with sample loading.


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## astreamproductions (May 26, 2021)

I had a bad experience with the BX500 2tb SSD. I bought 4 of them last year and needed to replace them all with another brand due to random issues with Logic locking up and becoming sluggish while playing back samples. These are very different from the Crucial MX500's and rely heavily on internal caching. I think they are intended for light desktop use and are not suitable for sample streaming imo. More info here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-bx500-ssd,5377.html


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## newbreednet (May 26, 2021)

Toecutter said:


> I'm such a noob when it comes to NVMe, I only have one (OS). So what is the real advantage for samples? Future-proofing? Maybe Spitfire, Sine, Engine, UVI, etc can benefit from NVMes?


I have (PCIe 3.0) NVMe drives for samples, my latest one (WD Blue) was cheaper than a SATA SSD (!) and I had the slots and PCI lanes to burn. I use OPUS, and I've never seen the player report more than 1.1Gb/s transfer speed. Even in the EW demo videos they don't get above 1.1 either. So it's about twice as much throughput as a SATA SSD in the new player... which means the 3GB KS MASTER strings patch loads in about 3 seconds compared to (I guess) about 6 seconds from a SATA SSD.

I know you didn't mention OPUS but I'm just giving an example of what a new player does with NVMe's, especially since EW made a point of having PCIe settings. Maybe other devs will take advantage of it one day, so I do see it as a nice bit of future-proofing.

My experience with Kontakt is that it doesn't really seem to be so bothered about any difference between NVMe and SATA, and generally they feel about the same.


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## newbreednet (May 26, 2021)

I want to add that I think the PCIe settings in OPUS are so that you can kinda get away with less RAM as long as you have the disk bandwidth to let it stream in realtime as opposed to loading everything into RAM. So there's maybe more to PCIe than just quick loading times; it could also help in a RAM-constrained environment too.

Again not something that Kontakt (others?) take advantage of yet, but it might be the way of things to come.


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## Soundbed (May 27, 2021)

Wow these things are smaller than my space bar! I don’t know why but I was expecting something the size of desktop ram lol.


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## newbreednet (May 27, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> Wow these things are smaller than my space bar! I don’t know why but I was expecting something the size of desktop ram lol.


yeah still boggles my mind that there's 2TB in there lol. Deffo some kind of magic.


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