# Is there any point getting Read up to 3200MB/s, Write up to 1500MB/s..Can samples utilize this?



## SimonCharlesHanna (Apr 19, 2018)

Theoretically it sounds good. But is there a bottleneck somewhere rendering these speeds useless?


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## EvilDragon (Apr 19, 2018)

Yes, your CPU would crap out much sooner than hitting those numbers while disk streaming. There's not too many benefits in going with NVMe SSDs for disk streaming, regular ones that go to 500-ish MB/s are plenty enough for hundreds of voices.


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Apr 19, 2018)

CPU Intel Core i7 7800X X-series (Base:3.50GHz, Turbo:4.00GHz / 8.25MB /

LGA2066 / 6 Core, Without Fan/Heatsink, Fully Unlocked)

+

Samsung 1TB SSD, 960 EVO Series, M.2 (PCIE), Read up to 3200MB/s,

Write up to 1500MB/s, Type 2280

No good? I'm actually waiting for this part on my new system I could probably change it if necessary.


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## EvilDragon (Apr 20, 2018)

Get a smaller M.2 drive for OS and programs. 256 or 512 GB 960 Pro should suffice (I have a 256 GB 950 Pro). Get a few 1 TB Samsung 850 EVOs for sample libraries instead. I have 4 of them. They are perfectly enough!


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## babylonwaves (Apr 20, 2018)

it is an interesting question and I wonder myself.

a single instance of kontakt doesn't utilise the throughput of one SSD but what if you have 20 instances? in a "normal" scenario where you have e.g. one string lib on one drive, would the approx 400mb/s an EVO delivers in real live be enough or would it be better to RAID0 the Evos? the biggest issue I have with a RAID0 (which I have right now) is that i cannot scale/expand it. I could if i'd have a JBOD instead or 4 mounted discreet drives.


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## EvilDragon (Apr 20, 2018)

Note that for disk streaming, 500+ MB/s figures are not it. Those are sequential read times. DFD is all about random reads, and in this case, the figures are not that big (I think for 850 Evo they're about 100 MB/s for 4K random read, which is what DFD would most likely use - small chunks and lots of them). Still, should be plenty for hundreds of voices streamed from a single SSD.

You should've went with JBOD instead of RAID0. Or just nothing. JBOD has no redundancy (but neither does RAID0), so if one drive fails, the whole logical drive will fail. It's best to have individual SSDs then spread libraries over them manually... Then if either of them fails, at least you have all the others still working. And back things up to a big platter drive (or drives), perhaps, in case shit happens.


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## babylonwaves (Apr 20, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Note that for disk streaming, 500+ MB/s figures are not it. Those are sequential read times. DFD is all about random reads, and in this case, the figures are not that big (I think for 850 Evo they're about 100 MB/s for 4K random read, which is what DFD would most likely use - small chunks and lots of them). Still, should be plenty for hundreds of voices streamed from a single SSD.
> 
> You should've went with JBOD instead of RAID0. Or just nothing. JBOD has no redundancy (but neither does RAID0), so if one drive fails, the whole logical drive will fail. It's best to have individual SSDs then spread libraries over them manually... Then if either of them fails, at least you have all the others still working. And back things up to a big platter drive (or drives), perhaps, in case shit happens.



i didn't go for JBOD, i'm only considering it, though i don't think i'll go for it. RAID0 sounds best (i have backups). some time ago i've tried to measure loading times in kontakt and ended up with about 100 mb/s. i was using a RAID0 with 4 discs and by the theory of random ready capping @100mb/s i wonder why this factor doesn't go up when you RAID 4 discs for performance. do you know if kontakt itself is limited to about 100 mb/s as well?


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## EvilDragon (Apr 20, 2018)

Initial loading time in Kontakt will not fully utilize your drive speed since it's entirely CPU bound (I'm not talking about background samples loading here). Please read this article, written by our resident @tack here: LINK


IMHO I don't think you're benefiting anything by using RAID0, really. You're definitely risking more if one of the drives goes bad, though.


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## storyteller (Apr 20, 2018)

ED is right on this one (he usually is though). Raid 0 has almost no upside and it places a system at risk for failure. If for a moment, you think of your library being perfectly divided across two drives, then perhaps Raid 0 could be a theoretical benefit. But it is likely that the samples and such are small enough that single files are not spread across multiple drives (at least not discernible), nor will the library necessarily be evenly distributed. So in essence, the performance would indicate you are really using the equivalent of one disk at a time per sample it is pulling. Now with large homogenous video files and large scale backups, raid can certainly increase speeds (though using it for backups is notably questionable). Hope this helps a bit.


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## JohnG (Apr 20, 2018)

the only reason I use RAID 0 is if I have two low-capacity SSDs and I want to load a library onto them that won't fit on one or the other. The RAID configuration makes it far easier when the inevitable updates turn up.

That is the only reason I can think of that makes the risks of RAID 0 in any way appealing to us as composers trying to speed up our sample playbacks. The performance boost of RAID 0, while not zero, is negligible when put in the context of the way the whole computer operates.

If you still find RAID appealing, suggest you consider RAID 5 instead, since you don't lose everything if a single disk fails. RAID 5 requires at least three disks. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to RAID 5: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...ro/windows-2000-server/cc938485(v=technet.10)

Finally, I might mention the new Optane drives from Intel. That is one smoking fast unit. Using it for my main strings drive and it is remarkable.

[Full disclosure: My mom owns Intel]


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## mrd777 (Apr 21, 2018)

my 2cent note about Raid0 vs non-raid.

If your working from home, I think it's best to just Raid0 everything and use online backup ($5/month). I say that because, what if someone steals your stuff? Your redundancy does nothing to help. Might as well just Raid0 or whatever (assuming the speed will help you! like dragon said, maybe ssd are fast enough w/o raid being needed)


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## EvilDragon (Apr 21, 2018)

With SSDs RAID is not needed.


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## jamwerks (Apr 21, 2018)

Do we even need to backup our libraries? We can just re-download them in minutes...


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## d.healey (Apr 21, 2018)

jamwerks said:


> Do we even need to backup our libraries? We can just re-download them in minutes...


If you trust that the products you have licenses to will be available for ever more... backup everything that's important to you, don't rely on other people storing data you want on their computers.


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## babylonwaves (Apr 21, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Initial loading time in Kontakt will not fully utilize your drive speed since it's entirely CPU bound (I'm not talking about background samples loading here). Please read this article, written by our resident @tack here: LINK
> 
> IMHO I don't think you're benefiting anything by using RAID0, really. You're definitely risking more if one of the drives goes bad, though.


great resource, thanks for the pointer. i have a RAID0 since 2012 and so far no issues. yes, i risk more but then, i always have backups.


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## EvilDragon (Apr 21, 2018)

It's a waste of SSDs you could use for more storage space (i.e. more sample libs installed)! *Especially* if you still connect those SSDs through SATAIII... even a single SATA SSD is reaching the limits of SATAIII speeds, so there's not much you can gain speed-wise from a striped array of SSDs...


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## JohnG (Apr 21, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> It's a waste of SSDs you could use for more storage space (i.e. more sample libs installed)! *Especially* if you still connect those SSDs through SATAIII... even a single SATA SSD is reaching the limits of SATAIII speeds, so there's not much you can gain speed-wise from a striped array of SSDs...



Agree. The only reason to use RAID is if you have a bunch of piddly-sized 128 or 256 GB SSDs and you want to combine them to accommodate a larger library.

Speed is not a reason, as @EvilDragon has noted several times.


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## babylonwaves (Apr 21, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> It's a waste of SSDs you could use for more storage space


not sure if you're directing your comment to me but why is a RAID0 a waste of storage space?


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## Andreas Moisa (Apr 22, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Yes, your CPU would crap out much sooner than hitting those numbers while disk streaming. There's not too many benefits in going with NVMe SSDs for disk streaming, regular ones that go to 500-ish MB/s are plenty enough for hundreds of voices.



Ok, but what about load times? Wouldn't it be much faster to load, say Omnisphere Presets? That would be really helpful while searching for sounds.


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## EvilDragon (Apr 22, 2018)

Omni loads presets plenty fast on a regular 850 EVO over here, I don't think it's worth the extra price premium for NVME to be able to load presets _just a little bit faster_. Omni does background loading too, so this is not really a problem in the grand scheme of things. But sure, if you're chasing those milliseconds, by all means go with NVME for everything.  Me, I just keep it where it's *actually important*, which is: as OS drive.


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## Andreas Moisa (Apr 22, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Omni does background loading too, so this is not really a problem in the grand scheme of things.



Yes, unless you're using the Keyscape and Keyscape Creative Patches which take slightly longer and make fast skipping of presets a bit if a pain even with background loading - so you're thinking milliseconds? That wouldn't be worth the cost...


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## EvilDragon (Apr 22, 2018)

I've no problems with Keyscape (Creative) patches over here. Omni's patch preview works very well.


I was a bit tongue-in-cheek when I said "milliseconds". For sure when you have huge it could definitely load things faster, but I didn't benchmark this. All I can say is that Omni's performance is admirable even on a non-NVME SSD.


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## jamwerks (Apr 22, 2018)

Are there any published tests, say loading 100gb VEP Kontakt stuff, from an SSD vs an M2 ?


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## Kevin Fortin (Jun 29, 2018)

Just want to say I appreciate this thread. I was about to buy an M.2 NVME SSD to store samples on (currently on a 7200rpm SATA drive), and stepped back to an M.2 SATA SSD at half the price.


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## Nicktwo85 (Jul 26, 2018)

Kevin Fortin said:


> Just want to say I appreciate this thread. I was about to buy an M.2 NVME SSD to store samples on (currently on a 7200rpm SATA drive), and stepped back to an M.2 SATA SSD at half the price.



Ditto. Needed to expand my SSD storage and was about to grab a 500Gb M.2 Nvme (run my system on one, but had another free port), and now I'm way more confident in just picking up another 1Tb SATA III drive.


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## procreative (Jul 27, 2018)

Just be aware that the M2/NVME SATA SSDs that fit onto the motherboard slot can be prone to dropping performance significantly from what I have read as the heat buildup causes them to slow down.

If you are considering them better to use something like an Angelbird Wings which has heat dissipation designed into it and also because its a PCIE sits in a better position inside the PC away from other major heat generators.


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## westgate (Feb 4, 2019)

gonna try to bump this thread...anybody tried M.2 NVMe SSD in external enclosure for samples/working with macbook pros? Something like this:

And there are plenty of them right now. 
Also, if anybody tried it in OWC Helios...I'm gonna try it although they told me it won't work


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## westgate (Feb 10, 2019)

Ok, update for happy owners of OWC Helios! If anybody owns OWC Helios 2 (old version with two Thunderbolt 2 ports), you can easily put inside this card:

or actually any other NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD using this cheap adapter:



Strangely, OWC staff told me it won't work Hmm...I'm wondering why...
Speed right now ~970 - 1000 MB/s  and that's only because Helios's PCI slot is gen 2. But it's still great news, having such speed and two thunderbolt ports. I'm soooo glad I didn't sell it !!! For those of you who's saying we don't need such speed...well..1st of all many people do video too not just audio. Secondly, why to buy something that is slower for the same price?
People complain about this Crucial SSD (at least in comments and they talked about servers and moving files constantly)...So I don't know how it'll last...in worst case scenario I'll buy Samsung:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN217QG/?coliid=I3PDX3KXJWQZK3&colid=8I18HGH4NPSJ&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN217QG...v_ov_lig_dp_it)


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