# Yet another SSD query



## wst3 (Nov 30, 2013)

OK, I've decided to forgo Black Friday library sales for a Black Friday SSD sale... I think.

My DAW is growing long in the tooth - 
--- CPU: Intel [email protected]
--- Motherboard: Asus P5K-C
--- RAM: Micron 4 x 4GB DDR2 (PC2-6400)
--- OS Drive: 500GB Seagate SATA (3GB/s), 7200rpm
--- Audio Drive: 1TB Seagate SATA (3GB/s), 7200rpm
--- Sample Drive: 2TB Seagate SATA (6GB/s), 7200rpm (3GB/s port)

My libraries include about 300 GB of commercial stuff and another 300 GB of imports, demos and free stuff. My main orchestral libraries are KH Diamond, CS2, and CB2, and Project Sam Orchestral Essentials. These are supplemented by a bunch of smaller libraries from 8Dio, SoundIron, OrangeTree, Bela D, Bolder, Sampletekk, Wavelore, Sonokinetic, Sampletekk, ImpactSoundworks, Soniccouture, Hollow Sun, and the like.

My writing ranges from pop/rock to orchestral, not necessarily "Epic", but sometimes the productions can grow quite large. And I run out of steam... as far as I can tell the bottleneck seems to be the streaming of sample data.

All that to ask... will an SSD benefit me, and if so, which type should I look at? It appears that I can get a 240GB SSD for around $150 right now, and that would fit into my budget, and cover my larger (and most often used) libraries.

Is there one brand or another that is most popular? Is there a technology that has shown the greatest benefit? What about SATA vs PCIe for an interface?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice (even if some of it conflicts<G>)!!


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## AC986 (Nov 30, 2013)

Probably Samsung and Crucial.


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## rgames (Nov 30, 2013)

I've purchased a few Samsung 840's over the past few months and they're solid - the 840 series are well-regarded for both speed and stability. The difference between the 840 pro and the non-pro (Evo?) is the write speed, which doesn't matter for a sample drive - the read speeds are the same. The non-pro is significantly cheaper so I got those for my sample drives. I've seen specials for the non-pro 256 GB version for about $150, I think, and the pro version for about $220.

You'll also need a SATA 6 Gbps card - I had a High Point card that was fine. You can get them for about $20 on Amazon or Newegg or wherever.

Having said that, the newest technology are the mSATA drives. I don't have any experience with those other than seeing some really crazy benchmark read speeds. They are, however, new to the consumer world, so I'd expect there to be the potential for some compatibility issues that you won't have with the older technology like in the Samsungs.

I have some older Crucial drives, as well (400 series, I think), and they're fine, too. The only ones I've had trouble with are the OCZ's. When I bought them (a couple years ago) there were all sorts of problems and I had to send half of them back several times to get them working. It wasn't a pleasant experience so I don't buy OCZ any more...

rgames


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## Allegro (Nov 30, 2013)

Where do you live? Just get this while it lasts.

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-adapter-Internal-CT960M500SSD1/dp/B00BQ8RGL6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top (http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch- ... roduct_top)

This is a killer killer SSD for the price. The performance is nice. You can read the review here:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... 680/review


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## chimuelo (Nov 30, 2013)

Samsung is the best consumer product IMHO.

@rgames, have you used the software that comes with the EVOs that jumped up reads and IOps..?
It seems that it requires a GB of RAM to be used and non audio guys love this, but we already have our sample buffers as a RAM cache, so I was just curious if you see any difference.

I have been hearing troubles about OCZ drives and I guess I have been really lucky.
They have worked 6 nights a week for years now w/o a hitch.
But on vacation this month I am swapping in my hot spare Samsung Pro 840s I made with Acronis Cloning software.
The OCZs will be hot spares if anything ever goes wrong.
I will also update them with new sample libraries everytime I get something new.

Worth mentioning, OCZ filed bancrupcy and Toshiba is buying their assets.
I believe OCZs problems stemmed from greed. A manufacturing facility they first used was making PCI-e SSD and their consumer lines like the Vertex, etc.
Then they found a cheaper facility and that marked their demise as nothing but bad products, and just from guys here too. The OCZ forum was really a trip watching guys get upset, reminded me of the Keith McMullen forum where pre paid customers were furious over products, etc.

Samsung has the fastest M.2 NGFF PCIe SSDs and the resources to push out a million a month. This is something I want for my OS+apps and audio/MIDI files.
PCI-e SSDs like Mushkin are really pushing the envelope now.

Personally just using NCW only Kontakt instruments, I won't need anything more than 500MBps of the SATA III protocol.


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## Nachivnik (Nov 30, 2013)

Allegro @ Sat Nov 30 said:


> Where do you live? Just get this while it lasts.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-adapter-Internal-CT960M500SSD1/dp/B00BQ8RGL6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top (http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch- ... roduct_top)
> 
> ...



I think this is good advice to get a large drive. Once you see the performance increase, you're going to want it everywhere. It's like getting a new computer with speed increases in all the right places.


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## Jdiggity1 (Nov 30, 2013)

Samsung 830 series shouldn't be overlooked either just because the 840s are out now. 830 drives are proven to be one of the most reliable/long-lasting consumer SSD available. And performance wise are better than the plain 840 (i think).

That said, for a sample drive you won't notice any difference between the 830, 840, 840 EVO, or 840 Pro. I'd recommend getting the biggest one for the cheapest price.
(street price in AUS is about $400 for 500GB variants)


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## chimuelo (Dec 2, 2013)

Here's a really great entry level PCI-e SSD with incredible pricing/performance.
825MBps and 100k Random IOps is a 50% increase in performance over SATA III PLAY/VSL bottlenecks.
Not trying to bang the developers, just stating that to use their high quality uncompressed audio, you might need something along these lines.

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews ... iew-480gb/

http://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-Fusion-2-way-240GB-factor/dp/B00C3MR7FE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386015789&sr=8-1&keywords=VisionTek+Data+Fusion+SSD (http://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-Fusion- ... Fusion+SSD)


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## TimJohnson (Dec 2, 2013)

+1 for Samsung 840 if just for samples.


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## chimuelo (Dec 9, 2013)

As many of us predicted when Samsung bought the software company that used caching algo's to get higher Seq. Reads on SATA III SSDs, they're available now on the consumer level Samsung 840s.
Less than a buck per GB too.

http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/ ... -download/


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## Udo (Dec 9, 2013)

Something to be aware of: "The Samsung 840 EVO includes Dynamic Thermal Guard protection, which monitors and maintains optimal operating temperatures for the drive. The *throttling feature* can drop the SSD’s temperature when necessary to protect your data and ensure the responsiveness you expect."


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## Hannes_F (Dec 10, 2013)

Udo @ Tue Dec 10 said:


> Something to be aware of: "The 840 EVO includes Dynamic Thermal Guard protection, which monitors and maintains optimal operating temperatures for the drive. The *throttling feature* can drop the SSD’s temperature when necessary to protect your data and ensure the responsiveness you expect."



Is this god or bad?


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## Udo (Dec 10, 2013)

Hannes_F @ Tue Dec 10 said:


> Udo @ Tue Dec 10 said:
> 
> 
> > Something to be aware of: "The Samsung 840 EVO includes Dynamic Thermal Guard protection, which monitors and maintains optimal operating temperatures for the drive. The *throttling feature* can drop the SSD’s temperature when necessary to protect your data and ensure the responsiveness you expect."
> ...


"throttling" means reducing speed to drop the SSD’s temperature. Not sure if it always does that automatically, or if it's an option you can set.


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## chimuelo (Dec 10, 2013)

BFD....
Turbo mode is the same thing and it sucks for audio chores.
What we really need is for Yamaha to grow a Penis and design an audio Operating System for Steinberg products, and you'll realize we have more speed than we really need.
Native is just sloppy coded shit that requires more and more speed, which in a one size fits all OS means millions of wasted cycles, IOPSs and energy.

My DSP chips are 20 times slower in speed than the i7s I use, yet they are dedicated audio chips and smoke my CPUs as they operate on a reduced instruction set, meant for audio. I have 18 Cores where I can assign any chores I want.
This is just using Windows for a few lines of code.
Just imagine if you had nothing but code dedicated for audio. Not just tweaking the OS to run less background services and other worthless crap.

I actually remember my Celeron 200A working well with Gigasmapler and Logic Silver (PC).
Now I have basically 32 x times the power I had back then, but in terms of scaling, maybe 4 times the power.

Somebodys pissing on our backs and trying to tell us it's raining.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 10, 2013)

Jimmy, I think you are on to something. I wish we could have a less bloated Apple OS specifically designed for pro audio and video work. Actually i wish Logic worked with Linux.


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## chimuelo (Dec 11, 2013)

Next time you see the Peavey Receptors (formerly Muse Research) you'll notice what a cheap CPU and a Linux shell can do for audio, and that's not even fined tuned like an OS could be.

I believe the chap might have been using Omnisphere that I saw but I wasn't sure, but he was flying through patches, smf samples like a ROMpler.
And they are way limited with RAM and CPU power compared to our rigs.

If Apple did this with Logic my dreams would be answered.
They probably wouldn't give upgrade options, but rather entire new machines, but who wouldn't sell their grandmother for one of those.


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