# What's the general consensus for using SSD's for audio recording in 2016?



## nas (Jun 7, 2016)

Over these past few years we've seen SSD become much more common - if not the defacto standard now for streaming samples, but there seems to be a bit of an urban myth (_or maybe not_) regarding the use of SSD's for audio recording... probably due to the high cost and reliability issues of the earlier models.

I'm wondering in 2016, how many of you are now using SSD's _exclusively_ for recording audio tracks?


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jun 7, 2016)

Greetings,

I am using SSD Technology since back then in 2010. I have never had any issues, luckily so far. What I do is that I back up all my recorded data on conventional mirror hdds.
From my nowadays standpoint I wouldn´t never consider ever going back using conventional drives for streaming and recording again. Not that they are bad but they just can´t come up with the speed what my ssd drives do. For data storage they are great though. That´s my consensus so far. I know people from here and there having trouble using ssds so my advice: Do regular daily backups to prevent data loss and thats a general advice regardless what storage medium you are going for.


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## nas (Jun 8, 2016)

Thanks for your reply. I have 4 SSD's exclusively for sample streaming in my Slave PC and I agree with you, it's hard to even consider going back. I'm thinking of swapping out the HD on my main computer's system drive for an SSD as well as my separate audio tracks drive. Nice to know that you are having success with them for recording.


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## gsilbers (Jun 8, 2016)

nas said:


> Over these past few years we've seen SSD become much more common - if not the defacto standard now for streaming samples, but there seems to be a bit of an urban myth (_or maybe not_) regarding the use of SSD's for audio recording... probably due to the high cost and reliability issues of the earlier models.
> 
> I'm wondering in 2016, how many of you are now using SSD's _exclusively_ for recording audio tracks?



I had my SSD drives for samples for a while... then recently remember that the audio was still HHD drive so I upgrades to SSD for the audio drive. the difference was very noticeable.
one thing I didn't realized is that the audio drive were the project is located is constantly updating the info on all tracks in the DAW, not only the one being recorded. the daw has to access all audio tracks in the session back and forth all the time very fast so this affects performance. so an ssd drive helps once you start getting more and more audio tracks on a session.


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## nas (Jun 10, 2016)

gsilbers said:


> I had my SSD drives for samples for a while... then recently remember that the audio was still HHD drive so I upgrades to SSD for the audio drive. the difference was very noticeable.
> one thing I didn't realized is that the audio drive were the project is located is constantly updating the info on all tracks in the DAW, not only the one being recorded. the daw has to access all audio tracks in the session back and forth all the time very fast so this affects performance. so an ssd drive helps once you start getting more and more audio tracks on a session.



Are you using an SSD for your system drive as well?


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## synthpunk (Jun 10, 2016)

one of my Black Magic Multidock SSD drives (8) is dedicated for Audio recording.

Awesome sauce!

I keep my internal boot/system SSD drive as clean as possible and 256G is fine.


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## gsilbers (Jun 11, 2016)

nas said:


> Are you using an SSD for your system drive as well?



Yes, I made the swtiched to all SSD drives. 4x1 tb each. two samples, one system and one audio drive. 
prices have come down a lot. and now i use the old hhd drives as backup so i was able to leverage the cost this way as well.


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## Pablocrespo (Mar 9, 2017)

So, what is the consensus about using ssd for audio read and write?

Should one be worried about the data integrity? I tried opening a copy of a cubase session from a ssd and it feels snappier, but didn't tried any large scale recording.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 9, 2017)

Most of my work is streaming VSTs, but I haven't had any problems with SSDs over about 20 gig of audio recording. I have 6 SSDs, no more spinning drives except for some FireWire and USB backup drives.


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## Pablocrespo (Mar 10, 2017)

Thanks, I am recording more live instruments these days, and with the musicians here with me, wouldn´t want to have any issues with the ssd, or data corruption afterwards.

Any more experiences?


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## synthpunk (Mar 10, 2017)

Have not had any issues with Samsung, Crucial, Micron. If there is any worries make sure you have a good backup system.



Pablocrespo said:


> Thanks, I am recording more live instruments these days, and with the musicians here with me, wouldn´t want to have any issues with the ssd, or data corruption afterwards.
> 
> Any more experiences?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2017)

Is there a rumor that SSDs are less reliable than spinning drives? Why?

I've been using them for a couple of years, first for my system drive and then for sample drives. No issues.

You just need to back them up, but that's normal.


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## Symfoniq (Mar 10, 2017)

In my experience supporting dozens of machines, SSDs from companies like Intel and Samsung have been more reliable than hard drives for many years now.

Personally, I've been SSD-only since 2013 without issue. I'd never go back to spinning drives.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2017)

Symfoniq, I keep asking why Samsung drives are so much more expensive, and so far nobody has come up with an answer other than that they have a longer warranty (that's true of their Pro series anyway).

The ones I've used are Crucial, Mushkin, San Disk, and PNC. None of them has failed yet.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 10, 2017)

Everyone should buy Crucial.*


*(because Crucial is made by Micron and I'm a Micron stockholder )


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## robh (Mar 10, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Is there a rumor that SSDs are less reliable than spinning drives? Why?
> 
> I've been using them for a couple of years, first for my system drive and then for sample drives. No issues.
> 
> You just need to back them up, but that's normal.


A few year ago, I remember reading about how the individual cells (is that what they're called?) have a finite number of write cycles, which is why there's various algorithms to deal with wear levelling. Perhaps what has stuck in people's mind -it did in mine- is that there IS a finite life span. Even if that's the wrong way to look at it, it is the perception. (Not that HDDs have an infinite life, just that they are less predictable.)

Rob


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## Symfoniq (Mar 10, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Symfoniq, I keep asking why Samsung drives are so much more expensive, and so far nobody has come up with an answer other than that they have a longer warranty (that's true of their Pro series anyway).
> 
> The ones I've used are Crucial, Mushkin, San Disk, and PNC. None of them has failed yet.



Probably because Samsung holds the performance crown, both for the SATA (850 Pro) and M.2 NVMe interfaces (960 Pro). Samsung's 3D NAND technology is quite impressive, and has left everyone else playing catch-up in the SSD space. The result is that Samsung can charge what they want to, much like Nvidia is doing in the GPU industry. Once other companies' NAND and firmware reaches parity, Samsung might have to compete on price more.

However, many of these drives are so fast, you'll never notice the slight performance advantage one brand has over another. I do think Micron/Crucial make great SSDs, too.



robh said:


> A few year ago, I remember reading about how the individual cells (is that what they're called?) have a finite number of write cycles, which is why there's various algorithms to deal with wear levelling. Perhaps what has stuck in people's mind -it did in mine- is that there IS a finite life span. Even if that's the wrong way to look at it, it is the perception. (Not that HDDs have an infinite life, just that they are less predictable.)
> 
> Rob



This is true. But the reality is most users will never hit these limits even after a decade of ownership. A couple of years ago, Tech Report decided to see how hard it was to actually kill one of these drives. Their main finding was that "[a]ll six drives made it several hundred terabytes past their manufacturer-set limits." Experience in the trenches has taught me to trust hard drives less than SSDs from reputable manufacturers. But of course, regardless of how you are storing your data, you should always have backups.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2017)

Thanks Symfoniq. It sounds like you're saying what I wanted to hear you say - that it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.


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## robh (Mar 11, 2017)

Symfoniq said:


> Probably because Samsung holds the performance crown, both for the SATA (850 Pro) and M.2 NVMe interfaces (960 Pro). Samsung's 3D NAND technology is quite impressive, and has left everyone else playing catch-up in the SSD space. The result is that Samsung can charge what they want to, much like Nvidia is doing in the GPU industry. Once other companies' NAND and firmware reaches parity, Samsung might have to compete on price more.
> 
> However, many of these drives are so fast, you'll never notice the slight performance advantage one brand has over another. I do think Micron/Crucial make great SSDs, too.
> 
> ...


I seem to remember reading that too.


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## Symfoniq (Mar 11, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Thanks Symfoniq. It sounds like you're saying what I wanted to hear you say - that it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.



For what most of us here are doing with SSDs, you're probably right. I've yet to see any evidence that Kontakt or Vienna Instruments Pro can take full advantage of the speed of even SATA 3 SSDs, to say nothing of PCIe SSDs. If I was building a database server with SSDs (and I have), then I'd be a lot more selective.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2017)

As I've posted before, I was curious whether SATA 3 made any difference over SATA 2, so I bought a $40 card. The full Quantum Leap Bosendorfer loads in 8 secs rather than 10.


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## ontracktuts (Mar 12, 2017)

SSD's are a must in this day an age in music technology. You could always do this, copy all your stuff across to SSDs, try it out. Then go back to SATA drives and see how you feel. I'm pretty sure you won't wanna go back to SATA after that. The read and write speeds are insane. Especially when waiting for huge sample library patches to load up.


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## Pablocrespo (Mar 12, 2017)

I have all my samples and system in ssds but I want to know about using ssd for intensive audio recording. I have read conflicting views about writing lots of files to ssd, using it as a project drive, not sample streaming.


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## holywilly (Mar 12, 2017)

I use an intel SSD for project & recording (via USB 3.0) for 3+ years, no issue at all. 

Unless you write huge amount of data to SSD everyday, otherwise you shouldn't worry too much about the durability of the SSD.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2017)

How intensive is the audio recording, i.e how many simultaneous tracks at how many bits/sample rate? While I wouldn't be worried about safety, it might be a waste of expensive SSD storage. You can record and play back dozens upon dozens of heavily edited audio tracks off standard drives, and you don't have to wait for them to load the way you do samples.

SSD is the best upgrade ever for system drives and sample drives, but I'm not sure why you'd need to use it for linear audio.


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