"Fusion" Drive for Streaming?
- Thread starter mverta
- Start date
Stephen Baysted
Senior Member
Hi Mike,
I've been looking into this a little recently, and I'm too on the verge of buying a Mini trialling out for some limited slave duties (hoping it'll replace some of my more elderly slave PCs).
From what I can gather, if the sample library fits and stays in the SSD part of the fusion drive entity, then it'll stream just as well as a conventional SSD. If it moves over however onto the SATA part, then you're limited to 5400rpm. Which is not ideal to say the least.
My feeling is that I'm not going to chance it, and I'll just bung an SSD in there (or two if I opt for the server version).
Hope that's vaguely helpful ...
Cheers
Stephen
I've been looking into this a little recently, and I'm too on the verge of buying a Mini trialling out for some limited slave duties (hoping it'll replace some of my more elderly slave PCs).
From what I can gather, if the sample library fits and stays in the SSD part of the fusion drive entity, then it'll stream just as well as a conventional SSD. If it moves over however onto the SATA part, then you're limited to 5400rpm. Which is not ideal to say the least.
My feeling is that I'm not going to chance it, and I'll just bung an SSD in there (or two if I opt for the server version).
Hope that's vaguely helpful ...
Cheers
Stephen
NYC Composer
Senior Member
I'm also considering the Mac Mini. I recently saw a 500 gig SSD on dealmac for $290. I figure SSD is a no-brainer at this point.
500gb ssd for 290$ ? Cant find it! Link please
Edit: found it. Thanks
Brian Ralston
Senior Member
I have an i7 MacMini slave running VEPro5 (connecting over the network to DP)...and it is awesome! Have not maxed the cpu on it yet. My Mac mini has 2 SSD drives in it. One smaller one for OS...one larger one for streaming samples. BUT...an easy way to get a lot of samples on it if you do not want to buy a large SSD drive is to get a fast thunderbolt drive and put the samples on that connected to the Mac mini. The you can have a Terabyte drive with whatever libraries you want.
I don't have experience with the Fusion drive, but I see the question as one of cost rather than performance. The worst the performance is going to be is the same as a standard drive (when samples are on the standard part of the drive rather than the SSD); the best is going to be the same as SSD.
But one of the benefits to SSD is that you don't need nearly as large a buffer, and you'll have to set the buffer to a standard size with a Fusion drive. So you won't get more mileage out of your memory.
But one of the benefits to SSD is that you don't need nearly as large a buffer, and you'll have to set the buffer to a standard size with a Fusion drive. So you won't get more mileage out of your memory.
Stephen Baysted
Senior Member
That's a good point Nick.
I've just been redoing my template for the past 2 weeks or so, and I've already managed to 'get rid of' 2 PC slaves by reorganising things (and upgrading to Cubase 7 and VE Pro 5). If I can make 1 or 2 Mac Minis work for me, then I can get rid of the big server rack and the 5 Pcs racked up in the machine room. Then I can use the machine room as a recording booth. Well that's the theory anyway.
NYC Composer
Senior Member
That's the drive I mentioned earlier in this thread, and yes, it's gone down another 10 dollars. Seems like a great price. Are you saying it can't be used in the Mini?
I'm pretty happy with the Fusion drive, it just works in the background. I'm not using it for the main samples, but for the system drive, with USB3 running samples. But it replaced and again Mac Pro and I get way more performance out the Mac Mini I7 than before, which is quote amazing considering the cost differential. You'll be happy I would imagine.
J
J
