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So what should I put on my SSD?

Michael Stibor

Senior Member
Not so familiar with computer peripheral stuff, so please excuse my newbie level terminology.

I'm a Logic user running out of space between my mac hard drive and my external WD (non SSD) drive. I figure now is as good a time as any to by an external SSD drive. But the size I get will be largely dependent on how best to use it.

I can't remember if I'm supposed to put Logic on it and project files, libraries only, or both.

I mainly use Cinematic stuff (strings, solos, brass), Spitfire BHCT, as well as VSL for general purpose sounds.

What is the best way for me to make use of an SSD drive? Or simply put, out of what I mentioned, how would you prioritize what goes on the SSD?
 
I run absolutely everything on SSDs. Putting your operating system on it will let your computer boot up in a few seconds. But yeah, maybe not what you're asking...

Sample libraries on it means you can turn your Kontakt pre-load buffer override all the way down (assuming all your libs are on SSD) and that will let you use much less RAM as more data is streamed from disk instead.
 
I can't remember if I'm supposed to put Logic on it and project files, libraries only, or both.

Both!

Putting your system and programs on SSDs is like getting a new computer - only you're skipping ahead about ten generations. It makes a huge difference that you will notice all day long, from starting up to launching programs to... anything that uses the disk.

Putting your sample libraries on SSDs improves the streaming performance several generations.
 
Both!

Putting your system and programs on SSDs is like getting a new computer - only you're skipping ahead about ten generations. It makes a huge difference that you will notice all day long, from starting up to launching programs to... anything that uses the disk.

Putting your sample libraries on SSDs improves the streaming performance several generations.

Well said, however, you should have an SSD for your OS and an SSD or more for your Sample Libraries.
 
Well said, however, you should have an SSD for your OS and an SSD or more for your Sample Libraries.

That's the conventional wisdom, and it's right for spinning drives, but I'm not sure that separating your libraries makes any meaningful difference with SSDs.

I do have my system drive separated, but only because I didn't add SSDs all at once.

Does it make a difference?
 
That's the conventional wisdom, and it's right for spinning drives, but I'm not sure that separating your libraries makes any meaningful difference with SSDs.

I do have my system drive separated, but only because I didn't add SSDs all at once.

Does it make a difference?

So you're saying it can all go on the same drive with no issue?
 
Both!

Putting your system and programs on SSDs is like getting a new computer - only you're skipping ahead about ten generations. It makes a huge difference that you will notice all day long, from starting up to launching programs to... anything that uses the disk.

Putting your sample libraries on SSDs improves the streaming performance several generations.

I concur wholeheartedly; swapping my system drive out for an SSD was very easily the most significant performance upgrade across the board that I've ever witnessed. Like skipping generations ahead, for real. Almost everything seems so much more responsive, like the way it should have been all along. The several hours spent reinstalling and configuring everything anew were worth it, without a doubt, in my opinion.

However, it will definitely make you notice the other bottlenecks more easily, like CPU.
 
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So you're saying it can all go on the same drive with no issue?

That's what I believe, but let's wait to see whether someone comes up with a reason to disagree with me. There may be one.

However, it will definitely make you notice the other bottlenecks more easily, like CPU.

Well yeah, if you remove seek time as a bottleneck, then any others still remain!

But - and I could be wrong about this - given that buffer size and CPU strain are on opposite sides of a scale (up to a point), it occurs to me that alleviating the streaming bottleneck should help with CPU as well.
 
I've got a 500GB ssd, so I try and keep it reasonably empty (some SSDs when they get fuller , slow down).
So, basically, besides my OS, only a few sample libraries that I use most often.
Other libraries that I use sporadically go on my hdd.
 
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some SSDs when they get fuller , slow down

From the article mentioned above: "Fill your solid-state drive to near-capacity and its write performance will decrease dramatically." Notice the condition: write performance.

For sample drives, this ought not be an issue for us, since most of the time we're writing once and then reading the rest of the time. I remember EvilDragon saying repeatedly on this forum to load one's SSDs up to the brim!
 
For sample drives, this ought not be an issue for us, since most of the time we're writing once and then reading the rest of the time.
If your OS is on the same drive as all your samples, then its constantly reading and writing its page file. (Windows, not sure what the MAC does,but it will be doing something.)
 
If your OS is on the same drive as all your samples, then its constantly reading and writing its page file. (Windows, not sure what the MAC does,but it will be doing something.)

Then that would say you don't want to fill up an SSD to capacity if you have your system and samples on it.

I'd like to hear arguments against doing the latter, why you need separate SSDs for sample libraries. Again, I have a separate system one, but now I'm wondering why.

One argument is just not having all your eggs in one SSD - you don't want everything to go down at once if it fails. But you should have good back-ups to recover from that in any case.
 
Video games

For real though, I'd put everything on it unless you think you'd get close to running out of space on it. You might have a bit of a difficult time trying to make space afterward (like if you bought a new library and really wanted to get it on there).
 
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