So, I’ve just bought a 1tb Samsung 850 Evo for streaming my Sample Libraries using Kontakt 5 and C Pro 8. Man, I can’t believe how quick it is compared to an old Mechanical 7200 HD I was using. Can’t recommend getting an SSD enough! Should have done it ages ago (although price has been a big factor into why I’ve got one now).
Not really sure how this is a Cubase specific post but Cubase was running like a charm before but now with it installed on an SSD with my Libraries installed on this new SSD, Cubase Pro 8 is just awesome!
Jono I totally agree with you although I only have my C drive as an SSD, and only a 64 Gig one at that, but the difference in speed and slickness is staggering, I’ve had SSD,'s on all my machine for quite a while now and wouldn’t go back. The normal drives are fine for audio recording and sample storage if you don’t mind a bit of loading time.
That used to be the case when they were brand new, nowadays they’re much better, and have a life much better than HDD’s
For me the biggest thing is not the speed but not hearing the HDD whirl and crunch away when its in use
Before the SSD, for example - NI Abbey Roads 70’s AR70’s Open Kit Full patch used to take nearly 2 minutes to fully load. It now takes 9 seconds.
I can now use the DFD Patches which takes some 8Dio Patches from 500mb of RAM down to around 20mb of RAM. Seriously impressed with the SSD.
I’ve had an SSD for the OS, Plugs, and Cubase for quite some time but haven’t really felt the benefit in a huge speed difference because I (like most) have always had to wait for a Project and every instance of Kontakt and each sample library to load (sometimes taking at least 5 minutes for all samples to load) and this is highly frustrating, especially if having a Crash and needing to reload the same project. My samples have often stopped playing when in the middle of recording performances, like they have gone to sleep and need waking back up which has been really annoying (especially when that perfect take is completely ruined).
I won’t be buying Mechanical HDs anymore unless they are for general storage!
SSDs are definitely a luxury but when you start using a rather large amount of VIs, they are the only way to go!
Jono
I just had a 3 month old Crucial SSD fail. Caused me a lot of trouble.
Stick with Samsung. I own half a dozen and they just work. Samsung is the only SSD maker that owns every step of the process in-house. It makes a difference.
I have an external SSD with Komplete Ultimate 10 on it and things are not going well.
In fact, it cannot keep up with AR 70s Full.
It is, however, plugged into a USB 3 Card (TI) - not an on-board USB 3 jack.
And there MAY be some Bus/Interrupt issues going on.
There’s a lot of stuff in there.
My current Comp has no USB 3.
Building a new box that has many.
Transfer speed is about 4-5 times that of a hard disk.
Access times are 100 times better than a hard disk.
Lower power consumption, which only really matters on a laptop.
Of those 3, Access Time is the most important advantage for use with VSTi. When connected via SATA or TB, it’s a major difference versus USB.
USB, even USB3, largely negates the access time advantage of the SSD because of the nature of the USB protocol. Simply put, there is a major degradation to the advantage of an SSD when it is connected via USB. If at all possibly, use TB or connect it internally to a SATA connector. For VSTi, the improvement will not be subtle.
I was using Komplete 10 Ultimate on an External USB3 HDD plugged into on board USB3. It was sort of fine, took a long time to load some libraries, but did work. Until, of course the Instrument track count was too high and then Samples would drop out, almost like they were purged and needed waking up! Highly frustrating.
I now have my SSDs (both OS and the Samsung) plugged into Sata 3 6gbs Ports (with Sata 3 Cables), internally. Into an Asus P8P67 Pro Motherboard.
Got about 8 SSD’s throughout all my Rigs…Including my dj Laptop which gets used at least four times a week for 7 hrs straight…
1 TB Samsung 840’s and 850’s
Originally had sandisk but they were only 256… worked fine though.
I have 2-4TB WD HDD For backup and storage in my workstation
Somewhat stupid question, maybe, but at least on topic. When you have a 2.5" SSD replacing a conventional drive of the larger drive size normal for a tower workstation, is there a problem? I took a quick look on Amazon and all the SSD drives I saw seemed to be 2.5". Do you need an extra-cost adapter?
Man, the prices certainly have come down over what they were a couple of years ago.
There is no problem as it will work 100% it just requires a SATA cable from the motherboard to the SDD and a power cable, you can buy a 2.5->3.5 adapter bracket so the SSD sits in the HDD area of the case fixed in with screws. Personally I don’t have the 2.5->3.5 adapter bracket I just sit the SSD on top of an existing HDD. As long as you’re not moving the PC tower around, there are no problems.
YMMV, but I tend to believe in tying stuff down and screwing it tight, since I want to avoid vibrations and related issues as much as possible. Airflow is important as well…
Agreed. The Samsung 850 Evo doesn’t come with any Screws (which I think is a little tight - and all the spares that came with my Corsair Obsidian 650D Case do not fit the SSD) so instead of just leaving it in the tower “Loose” or taped I decided to buy some screws. My tower has many drivebays that allow either 3.5 or 2.5 drives so I just screwed the SSD straight to a drivebay! All good!
Yes, having SSDs is addictive. They completely change your set up!
I have found a couple of models to avoid for streaming applications however:
PNY SSD2SC120G5LC709B121-510
PNY SSD2SC240G3LC709B121-460P
About a year ago I picked up several of these on sale. In two different systems (one AMD, one Intel), and with several different SATA 3 and 2 hosts tried in both machines, they just do NOT like streaming applications. They don’t seem to like hosting system page files either (fast but noticeable intermittent pauses when the OS starts swapping memory from disk, of the sort I do not get when using other drives…even old platter drives!).
I have NOT tried them in any sort of raid. So this is just based on typical AHCI and IDE setups (tried both where possible…AHCI and direct IDE drivers).
The PNY drives pass the latency tests with flying colors, but VST plugins that do a lot of D2D streaming get tons of ‘disk loss’ errors, which amounts to pops, clicks, and dropouts. Tried finding different drivers/firmware and such, but no luck. The same (trouble) apps work fine from other types and brands of drives…even those ancient SATA2 Raptors on an SATA 2 host.
I’ll still get my money’s worth from the PNY drives, launching apps and loading non-streaming stuff from them. They’re nice and quick for launching an app, or loading a memory resident type of data file. They’re just horrible for streaming or hosting any sort of memory-swap-pagefiles though
In contrast, I have several Samsung drives of different sizes. 830 and 840 models. These drives do very well so far with anything I want to throw at them.
My 2c,