I just made an orchestral template with 267 instruments and it takes almost 30 minutes to open this template.
Is this normal time ?
I have installed Cubase 8 in SSD-drive (like Windows 7 Pro 64-bit) but my VST instruments are loaded from basic HDD-drive because of the lack of space in my SSD-drive.
My computer specs are: i7-4770K, 32 GB RAM (1600 MHz) and Samsung 840 Pro SSD-drive.
Should I buy another SSD-drive and copy all my VST instruments in there or could more RAM be a better choice ?
Depends on the VSTi’s used.
How much Ram is free after opening Your template ?
A SSD for the samples, would speed up things.
Your i7 - 4770k can max handle 32GB Ram.
I was making a String Template a little while ago. Mainly to investigate whether I wanted to use Instrument Tracks or Racks. I used over 130 Instances of Kontakt with 1 Articulation of 8Dio Strings in Each. It took about 2 minutes to load.
I have my OS, Apps and Plugins all on an SSD. I record all Audio onto a separate 7200 mechanical HD and all my Sample Libraries are Stored on an External USB3 HD. Everything works fine but I do want more speed so I am going to eventually put all Sample Libraries onto a 2nd SSD once I have the money.
I installed Steinberg’s The Grand 3 onto my OS SSD (to test the speed difference). It takes about 3-4 seconds to load a Piano when on the SSD. When I tried it on a 7200 Mechanical HD, It took over a Minute.
I would say, especially if you’re going to start making big templates, use SSDs for everything (except for the Audio Drive you are going to record onto as a 7200rpm hd or faster is more than adequate and has been for a long time). Also, the more RAM the better. I currently have 16gb of 1800mhz RAM, and is absolutely not enough to make a huge template. I plan on upgrading to 32gb and then building a second PC with 64gb of Ram and using VEpro 5 to use as a Master and a Slave. Sorry, that’s a totally different topic altogether. Go on, get the credit cards out and get in trouble! 
Jono
I’m not a fan of the big template unless you are hosting them on another computer with VE Pro. In my opinion it’s better to create track presets for Media Bay and build as you go and keep the template lean with only the absolute necessary stuff like FX sends folders and the like…
mines about 20 minutes. You might want to look into Vienna Ensemble Pro. Once the template is loaded you can close and re-open cubase projects without having to reload the instruments every time.
+1 on moving your samples to an SSD. This makes a big difference.
You might also consider disabling all the tracks in your template that you don’t use in almost every project. Then enable them as needed.
SSDs are great and speed things up a bit but sometimes the template still gets held up loading. 100% of my stuff is on SSDs but it STILL takes 20 minutes unfortunately. Not sure who’s at fault for that, but that’s how it is for me FYI.
Once you’ve loaded your template once and it crashes, it’s a little bit faster to load again the second time because the data is cached somehow (in laymen’s terms, i forget the true reason for this)