I recently had someone install 2 500 gig ssd drives and a 600 gig Velociraptor drive in my comp. 1 ssd for OS and programs, the other for libraries and the Velociraptor for projects. Everything is working smooth except that I’m getting clicks and pops and the Disk Cache light is jumping up and down often when recording a project on the Velociraptor drive. Something as simple as turning loop on and off causes the cache light to jump and pops to happen. If I record on my old WD Caviar Black hd that i already had installed, everything runs perfectly fine. Could it be that the drive is bad or is there something else I can check that may have been overlooked when the drive was installed that could correct this? I’ve been using PC’s for over 10 yrs for audio but have to admit I’ve always had someone else build and upgrade my systems so I’m not the best when it comes to these things. Thanks!
One thing comes to my mind: is DMA enabled on disk controller?
Control panel → IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers → ATA Channel X → Properties → Advaced Settings
Thank you for the info. I will check as soon as i get to the studio.
@ Draconis Systems
I already have it installed. Overkill aside, is there a disadvantage to using a velociraptor drive? If you have any suggesions on what may be causing this, i would appreciate it. Thanks again!
Yes! I’ve also got an ssd for the system drive and a bunch of sata for samples etc, and a velociraptor for an audio sessions drive.
I’ve been seeing really bizarre issues with the the disk activity meter freaking out, even when idle and not playing or recording - the meter pins and oscillates madly. Getting really poor performance compared to 6.5 on the same computer.
Audio is a particular breed. Everything audio in your computer works differently than it works for ‘other’ things. SSD works great with audio, and vastly outperforms the velociraptor that you’re using now. I would think that would be reason enough to use the SSD for recording (projects). Your track count using SSD should be at least 30% greater than when using a velociraptor.
If you paid someone to set up this system for you, I’d get your money back.
Thanks for the feedback. I paid the guy to do what i asked him to do and he did it. This is the first i’ve heard of Velociraptor drives not being good for audio. Maybe i’ll use up some of my library ssd drive to record in and then just transfer to the Velociraptor for storage. Sound like a plan?
This is true - but only to a point.
A standard 7200 rpm drive can handle pretty large track counts when its only streaming audio files for a session. Velociraptors run at 10,000 rpm so handle audio even better. You’ve got to be running some seriously track heavy sessions - in the hundreds with heavy editing, to need the extra speed of an ssd.
Running your system from an ssd however, you’ll see instant benefits from that speed - the system starts much quicker, apps load quicker, and plugins instantiate quicker.
In an ideal world running everything from ssd’s is cool, however they’re still relatively expensive - especially for storing large sampler (Kontakt) libraries on.
I would suggest that you can set aside an area where you can only keep the works in progress, on the SSD, since you already have things setup a certain way. This should work just fine. Despite the higher rotational speed of the velociraptor drives, there are aspects of hard disk recording (not just audio recording) that are not helped greatly by rotational speed and “typical access times”.
The Samsung SSD drives have a greatly enhanced endurance, especially the new 840 Pro series. So endurance on those should not be an issue. In reality, it probably won’t be an issue for you anyway.
As for the suggestion that:
Running your system from an ssd however, you’ll see instant benefits from that speed - the system starts much quicker, apps load quicker, and plugins instantiate quicker
Unless you’re restarting your machine, and/or restarting Cubase a lot, these points are irrelevant and not well considered. In addition, the person who posted that nonsense seems to have a deficiency in reading comprehension, since I never suggested that your OS be on the velociraptor, nor that you should move it from the one it is on now.