Solid State Drives

kidkage

kidkage

Bored of Canada
Alright. I should point out. I'm not in the market. I've just been curious about these for a while.

SSD's are faster. Yes.
But how much does that matter? Does it even matter at all? Especially vs. space
I mean, I understand that it'll make programs open fast. But it's not like it's going to make recording faster.
It's not like people have been struggling to record before SSDs came along.
And besides plenty of people with HDDs even below 7200 rpm open programs fine.

Generally:
512 GB SSD= $1,000+/-
1TB HDD/ 7200rpm= $150+/-

...I could buy a new computer for the cost of a reasonably sized SSD

So how important are they?

I understand that theyre not noisy, but for much less than $1000 I can block out HDD sound.

Who here has experience with SSDs vs. HDDs and can tell me if they're "worth it"?
 
kidkage said:
Alright. I should point out. I'm not in the market. I've just been curious about these for a while.

SSD's are faster. Yes.
But how much does that matter? Does it even matter at all? Especially vs. space
I mean, I understand that it'll make programs open fast. But it's not like it's going to make recording faster.
It's not like people have been struggling to record before SSDs came along.
And besides plenty of people with HDDs even below 7200 rpm open programs fine.

Generally:
512 GB SSD= $1,000+/-
1TB HDD/ 7200rpm= $150+/-

...I could buy a new computer for the cost of a reasonably sized SSD

So how important are they?

I understand that theyre not noisy, but for much less than $1000 I can block out HDD sound.

Who here has experience with SSDs vs. HDDs and can tell me if they're "worth it"?
Click to expand...

They can help alot of you use a lot of virtual instruments with large sample sets. Things can start to crackle on the lower latency settings due to trying to keep up with the demand of streaming GBs of samples. It can also really help the performance of the OS if installed on an SSD - especially the swap file (although tons of memory can solve most of that problem). Anyway - a terrabyte SSD isn't really necessary. You can keep a clean, inexpensive 100GB or 200GB one for your current project or projects, and shuffle between to a normal hard-drive and an external for backup.
 
i use small ssd drives.

It's not that they aren't noisy; They're silent. :)


I put one in my laptop and the performance increase was immediately noticeable.

Actually, I'm trying to sell on an intel x25-m 80gb right now if anyone's interested.
 
SSD's for operating systems and system files storage will increase the speed of reading those files by a factor of about 10. The software that used to take 11 seconds from a spinning drive to open and settle in for use, now takes 2 seconds. Searching for data does not require a phsyical location to find - it searches, literally, at the speed of light. Shutting down and booting up the computer with an SSD takes about 1/4 the time as with a spinning drive.

For data storage, its a luxury. For data processing, especially intense data crunching like sound, picture or video rendering, its a nessesity. An SSD has no moving parts to fail, making it more reliable. It produces no heat thru friction, making it and the rest of your system work less to keep cool. It requires less power, lowering your systems required draw.

For an operating system and useful and productive software, you'd need, at most 64gb. Those drives run about $100. So, gaining a minimum 75% increase in system speed, getting back up to 64gb on your spinning drive that you don't need for OS and programs, reducing the physical wear and heat production of your system(not to mention the sound associated with dissapating the heat)... is that worth $100 to you?
 
"it searches, literally, at the speed of light"... Actually, it searches at the speed of electricity. =P In a complete vacuum, yes, that is the speed of light. But in even the best vacuums we can create, not of them are complete. In a copper cable, it travels at about 97% the speed of light.

But other than being pedantic; to answer kage... An SSD, as already mentioned, can open programmes a lot faster and load up the OS and such faster too. For storage of your music files, they are stupidly expensive. 7200 spin will do brilliantly. And in the case of my Spinpoint F3s, can actually read and write large files marginally faster than the Velociraptor 10 000 spin drives. I've never had any problems with my drives yet, and don't plan on any SSDs in the near future. Especially not at such insane prices.
 
I've only recently discovered that having multiple drives for music is common practice :o

...and theres no way I could have that many solid state drives

Komplete alone is 250 GB :eek:

Now, I could see having a 100 GB or so SSD for programs.

What's the word on those Hybrid drives?


Also, my current setup with my troublesome HP desktop and it's single HDD reacts fast enough for me to not think it's going slow
 
Just FYI, the transfer rates on SSD's are not all equal. In fact, there are HUGE disparities between brands and models.

Some SSD's have good read rates, but not so good write rates. Some aren't really that fast at either. When shopping for SSD's it's worth your while to check out the tech specs to make sure you're going to get the fastest transfer rates possible for your money. One brand and model I can recommend right now is the Kingston V100 and V200 series. The V100 is probably the best value for money right now with a 64GB model coming in at around $120 and they're fast. 250MB/sec read and 160MB/sec write. That's pretty good for the money.

One thing that SSD's have going for them is no moving parts, which boosts reliability considerably. And they're silent. Which is great.

Cheers :)
 
So Im interested in these also. If Im getting this right, most users install the OS and the DAW on the solid state ? Do they come with setup software to copy your OS to the drive ? Or do you have to do a complete install ? Thanks
 
Yeah, let's say I get a desktop computer capable of multiple drives. And I initially stick with the stock hard drive only.
Would it be possible to move the OS and stuff off of the HDD on to the separately purchased SSD easily?
 
I cloned my original hard drive to the ssd over USB then made the switch.
On mac there's a built in tool for that. Don't know about windows but you can certainly buy or download software to do the job.

Google carbon disc clone windows or whatever.

Not to turn this into a sales thread, but I actually have two to go now.
The intel 80gb and an OCZ vertex 2 60gb.

I have a pair of the vertex but I'm keeping one in my laptop.
 
"let's say I get a desktop computer capable of multiple drives"
As opposed to the ones that aren't? =P Never seen one myself.

But yes, it should be as easy as making a full copy onto the new disk. If you have the original OS disk, it'd be a lot more healthy for the drive to start over fresh though. Hard drives end up getting full of junk.
 
I actually just built a new i7 2600k pc, so it has a fresh install. But I do not want to have to go and load up all the drivers for my DAW and hardware again if I dont need too. :) . I'll check out TomsHardware for reviews.
 
If you changed motherboard along with the CPU, you're gonna have to 'load up all the drivers' anyway, cuz they'll all be different. Get an SSD, at least for your OS and apps. You will not regrete it. You will also not be able to go back to waiting for things to open. I've been using SSD's in all three PCs(1 desktop, 1DAW and 1 laptop) for over 2 years and have not had one issue on any of them.
 
michaelst said:
If you changed motherboard along with the CPU, you're gonna have to 'load up all the drivers' anyway, cuz they'll all be different. Get an SSD, at least for your OS and apps. You will not regrete it. You will also not be able to go back to waiting for things to open. I've been using SSD's in all three PCs(1 desktop, 1DAW and 1 laptop) for over 2 years and have not had one issue on any of them.
Click to expand...

I'd probably have to agree about the not going back. Just the leap to my F3s made a huge difference in speed to the old family computer I used to use. But the cost of SSDs are still not worth the few less seconds of load up time to me. Not yet.
 
So, OS, and DAWs on SSD?
Current working project(s) on SSD and later move it to HDD for storage?
Idk why I never thought of that :facepalm:

How about virtual instrument collections?

Would it be an issue to have plug-ins like Kontakt or something that are on an HDD being used in a DAW that's hosted on the SSD :confused:

I figured things would run smoother/quicker if they were all on the same drive :o
 
kidkage said:
So, OS, and DAWs on SSD?
Current working project(s) on SSD and later move it to HDD for storage?
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I do.

I don't have any sample libraries or anything hefty like kontakt, but i guess that's gonna come down to ssd drive size.
What kinda sizes are you talking about for that?
 
Steenamaroo said:
That's exactly what I do.

I don't have any sample libraries or anything hefty like kontakt, but i guess that's gonna come down to ssd drive size.
What kinda sizes are you talking about for that?
Click to expand...

I was thinking of getting a 80-120 GB ssd.

Komplete 8 Ultimate is 250GB, Maschine is about 6GB, and I'm sure with the passing of time I'll acquire more libraries/products.
 
Do you deal purely with samples or is there a lot of audio recording going on?

It might not be a great investment after all if sample libraries are your main thing.

If your current setup just has a single drive, then even a 500gb or 1tb 7200 drive for samples and sessions would be fine; The fact that it's a separate drive from your os is the main thing really.
 
It's a combination really.

Most of my "sketching" happens through vst stuff. drum programs, synths, straight guitar into vst amps vs. firing and micing up my actual rig, stuff like that. But then again, most of my sketching takes place on a laptop through limited DAWs and limited VSTi programs. So I guess that doesn't matter.

I'd say for "real" projects maybe 60% audio tracks, 40% VSTi stuff. Sometimes a track will be 100% audio or 100% virtual.
 
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