Dedicated drive sata or nvme

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Washburnbill

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I purchased an all in one hp pavilion for $100 to upgrade ram and hdd to ssd. It has an intel i5. I will primarily be using it with ableton and occasionally protools with super heavy vst’s like komplete or Superior drummer. After opening the case I discovered it has a M.2nvme drive. I already own a Samsung evo M.2 960 and a Samsung evo 2.5 850. My question is should I put operating system on faster nvme and use sata as designated read/write drive or visa versa?
I will be using additional external ssd for sample libraries.
Trying to get latency as low as possible.
 
The received wisdom has always been, put the OS and main DAW on the fastest drive.

AKAIK samples and such gets loaded into ram and runs from there (well, so does OS/DAW but a bit of swapping goes on) so I hope you have at least 8G of memory and 16G would certainly not hurt!

While on hard drives? I just a day ago learned from an impeccable source that W10 really should run on an SSD because 10 "indexes" the drive by default and spinners clatter and slow down.

If possible make the external drive an SSD as well. I think the read/write speed will be limited by the USB connection (3.0 at least!) but mechanicals do not like getting dropped, a fact I found out to my cost!

Dave.
 
Washburnbill said:
After opening the case I discovered it has a M.2nvme drive.
I already own a Samsung evo M.2 960 and a Samsung evo 2.5 850. My question is should I put operating system on faster nvme and use sata as designated read/write drive or visa versa?
Click to expand...

What capacities are all of these drives?
I ask because, motherboard depending, you could have your second M.2 drive installed in a pci-e/m.2 card and have both system and storage as m.2.

There's no need, all the same, but if it's there why not use it. :)

For sataIII vs m.2, you can't really lose either way but I guess the m.2 is probably going to shine more as a session or sample disk.
Saying that, I have mine set up as the system/boot drive.
1100/1500 MB/s approx for system and 500/500 for storage + samples.

Does the sample library disk need to be external?
As Dave mentioned, take the bus into account.

To be honest, if the slowest drive is a decent sata III SSD, I don't think you're going to see much of a real-world difference juggling around the order of which is doing what.

Afterthought : My m.2 drive got hotter than I'd like under sustained use so I put two small heatsinks on there.
Something to consider.
 
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"Afterthought : My m.2 drive got hotter than I'd like under sustained use so I put two small heatsinks on there."
So did a 1tb nas drive I bought quite a few years ago. I bolted it into an ally box but it still got hotter than I was happy with. I then found that you can set it to spin down when left for a designated time, 10 mins in my case. Takes ten seconds or so to come back on line but for my application no biggy.

Could be an option for other external drives?

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
"Afterthought : My m.2 drive got hotter than I'd like under sustained use so I put two small heatsinks on there."
So did a 1tb nas drive I bought quite a few years ago. I bolted it into an ally box but it still got hotter than I was happy with. I then found that you can set it to spin down when left for a designated time, 10 mins in my case. Takes ten seconds or so to come back on line but for my application no biggy.

Could be an option for other external drives?

Dave.
Click to expand...

That's a bit of a known thing with some nas boxes and external caddies for spinning disks. There's no airflow so they're going to get warmer than usual, even if they're idling 99% of the time.
Setting spin-down-when-inactive is a good solution for long term use.

With the m2s they idle nice and cool but get hot pretty quickly they're working hard and, if they get too hot, they can throttle.
Even in a nice well cooled case, a little aftermarket heatsink isn't a bad idea.
 
Some VI's work best streaming from ssd. I would use ssd for system and vi's and if you must use a spinner, minimum 7200 rpm audio only drive.
 
I was contemplating an external drive with two 500 GB SSD, I was thinking one for audio files, the other samples, plugins, virtual instruments. I'm also thinking of upgrading my 2012 Mini's internal HD to SSD for the OS and DAWs, probably 500 GB as well. Would it be worth having a second SSD in the Mini in case I start getting into video work? It has 16 GB of RAM.
 
Honestly, the way SSD speeds are, the need for multiple drives for system/sessions/sample libraries isn't nearly as great as it was when everything was spinning.

You will notice a huge difference in general use moving the system from spinner to SSD
but, for the rest, I'd judge it based on how much space you need.

I have a 256gb pcie/m.2 system disk, 256gb sataIII for sessions, and 1TB sataIII for samples,
but the only reason I have arrangement is because my sample libraries are huge so they need their own disk, and I happened to have the the sataIII disk going spare.

If I could fit everything I need in 512gb or 1tb, I'd have just gone with one disk for everything, I think.

As before, if you do run an external SSD, make sure the bus you're using isn't crippling it.
Ideally you'd want to be using thunderbolt.
 
Thanks for all the input folks.
I am putting in the maximum of 32gb ram.
There are only 2 slots on motherboard
1 M.2 pcie I’m putting Samsung 960 1TB
1 Sata3 2.5 bay I’m putting the 850 1TB
I want to have operating system on 1 of those and sessions on another. I’ve read having separate session drive is the best configuration. Last I have all my sample libraries I can put on usb caddy with another Samsung 850 1TB... which should load samples into ram.
I will be live looping guitar and vocals with Ableton and using many vst at same time. That’s why I ask about latency.
I already have all the drives and can’t afford a super badass MacBook Pro with i9 and tons of ssd. Gotta try to make the best out what I have. Seems to be general consensus that nvme will be best for system drive?
 
Post 9 sounds like a good plan, except the external drive part.

Do you need those files to be portable? Are you sure there isn't another SataIII port inside the computer? (1 only would be rare enough).
It doesn't have to be a slot designed for 2.5" drives, or anything. You can use cables.

You mentioned "USB caddy" on a computer costing $100...Is this USB 2?

Real time performance latency is going to be more about CPU+Ram, and the quality of the audio interface and drivers.
I'd have thought any half decent mid-range i5 or equivalent, with a reputable interface+good drivers, particularly with the ram+ssds you're talking about, should give you more than acceptable latency,
and handle a good share of VIs.

I think your hard drives, either way around, aren't going to cause a problem. ;)



Washburnbill said:
Also...heatsink is a little over my head. If M.2 runs hot and throttles will it still be faster than the Sata?
Click to expand...


Yes, it'll still be faster than a maxed out SataIII.
Don't worry about it too much. It was a just a little 'nice-to-know'. :)
 
bluesfordan said:
I was contemplating an external drive with two 500 GB SSD, I was thinking one for audio files, the other samples, plugins, virtual instruments. I'm also thinking of upgrading my 2012 Mini's internal HD to SSD for the OS and DAWs, probably 500 GB as well. Would it be worth having a second SSD in the Mini in case I start getting into video work? It has 16 GB of RAM.
Click to expand...
I did the internal SSD upgrade on my 2012 Mini, but only one drive. I'm always worried about thermals in small boxes like that.

You have USB 3.0 on that box (I assume it's like mine), so external drives will be fast enough for about anything you could want. IMO, the memory (quantity and speed) and CPU are the limit for video, which has me eyeing a new Mini. (The 2012 is never going to cut it if you think you'll ever try 4k, IMO, so balance how much you throw at that thing at this point, or keep it for just audio, perhaps.)

I don't know what video software you use, but the amount of temp/cache files that are generated, i.e., to optimize editing and final render, are staggering when you start working with video (at least with FCPX). I thought 3TB would be a lot, but it requires routine consolidation and removal of those files as I create new projects.
 
keith.rogers said:
I did the internal SSD upgrade on my 2012 Mini, but only one drive. I'm always worried about thermals in small boxes like that.
Click to expand...
Ooh, I didn't realise the 2012 mini had space for two internally. That's nice. :)

With 2.5" SSDs you don't need to worry too much about heat.
My two are in a section of the case (desktop) with no airflow and never move from the ambient temperature.
If anything, overall temperatures in a mini/mbp should drop slightly going from spinner to 2.5" SSD.

In response to both of you, then, I'd favour fitting dual SSDs internally.

USB3 should be fine but you're at the mercy of the caddy manufacturer and whatever chip they used.
It's all too common to end up with something running at 2-300MB/s because the caddy manufacturer was playful with the descriptions.
 
The PC I got is a “all in one” touch screen. The mother board and all components are in the back of the display. It only has 1 internal 2.5 and 1 M.2. My Sample library is too large to fit on drive with sessions or drive with OS... so that’s why the additional external drive. USB ports are 3.0 but my interface (Behringer XR18) is only 2.0.
The processor is intel i5... but it is the “T” version which is not as quick as the “P or HK”
I think I’m sold on M.2 for OS and Sata3 for sessions and external for libraries. My only concern is M.2 running hot. I will be using this setup in hot restaurant/bars and occasionally outside gigs in southeast US where it’s always pretty warm weather. Did research on heatsink. Pretty easy but will it help enough?
 
Washburnbill said:
The PC I got is a “all in one” touch screen.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see! I didn't realise that.
I say go with you current plan, then. Just make sure that the caddy you buy for your external drive is truly USB 3, capable of SataIII transfer speeds.
If it's an all-in-one, forget what I said about heatsinks.
A: There'd be no room to add one and B: They've usually thought about that, adding heat pads or whatever.

I only mentioned it because I thought you were on a desktop PC.

The interface being 2.0 is irrelevant. Don't sweat it. ;)
 
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