What happened to Solid State Drive?

[JayVee]

I thought this was going to be 'the greatest' development for speed and secure performance with Receptor.

It was being discussed 18 months to a year ago; by now I had expected the technology to improve and the cost to diminish.

I can't find a single item about it on the Muse site.
I can't see anything current anywhere - about this as an, albeit expensive, but incredibly stable option for Receptor.

Did I miss something?

[audiojunkie]

IIRC, the reliability of the drives match that of flash drives (in other words, they don't last long and when you lose your data, it's nearly impossible to recover). That's just what I heard, so if I'm wrong, I'll be happy to be corrected.

--Sean

[pj geerlings]

SSD technology is not at the same storage density as rotational media. It may never be. But the track geometery of rotational media is becoming more and more insane. (web search: Shingled Disk Drive)

Eventually both technologies will be required and in fact drive manufacturers are now doing hybrid drives in an attempt to get the best of both worlds.

[Throbert]

If I was to do anything with my HD I would clone it and change it out to a WD Velocity Rapter and add this http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ ... o=HDDBOOST with a 100 gig SSD

[audiojunkie]

If I was to do anything with my HD I would clone it and change it out to a WD Velocity Rapter and add this http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ ... o=HDDBOOST with a 100 gig SSD

Nice! How expensive is it?

It looks like it is just using SSD to cache for the standard hard drive. I'm curious about their claims though, because from what I've read, the actual speed gained from using SSD vs a standard hard drive was around 20% realtime actual speed gain. These guys are claiming up to 70% speed gain. Curious....

--Sean

[Throbert]

Well the hybrids that I have seen only have about 10 gig of SSD with a 7200rpm seagate. Not very good for a hardware host. A Velocity Rapter turns 10Krpm and with a 100 gig SSD... That's a big difference. I saw a price of $64 for the HDD Boost.

[JayVee]

Well the hybrids that I have seen only have about 10 gig of SSD with a 7200rpm seagate. Not very good for a hardware host. A Velocity Rapter turns 10Krpm and with a 100 gig SSD... That's a big difference. I saw a price of $64 for the HDD Boost.

Would this work in a Receptor?
Has anyone tried this, or something like it?

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

I thought this was going to be 'the greatest' development for speed and secure performance with Receptor.

It was being discussed 18 months to a year ago; by now I had expected the technology to improve and the cost to diminish.

I can't find a single item about it on the Muse site.
I can't see anything current anywhere - about this as an, albeit expensive, but incredibly stable option for Receptor.

Did I miss something?

Hi JayVee

We actually have sold quite a few Receptors with the SSDs, and the customers who have purchased them have reported that they are VERY happy with them. They are especially beneficial in reducing load time of preset, improving polyphony on streaming sample plugins, and dramatically improving the robustness of a unit that is getting tossed around a lot.

We were hoping the price would come down faster than it has... every once in a while you find some drives on clearance that are in the sub-$2/GB price range, but most of them are between $2 and $3 a gigabyte. Fairly expensive, but there are some distinct advantage: your load times go way down, the physically reliability of the drive goes way up, and there is a marked decrease in noise and heat in the units. So if you can afford it, its a good way to go. We're hoping that the prices will drop soon as it benefits everybody. You are all welcome to come by the AES show in SF where we'll have an SSD Receptor there that you can check out in person.

Speaking of noise and heat, that's the main reason we haven't pursued the 10K RPM drives. They are definitely noisier than the Seagates are are using, they usually cost quite a bit more while providing lower capacity, and there is a big question mark for us as to how reliable these mechanisms would be on the road since they generate a lot more heat while in use. Given that the throughput is not that much better than a regular 7200RPM drive, we haven't really explored these mechanisms further. However, the SSDs offer 4 to 5X the throughput, and that, and generate less heat than a regular drive, so at least in my book, that is something to get excited about!

Throbert brings up a good point with the Hybrid drives. We haven't really tested those and I'm not sure having the small amount of SSD would really benefit you unless you could map out what you wanted stored in it. For example, it might be useful if you could keep the entire system in the SSD section of the drive, but you'd barely fit a decent sampled instrument in the SSD section of the drive before it would be filled up, so it won't be benefiting you much in that regard... I'll look at this technology a bit more to see if it has advantages for Receptor uses, and I'm pleased that it was brought up again!

Cheers

Bryan

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

IIRC, the reliability of the drives match that of flash drives (in other words, they don't last long and when you lose your data, it's nearly impossible to recover). That's just what I heard, so if I'm wrong, I'll be happy to be corrected.

--Sean

Actually, there is a big difference between Flash media (cheap, disposable, targeted to non-critical data) and Solid State Drives (which are assumed to contain mission-critical data at all times). The removable flash data doesn't really care bout wear-leveling, and there is really advanced technology in the Solid State Drives that ensures that the data is spread out and apportioned among all the data cells so that you don't wear out one part of the drive, and they even have the ability to move data around to ensure that there is little risk of data loss. Definitely one of the reasons why the drives are so expensive... there is a lot more going on there than just a big SD card with a drive interface on it!

And by the way, although the SSD is offered as an option on the plugorama website, you guys are right that there isn't much info there... we'll fix that.

Cheers

Bryan

[audiojunkie]

Cool! Thanks for the info Bryan!

--Sean

[batgab]

I get downright giddy when the MUSEicians participate in this forum!

[JayVee]

I could be wrong, but there still seems to be very little information @ Plugorama about these drives; more importantly, I don't see any option for existing Receptor owners ~ to upgrade.

[JayVee]

Bump.

Where can I see more specific details on the SSD's going into Receptor?
Where can I find pricing options on upgrades for existing owners?

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

Bump.

Where can I see more specific details on the SSD's going into Receptor?
Where can I find pricing options on upgrades for existing owners?

Busted! I just checked it out, and the only way you can order an SSD is to do it as part of a new order. That's broken, so I'll get on fixing it right away. Sorry for the mistake... however, you can always send a mail to sales@museresearch.com and we will get you specific quotes on any parts or accessories you are interested in.

As for the specs on the SSDs, they are somewhat fluid as the models are changing quite a bit, but for your information, we offer three different models:

32GB: This is a special order configuration that is only for running effects on RECEPTOR.
128GB: This is the smallest regular RECEPTORS SSD drive we offer. Price is $449.
256GB: This is the largest regular RECEPTOR SSD drive we offer. Price is $899.
And... although we believe they are currently too expensive to use, we can provide a 512GB SSD for $1799. Yes, about the price of a second Receptor 2. Yikes!

Having said that, it is VERY easy to get spoiled with the speed of the SSD, and the fact that they make no noise whatsoever... Definitely the future, but unlikely the mainstream choice until prices come down a bit.

All the best

Bryan

[PhilMuller]

I just saw a 1TB SSD from OCZ that costs $10K. Of course it transfers at 800/Sec! I want one!