KVR Audio

golemus · Post by **golemus** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:56 pm

What do you think is it theoretically possible to have a SSD only DAW...?

It is really appealing concept that I could use my laptop to do everything with one big 2.5" SSD inside.

Of course:
- SSD will wear quickly if you have SWAP file and all stuff that you are working with there but if we assume that the prices come so down that you can buy every 3year a new 600GB SSD (which should be enough for me currently), and dump the old one, does it really matter?. Of course now it would be too expensive as such a big disk costs 1000eur.

- but otherwise should the capabilities of a single SSD disk be adequate for both reading/writing OS, reading/writing swap-file and reading/writing other files if you don't use particularly heavy sample based plugs? I mean the disk say like 500MB read and 500MB write and with constant access time so isn't it pretty fast?

maleaco · Post by **maleaco** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:26 am

What is the speed of the SSD? I mean, it should work if you reallllly want it too.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:32 am

SSD's don't use significantly less power than HDD's, and their write speeds aren't that amazing typically. All you get is great random access and great read speed.

musikmachine · Post by **musikmachine** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:40 am

What about the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid? SSD like speeds with large capacities...

timobrien · Post by **timobrien** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:05 pm

You should always work on a secondary drive.

Your OS, apps and plugins need to be free to work without impacting your audio streams. The audio tracks need to be uninterrupted.

Best setup for any DAW:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Projects and data on second drive
Sample libraries on third drive for maximum performance.

7200rpm drives can stream well over 100 simultaneous tracks.
Whats the point of chasing numbers if you don't use all that bandwidth
or are you just wanting a pissing match????

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:51 am

golemus wrote:Of course now it would be too expensive as such a big disk costs 1000eur.

You guys are spoiled, prices are quite low these days. I still have the invoice somewhere when I paid around $2000 for a moderate system and $800 for a SCSI drive of 10 GB.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:15 am

timobrien wrote: Best setup for any DAW:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Projects and data on second drive

Nope.
http://www.xpfree.org/partitioning_for_daws.htm

timobrien · Post by **timobrien** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:20 pm

metamorphosis wrote:
timobrien wrote: Best setup for any DAW:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Projects and data on second drive
Nope.
http://www.xpfree.org/partitioning_for_daws.htm

Nope.

Because you want tracks and samples NOT to be interrupted by all the stuff going on with your OS system interrupts, application access and plugin accesses.

If you are recording or streaming tracks and one of the dozens of system processes needs to do housework the drive arm has to lift up, go across the disk, access the data and then go back to your tracks again. This mechanical interruption is GLACIAL in computer terms and if any buffers get exceeded you get clicks, pops or dropouts.

You want SMOOTH UNINTERRUPTED flow of data.
Audio tracks on a separate drive and sample libraries on a separate drive.

Partitioning is a bad solution and drives are cheap.

MWSOS · Post by **MWSOS** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:16 pm

golemus wrote:What do you think is it theoretically possible to have a SSD only DAW...?

Yes - I've reviewed one in this month's (March 2012) Sound On Sound magazine, starting on page 130

It had four SSDs, and is one of the few PCs I've reviewed over the years that proved difficult to tell whether it was switched on or not, except by watching the LEDs on the front panel

Not cheap though!

martin

C-note · Post by **C-note** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:35 pm

timobrien wrote:
metamorphosis wrote:
timobrien wrote: Best setup for any DAW:
OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Projects and data on second drive
Nope.
http://www.xpfree.org/partitioning_for_daws.htm
Nope.

Because you want tracks and samples NOT to be interrupted by all the stuff going on with your OS system interrupts, application access and plugin accesses.

If you are recording or streaming tracks and one of the dozens of system processes needs to do housework the drive arm has to lift up, go across the disk, access the data and then go back to your tracks again. This mechanical interruption is GLACIAL in computer terms and if any buffers get exceeded you get clicks, pops or dropouts.

You want SMOOTH UNINTERRUPTED flow of data.
Audio tracks on a separate drive and sample libraries on a separate drive.

Partitioning is a bad solution and drives are cheap.

Yep, minimum 3 drives all 10,000 rpm or better.
1 - OS
2 - Samples
3 - Project drive
Don't like SSD's

musikmachine · Post by **musikmachine** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:43 am

Hybrid SSDs. Pay attention!

ZenPunkHippy · Post by **ZenPunkHippy** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:52 am

MWSOS wrote:It had four SSDs, and is one of the few PCs I've reviewed over the years that proved difficult to tell whether it was switched on or not, except by watching the LEDs on the front panel

Aside from the obvious speed bump, the silence of SSD is a dream come true

But ... not really economically feasible yet for anything but a system disk unless you're made of money.

I'm not convinced the hybrid drives are that great for random access to lots of files, which is what you need when loading sample libs and presets. Maybe the newer hybrid disks are better?

Peace,
Andy.

musikmachine · Post by **musikmachine** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 8:19 am

ZenPunkHippy wrote:
MWSOS wrote:It had four SSDs, and is one of the few PCs I've reviewed over the years that proved difficult to tell whether it was switched on or not, except by watching the LEDs on the front panel
Aside from the obvious speed bump, the silence of SSD is a dream come true But ... not really economically feasible yet for anything but a system disk unless you're made of money.

I'm not convinced the hybrid drives are that great for random access to lots of files, which is what you need when loading sample libs and presets. Maybe the newer hybrid disks are better?

Peace,
Andy.

Only one i know is the Momentus Xt, read about some issues with it for daw use. I might have an SSD for the main system drive and hybrid ssd for samples etc but will have to do some more research. I'm probably gonna get one for my laptop initially. What type cooling would you need with three 10,000 rpm drives?

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:00 am

ZenPunkHippy wrote:
I'm not convinced the hybrid drives are that great for random access to lots of files, which is what you need when loading sample libs and presets.

Your right, at least in the case of the Momentus. The's enough cache on it to speed up the boot time and opening a few apps but that's pretty much it and certainly not ideal for lots of random reads or chopping and changing between projects. The better way of doing it, is to use the Intel SRT function or the OCZ add in card version of it and have a 60GB SSD do the task instead, as that way you'll be able to cache a few complete projects which will ensure the best result.

risome · Post by **risome** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:12 am

BertKoor wrote:
golemus wrote:Of course now it would be too expensive as such a big disk costs 1000eur.
You guys are spoiled, prices are quite low these days. I still have the invoice somewhere when I paid around $2000 for a moderate system and $800 for a SCSI drive of 10 GB.

Those where the days hey bro

100% SSD based DAW...?