Any advice on SSD upgrade/setup

[AudioBabble]

Hi all,

I currently have a less than ideal setup as regards HDs and am also rapidly running out of space.

My computer (Razer Blade 13 laptop) has a samsung 500GB SSD PCIe NVMe M.2PCIe 3.0 which measures (3402r/2976w) on a sequential test. - so that's a fairly capable drive I would have thought.

What I plan to do is replace that drive with a 1TB samsung evo 980 (similar spec to above).

This will give me a decent spare 500GB drive to use externally.

Two questions spring to mind:

1. What is the best use for this drive? Should I use it to store sample libraries that stream off disk, or should I use it for project files? Currently, I'm using my OS drive for project files and haven't had any issues, but then I'm only doing small stuff at the moment, mono or stereo track recording only and haven't really built up any huge multi-track mixes.

2.Will it make a difference what connection I use for the external SSD? I have 1 thunderbolt 3.0 port, 1 x USB-C 3.1 Gen 2, and 2 x Type-A USB 3.1 Gen 1

In an ideal world, I suppose I could add a third drive which would give me what seems to be the generally accepted "best practice" of having dedicated fast drives for OS, Samples and project files. However - again I'd be wondering where to plug that third drive in?

At the moment I have a hub coming off the thunderbolt port which takes my power supply and other usb peripherals. I like to leave one USB-A port free for audio interface. This would leave me with a USB-A 3.1 gen 1 port free for another Hard drive - but would this be a fast enough connection for streaming samples OR recording/playback of project files?

Alternatively, I could jiggle things around so the thunderbolt port is free for both external hard drives via another hub - if that's going to work out a faster connection.

All of the above sounds pretty complicated (and admittedly makes my head spin a little!)... but hopefully if it makes any sense to those who've been into this stuff for while, I would appreciate any advice.

Many thanks

[Pictus]

Hi all,
1. What is the best use for this drive? Should I use it to store sample libraries that stream off disk, or should I use it for project files? Currently, I'm using my OS drive for project files and haven't had any issues, but then I'm only doing small stuff at the moment, mono or stereo track recording only and haven't really built up any huge multi-track mixes.

Because TLC NVMe drives are soooo fast, you can use the internal drive for everything, makes no difference for audio(not video) workloads.

2.Will it make a difference what connection I use for the external SSD? I have 1 thunderbolt 3.0 port, 1 x USB-C 3.1 Gen 2, and 2 x Type-A USB 3.1 Gen 1

Thunderbolt is faster/better.
I do not have, but looks interesting.

[jdnz]

Just be aware that the low end samsung have pretty poor _sustained_ write performance - if you want good sustained writes you have to go up to the 980pro

Whether this matters will of course depend entirely on the kind of work you do - for most ‘normal’ users they’ll never do large enough writes to even notice - but if you do stuff that requires writing really large ( as in >100gb ) files on a regular basis ( stuff like working on big video files ) it can be an issue

[AudioBabble]

Thanks for the advice.. I do produce some video but certainly not anything in the realm of 100s of GBs. I think I just want to future-proof myself a bit by having some reasonably fast drives available for various options.

So it looks like the main internal 500GB drive will become an external drive in a suitable enclosure, I'll be OK with the Samsung 980 "non-pro" as a main system drive .. and am also thinking of getting a SATA III drive which is fairly affordable and advertises itself as capable of 6GB/S : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08 ... 9D8W&psc=1 - again in a suitable enclosure as an external drive.
this would be a third drive for housing sample libraries mostly if/when I run out of space elsewhere.
Finally, while I'm in the shopping mode... I'll get a 2TB storage drive for keeping disk images and backups of everything.
That should keep me sorted for some time to come!

[jdnz]

if you're buying a drive for storage I'd definitely look at the LaCie d2 externals - smallest they do is a 4tb but all of them have seagate ironwolf pro drives in them - much better quality and reliability than the cheap consumer drives you'll find in seagate and wd's lower-end desktop drives ( and also much better performance - most of the consumer desktop drives seem to have SMR drives nowdays and they suck on both performance and durability )