SSD worth for Libraries? DAW?

[Caine123]

hi guys, atm my setup is like this:

my main drive C:\ is a 500 GB SSD where i got all my DAWs and VST DLLs installed, my Audio Files, Samples and VST Files are all on a seperate HDD.

i wonder when i replace my 4 TB HDD with a 4 TB SSD Samsung 870 QVO if it heavily speeds up loading processes? e.g. loading sample libraries like kontakt, vsts like omnisphere and overall loading and savin projects? reading and writing are about 500MB/​s

[Pictus]

Check https://vi-control.net/community/thread ... ed.107587/

[Caine123]

thx!
seems to be a worthy upgrade

[Seismiris]

Short Answer: YES
Long Answer: ABSOLUTELY

SSD uses no moving parts, which will speed up the process of loading the data into the ram and then CPU. Of course to maximize everything you will also need good RAM and CPU.

[xsorter]

Also you gonna really benefit from moving to SSD if you have a lot of small files (one shot samples for example).

[ghettosynth]

Other than for many-many terabytes of storage for whatever, where cost could be an issue, or for backup, and even there it's questionable, spinning disks have few applications where the small cost savings can be justified. I no longer have a single internal spinning disk that isn't in my NAS.

[kingozrecords]

If you're very serious, than everything comes down to your motherboard and your cpu not being hindered. That would mean ram with the lowest latency, a bit of extra voltage. Furthermore, using a 1tb max ssd is important. Over 1tb means the timings are not as consistent for accessible storage because there is buffering required.

With the new motherboards and pcie 4.0 there comes more speed; but there is a slight latency. Even the ram will be a few ms slower because of the extra power. Keeping that in mind it means slower load but better end results the faster you go.

ddr3 ram for instance had less latency and the processors are faster in their response time, just not in the follow through. sas (scsi2) might be the way to go for you if you're serious about libraries. some hdd's are just more consistent in their looping potential. ssd's often buffer I find in the way of a cached sample; I dislike that.

With this in mind, being that it is cached; it comes down to the ram and the size and the latency. I'd go pcie 3.0 max with a board that had multiple pcie 3.0 ssd built in connections. Furthermore for My os; I would use no greater than 256 gb so as to have a faster ssd. 1tb's a bit slow in the get go. I was testing a modern game and found a 7200 rpm seagate 3tb skyhawk was about 5 secs faster than a 500gb stick running on pcie 2.0 1x (cyberpunk 2077).

That was a surprise. I'm thinking sas or u.2 ssd (scsi2) is the way to go, but you'd have to take the time to learn the timings and best practices. Sure ssd is there, but sas (scsi2) is faster than sata3.

edit: a pcie sas(scsi2) controller on a pcie x8/x16 might be cool as a controller; or you could consider "sas ssd"/"sas hdd" if you're willing to spend more.
I think though, based upon availability, that a u.2 ssd is a better choice than sas to load kontakt samples on. Maybe sata ssd is just more realistic for you though, it's ok too.

[nix808]

you seem to call the cpu into question Pentaguishine,
if we need to spit a buffer

SSD is faster than HD

[kingozrecords]

you seem to call the cpu into question Pentaguishine,
if we need to spit a buffer

SSD is faster than HD

it's not about speed though, it's about accessible data that stays in the buffer. if you can have both; it's better. like an "sas ssd" or pcie sas(scsi2) raid controller / equivalent controller.
additionally u.2 ssd's are also faster. You could use a pcie x8/x4 card to provide support for this. Maybe sata ssd is just more realistic for you though, it's ok too.

[nix808]

the audio buffer is actually screwed mate
we break into underruns far before the processor actually knows it

I have heard that if you like to sample audio from disk, SSD really helps

somehow we are actually crippled in audio

I personally have a small SSD(C:,OS) and a large HD(to store stuff)

-hmm, so the buffer involves RAM?

[kingozrecords]

the audio buffer is actually screwed mate
we break into underruns far before the processor actually knows it

I have heard that if you like to sample audio from disk, SSD really helps

somehow we are actually crippled in audio

I personally have a small SSD(C:,OS) and a large HD(to store stuff)

-hmm, so the buffer involves RAM?

The latency in ram. the ram timings. ddr3/ddr2 was much more predictable. that number is how long it takes for it to be accessible. using 4gb sticks for instance seems a lot faster. doesn't seem faster until you remind yourself that ram functions are interleaved/multi-threaded. the more the calculations depend on one another the more they depend on those timings being less so as to seem in perfect synchronicity. I want to say as well, the word I used "scsi" was actually intended to "sas", but I have not thought about it in a long time. I'll make the edits to the original post to reflect that.

without a doubt, an sas hdd or sas ssd or u.2 ssd would be a big improvement. I say this because I have not noticed any difference between sata ssd's and ssd. There must be something more, which says to me that an sas hdd or u.2 ssd is a credible choice that's realistically priced. The dell 1tb hdd's seem ok, much better than sata, you could always just go with a sata ssd.

[nix808]

credibly it's really hard for me to access the 4.3 ghz speed of my machine for audio

the RAM says I have 32 gb

[kingozrecords]

credibly it's really hard for me to access the 4.3 ghz speed of my machine for audio

the RAM says I have 32 gb

Yes, but as we have more ram, and as we load larger and larger files, we begin to depend more on the cache from the hdd or ssd cache. That is where sas differs, the number of pathways for such cache is 8x!

Here is an image depicting this with ram:


Let's say you are loading a great deal of data, you can see in stick 1,2,3,4 there is a slightly different color, this is to resemble data. But, because that data is multithreaded, it has to be re-combined in order to load.

That means the more ram you have the slower the load, or alternatively; the newer gen of the ram the slower the load and accessible rate due to timing. For every stick you must consider the size of the data and whether or not the data needs to be multi-threaded for your dual/quad channel ram. If it does, and the data is large; for that data to be used in your virtual ram; it must first travel through and each ram must have processed the signal 100% before that data can be recombined. Only then can it be accessed. This means potentially, if your ram's timing says 16, then the true timing (if quad channel) is 16*4=64!

16gb's of ram seems a whole lot more tempting with this in mind (and so does ddr3!). It makes you realize; what becomes the thing of extreme relevance is having a cache drive for your vram set to a drive you've purchased just for that task. Something nimble and robust. There's various tutorials to achieve this. Let's say for instance the cache drive you had was a very powerful sas with all of those nimble pathways?

Using your ssd as the place for virtual memory is unwise. You will get more longevity from less writes (mbtf!!) SSD's have only so much data that they can process at the same time. Furthermore, by virtual memory being processed and the data at the same time you are splitting the connectivity and read speed in half.

SSD only have 1/8'th the potential of sas and about 1/4 the potential of U.2 ssd. Everything in the way of data is in stepwise fashion. Always consider this to better house a "server" for kontakt samples, or samples in general. For plain wav samples that are not used in samplers, sata3 7200 NAS hdd's do fine.

Example of u.2 adapter (sasys gen pcie 4.0 but reportedly pcie 3.0)
https://www.newegg.ca/p/17Z-00SW-00018

Gen | Rate | Throughput per Lane
Gen2 | 4.9 Gb/s | x4: 2 GB/s
Gen3 | 7.9 Gb/s | x4: 3.9 GB/s
Gen4 |15.8 Gb/s|x4: 7.8 GB/s

In My opinion, a u.2 pcie adapter is the only way to get fast ssd speeds out of pcie. The speed from pcie for traditional m.2 nvme is quite slower than an m.2 mobo slot. There's too much involved to use sas and raids adapters, so much overhead and it's complicated (though a great idea). Maybe sata ssd is just more realistic for you, it's ok too.

[nix808]

can you tell me if the piping is done efficiently on my machine?

I know we r crippled, half the world is on Windows,
and our machines don't spin up before we have underruns

-I'll be back with the SSD and RAM

this is the system==>
https://www.dell.com/en-au/shop/cty/pdp ... -area51-r5

edit- is quad channel DIMM the right RAM stick?

[Guenon]

sample libraries like kontakt

Just so that the directions the thread has taken don't muddy the waters too much , a reiteration: if you are making substantial use of multisampled Kontakt instruments, an SSD will help a lot with how large projects you can run comfortably in realtime. Max voice counts will be considerably larger, and you are also saving RAM as you can set shorter preloads for your instruments and still get a hefty benefit in max concurrent voices. Faster loading times are, from my perspective, a nice bonus; the real "wow!" improvement is in what sort of projects you are actually able to run.