KVR Audio

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Mon Jul 24, 2023 6:23 am

I had a crucial P3 SSD. And I just got a WD SN850X SSD. When I "upgraded" from my SATA SSD to the NVMe SSD, I didn't notice any speed increase in loading samples. I was suspicious whether the NVMe was actually faster. The speed tests showed the NVMe drive significantly faster than the SATA SSD but in reality the SATA would load samples faster.

Then I got the WD Black SN850X.

The Crucial P3 SSD loaded CS Strings full ensemble patch in 1:43 mins. The same patch I tried in the SN850X and it loaded it in a whopping EIGHT SECONDS

I'm aware it has a bigger cache than the Crucial P3 but is that what accounts to the perf difference, or is there some other factor I'm missing? This is all over a TB3 connection, mind you.

Sooo this is all still a work in progress because my new NVMe SSD is still restoring from backup but at least the initial results are remarkably promising.

[EDIT 7/24] False alarm - I think I might have been loading from the BACKUP drive. No idea how the backup drives got added to the Kontakt 7's libraries though. The backup drive is a much slower spinning HDD. Now I have to repeat the test with the old SSD.

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Mon Jul 24, 2023 6:38 am

Your crucial must be faulty for such a difference.

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Mon Jul 24, 2023 9:27 am

Crucial is older pcie3.0.

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 5:31 am

I should note, the WD does feel faster though. It's still roughly at ~2800 MBps so not the full ~8000 MBps but super fast nonetheless.

soulata · Post by **soulata** » Mon Jul 31, 2023 12:51 pm

Is it worth going from gen3 to gen4 in real life?

Spinners do roughly 120mb/s, sata ssds 500mb/s, gen3 3500 mb/s.

Is it noticeable going full gen4? 7000 mb/s?

Pictus · Post by **Pictus** » Mon Jul 31, 2023 1:16 pm

For audio workloads, no.
IF you deal with BIG files like 4K/8K video editing, yes.

soulata · Post by **soulata** » Mon Jul 31, 2023 1:20 pm

Pictus wrote: Mon Jul 31, 2023 1:16 pm For audio workloads, no.
IF you deal with BIG files like 4K/8K video editing, yes.

Thanks.

I'll probably go for gen4 or gen5 in 2025/26 or so, time for a new pc or maybe not. Mine's still ok(ish). Requires some rendering or freezing of tracks but that's ok.

(i7 8700k, 32gb of ddr3 ram, two nvme drives @3500mb/s)

Am I missing something? One type of NVMe SSD is significantly faster than another for music prod