SSD Drive Configuration

I've got two SSDs in my lappy and, so far, so good. There will be many here that will advise against a single drive, but, at the end of the day, the decision is yours.

My two SSD setup is pretty damned fast, at boot up and when reading wave files in Sonar. I've never pushed the disk activity beyond 5% with my smaller ten audio track projects. 

Oh, and anyway, if you think it isn't performing as it should, you can always get another SSD or HDD

I picked up a cheap 64GB SSD drive for audio only and use a bigger one for my OS.
 
If that doesn't appeal, then partitioning a 256GB SSD is still going to be *way* faster than a normal HD. Just remember that SSD partitions have to have 1MB (not more not less) free space before the partition. I'd never heard of this - but at best, you get worse performance, and at worst (like with my old Asus motherboard) the drives aren't even recognised. I couldn't even boot from my "good" drive because the BIOS just hung when querying the (wrongly partitioned) SSDs.
 
Here's some links - or just google "SSD partition"
 
http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/
 
http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/  
  
http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-your-partitions-are-correctly-aligned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance
 
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html
http://www.overclock.net/t/1226963/how-to-properly-re-align-your-ssd-hdd-partitions
  

Not sure about the need to partition.  Not good to partition regular disks cuz the same heads must move more,...

The comp builders use SSDs for audio and for samples that must stream.  Not much benefit for OS after the computer has booted and configured.

Read a bit about how smaller disks are better for audio recording.  So thinking about getting a small SSD to use for active projects.

I don't use any streaming samplers.

jm24


Read a bit about how smaller disks are better for audio recording.  So thinking about getting a small SSD to use for active projects.

Don't know about smaller drives being better for audio recording, but what I do know is that on regular drives, access times are the fastest on the outside of the disk, then reduce steadily as you approach the inner. Therefore it makes sense to have your audio partition on the outside (typically, the left side when you're setting up your partitions in the partition diagram). It probably makes sense to stream samples from the outside as well. 

jm24


partitioning is not good for most uses

Yes, if you're talking about partitioning for audio and samples together for example, but there is nothing wrong with partitioning a music drive and using one of the partitions for archives and backups. It's best to place an archive partition on the inside of the disk, where spin speeds are slower. 

Using a SSD for your Os drive is the way to go, be warned there not data drives for quality data drives use... Seagate Constellation ES (ST1000NM0011) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache

I tend to sometimes think all research is agenda based. I have been accused of thinking I was the  pilot of the helicopter that dropped the shooters off at the grassy Knoll. For this reason I tend to believe what metz is saying over this article, even though it is worth considering. 


Again thanks for all of the opinions. 

fireberd


I just built a new system.  I have the OS and recording software (Sonar, Melodyne, etc) on the SSD (an OCZ Vertex 4, 128GB).  Everything else is on a 1TB, 7200 RPM hard drive.  I also have a 1.5TB 5400RPM drive that I do full backups (both the SSD and 1TB) using Acronis True Image.  The new system has been up about 6 weeks and "operational" for about 4 weeks. 

Sonar zings along.  Bouncing to clips used to take a little time on my old PC.  With the new one its almost instantly.

But are you streaming samples off of the same drive that you're recording audio onto, or are you just recording audio?

I just added an SSD to my system a couple weeks ago, an Intel 330, which is not as fast as the Intel 550 line, but still a decent SATA 3 hard drive.

I have to say that i haven't been totally blown away by the performance (though maybe that says more about my expectations than about the HDD itself). Boot times are quicker for sure, just over 20 seconds from power-on until i can start opening programs. Programs are snappier too. But the difference over the conventional drive i was using seems more quantitative than qualititative.

One thing to add; at first i thought i had the SSD properly hooked up to a SATA 3 connector...then i figured out that i in fact used a SATA 2 connector -- hooking the drive up to the proper connector definitely made a pretty big difference.

Regards
Glenn