zoffmeister
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Another SSD question
Hi there. I currently have a 128GB SSD C: Drive for OS and programs, and two spinning drives - one for samples and VIs and the other for audio.
If I were to swap one of the spinning drives for an SSD, would I benefit more by upgrading the Samples drive or Audio drive, and why?
SONAR Platinum 1607, Windows 10 Pro, i7 6700K 16GB Ram 3.4Ghz 256GB SSD C: Drive, 525GB SSD VI's, 2TB Audio Drive Interface: UA Apollo Firewire, UAD2 Quad PCIe Mackie Control, C4 and two extenders. Studiologic SL990 Pro keyboard controller
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abacab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 12:22:25
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zoffmeister
Hi there. I currently have a 128GB SSD C: Drive for OS and programs, and two spinning drives - one for samples and VIs and the other for audio.
If I were to swap one of the spinning drives for an SSD, would I benefit more by upgrading the Samples drive or Audio drive, and why?
Well, the quick answer is that a spinning drive should provide more than enough throughput for digital audio tracks. I also have my samples on a spinning drive, and every time I open a project with any sampler instruments inserted, I must wait. for. them. to. load. Was thinking that this would be resolved with a SSD. I recently posted benchmarks comparing my HDD to my SSD here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/ssd-question-m3524557.aspx#3524648
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zoffmeister
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 18:28:59
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So are you saying there is no real benefit on the audio drive and the only benefit on the Samples drive is load time?
SONAR Platinum 1607, Windows 10 Pro, i7 6700K 16GB Ram 3.4Ghz 256GB SSD C: Drive, 525GB SSD VI's, 2TB Audio Drive Interface: UA Apollo Firewire, UAD2 Quad PCIe Mackie Control, C4 and two extenders. Studiologic SL990 Pro keyboard controller
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abacab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 20:59:05
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zoffmeister
So are you saying there is no real benefit on the audio drive and the only benefit on the Samples drive is load time?
That pretty much sums it up. Unless you are editing HD video, you probably won't see any real-time improvement on content drives by switching to SSD. But the improvements on the overall responsiveness of the system by switching the Windows and program files, as well as all of my plugin folders to SSD, is off the charts  And just so you don't feel like you might need more speed on your audio drive, if you crunch the numbers for the audio throughput requirement for 80 mono tracks at 24-bit/96kHz, that should require about 25MB/s. Most modern SATA 7200rpm HDD's should provide at least 100MB/s+ for read/write ... http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/calculating-hard-disk-space-required-for-digital-audio-recording/
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gswitz
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 21:17:25
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I sometimes practice putting the song on loop and recording over and over. Frankly IO is an issue after several hours of this.
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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abacab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 21:30:54
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gswitz
I sometimes practice putting the song on loop and recording over and over. Frankly IO is an issue after several hours of this.
So how many tracks are you reading/writing concurrently when you do that? What kind of I/O is your drive capable of?
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gswitz
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 21:46:33
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Stacks and stacks. I do it week after week.
When I start getting dropouts, I delete them all. I like measuring my practice time with them. :-P
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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gswitz
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 21:49:10
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If you are curious how many your system can support, set loop recording on over like four measures and then play for hours. You'll get plenty of tracks. You might be able to just leave it running until you get a dropout.
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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abacab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/06 22:00:49
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gswitz
If you are curious how many your system can support, set loop recording on over like four measures and then play for hours. You'll get plenty of tracks. You might be able to just leave it running until you get a dropout.
Not a problem for me. I usually work in MIDI, but if I do record audio, it goes straight to my SSD 
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tomixornot
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/07 03:39:34
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Albert i7 2600K @ 3.40GHz / MB Intel DP67BG / 16GB Ram- ADATA 250GB SSD (Boot)- Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB HDD (Samples)Audio interface : Motu 828 MK ii i7 6700K @ 4.00GHz / MB Asrock Z170 / 16GB Ram- Samsung EVO 850 120GB / 500 GB SSD
Audio interface : Roland Quad Capture Win 10 Pro / Sonar Platinum
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Rob[at]Sound-Rehab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/07 05:18:01
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☄ Helpfulby abacab 2016/12/07 09:15:30
gswitz
If you are curious how many your system can support, set loop recording on over like four measures and then play for hours. You'll get plenty of tracks. You might be able to just leave it running until you get a dropout.
try at higher sample rate and use many tracks to record the same signal. you will max out fairly quickly. I think you hit a limitation inside Sonar before you ever hit a disk I/O bottleneck. My recent experience recording 24 tracks @ 96/24 showed that I could do 3 takes only, the 4th would either drop-out at start or sometime in between, a 5th wouldn't start. Required disk I/O for that is below 25 MB/s (<20% of my benchmarked HDD speed).
post edited by Rob[at]Sound-Rehab - 2016/12/07 08:18:55
GOOD TUNES LAST FOREVER +++ Visit the Rehab +++ DAW: Platinum/X3e, win10 64 bit, i7-3930K (6x3.2GHz), Asus Sabertooth X79, 32 GB DDR3 1600MHz, ATI HD 5450, 120 GB SSD OCZ Agility3, 2x 1TB WD HDD SATA 600 Audio-Interface: 2x MOTU 1248 AVB, Focusrite OctoPre, (Roland Octa-Capture) Control-Surface: VS-700C VSTi: WAVES, NI K10u, FabFilter, IK, ... (too many really)
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gswitz
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/07 06:40:09
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@SoundRehab
That isn't my experience at all. I often do More than ten tracks live at double rates. I sometimes have used quad rates just to try it.
No, for me I'm talking about Exceeding at least 50 tracks (could be 150) at double rates. And when I do, IO seems to be the problem, not processor.
Like I said, the case that gets me in trouble is loop recording a piece I'm practicing. I'm not recording to mix... I'm more recording so I could listen if I think I did well. Mostly, I'm recording to track my practice time b/c it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. 'Look I've practiced 12 Gigs worth!'
StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen. I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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Jim Roseberry
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/07 08:36:07
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☄ Helpfulby abacab 2016/12/07 09:06:14
SSD as boot drive is certainly nice (machine boots faster, applications open faster, etc).
A conventional HD is fast enough to sustain 100 solid/contiguous 24Bit 44.1/48k tracks of audio.
Thus, for many folks, SSD is overkill for an "Audio" drive.
If you're working at high sample-rates, especially with dense projects, SSD is a good solution.
Disk-streaming sample-libraries are where SSD really shines.
A fast SATA-III SSD is about 3x the speed of a conventional HD (~520MB/Sec).
That translates to 3x the disk-streaming polyphony from sample libraries.
If you're running a sample library like EWSO (which only allows a single drive location)... and you need massive polyphony, a cost effective solution is to put a pair of SSDs in RAID (sustains ~1000MB/Sec).
If your disk-streaming polyphony needs are crazy, you've also got the option of PCIe x4 (or m.2 Ultra PCIe x4) SSDs.
These drives sustain 2500-2600MB/Sec.
In short, let your needs define the drives used...
Choose them based on performance and space needed to accomplish your goals.
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Rob[at]Sound-Rehab
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Re: Another SSD question
2016/12/11 06:51:14
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gswitz
@SoundRehab
That isn't my experience at all. I often do More than ten tracks live at double rates. I sometimes have used quad rates just to try it.
No, for me I'm talking about Exceeding at least 50 tracks (could be 150) at double rates. And when I do, IO seems to be the problem, not processor.
Like I said, the case that gets me in trouble is loop recording a piece I'm practicing. I'm not recording to mix... I'm more recording so I could listen if I think I did well. Mostly, I'm recording to track my practice time b/c it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. 'Look I've practiced 12 Gigs worth!'
gswitz, the reason you do not have any issues loop recording is this statement ... gswitz
Stacks and stacks. I do it week after week.
When I start getting dropouts, I delete them all. I like measuring my practice time with them. :-P
FWIW, it tested again in detail last night with the following conclusion: loop recording is different because it creates one file per track and just displays it across several lanes; hence, i can record a vast number of tracks in loop recording mode and don't run into any issues, just as you said. HOWEVER, if there are take lanes which have their audio data in different files, then it involves much more disk IO and Sonar quickly gives up (in my case when recording the 4th or 5th take of these 24x 96/24 channels). Disk reading is only at max. 25 MB/s (very far from the benchmarked 115-120MB/s I get for 1 GB files) the SOLUTION would be a simple change in Sonar i.e. not to read any takes from the disk for tracks which are currently recording. what's the point anyway? you can't do comping while recording, and if you could, who would???
GOOD TUNES LAST FOREVER +++ Visit the Rehab +++ DAW: Platinum/X3e, win10 64 bit, i7-3930K (6x3.2GHz), Asus Sabertooth X79, 32 GB DDR3 1600MHz, ATI HD 5450, 120 GB SSD OCZ Agility3, 2x 1TB WD HDD SATA 600 Audio-Interface: 2x MOTU 1248 AVB, Focusrite OctoPre, (Roland Octa-Capture) Control-Surface: VS-700C VSTi: WAVES, NI K10u, FabFilter, IK, ... (too many really)
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