We're all used to keeping samples on a different disk when using HDD's, is that still necessary with SSD's? i.e. if I only have an SSD boot drive, will there be a bottleneck when it has to retrieve the samples? What's the ideal config?
 
Thanks - rev

I think you can put your files anywhere with an SSD. I would just recommend obtaining large SSDs.

Whist SSD drives are excellent system drives, there is some debate as to their longevity with regard to write cycles. Storing your samples on SSD is fine, but it may still be a good idea to have a standard HDD as your recording medium. There are many articles around on this topic. Here's a quick one:
 
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/solid-state-drive4.htm
 

tenfoot
Whist SSD drives are excellent system drives, there is some debate as to their longevity with regard to write cycles. Storing your samples on SSD is fine, but it may still be a good idea to have a standard HDD as your recording medium. There are many articles around on this topic. Here's a quick one:
 
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/solid-state-drive4.htm
 

hey tenfoot . . . thanks, your link here is the best and clearest explanation I've read about why SSD drives are not as invincible as they seem . . . limited life cycle  vs. quality of user computing experience, seems an endless debate.
Yet, once you've driven an SSD, it's hard to think about the "old days" and how we ever got along without them.
 
I've read some interesting online articles about how the "new generation" of SSD drives are now comparable to the longevity of established spinning HDD drives, but this article clearly casts some doubts about SSD's and their longevity. I've always thought 5 years was the average life span for a busy computer drive, but I have seen many live longer. I also think you get what you pay for, and not all drive technologies are equal.
 
As for the OP's question:
The ideal configuration seems to be an SSD for an OS drive, and a large HDD for an Audio / Samples drive.
If you can afford a very large SSD drive for samples, they will load much faster as opposed to the HDD drive.
Though, you must weigh the consequences about how long the SSD drive will last . . . just have a foolproof backup plan . . . then no worries.

noynekker

tenfoot
Whist SSD drives are excellent system drives, there is some debate as to their longevity with regard to write cycles. Storing your samples on SSD is fine, but it may still be a good idea to have a standard HDD as your recording medium. There are many articles around on this topic. Here's a quick one:
 
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/solid-state-drive4.htm
 

hey tenfoot . . . thanks, your link here is the best and clearest explanation I've read about why SSD drives are not as invincible as they seem . . . limited life cycle  vs. quality of user computing experience, seems an endless debate.
Yet, once you've driven an SSD, it's hard to think about the "old days" and how we ever got along without them.
 
I've read some interesting online articles about how the "new generation" of SSD drives are now comparable to the longevity of established spinning HDD drives, but this article clearly casts some doubts about SSD's and their longevity. I've always thought 5 years was the average life span for a busy computer drive, but I have seen many live longer. I also think you get what you pay for, and not all drive technologies are equal.
 
As for the OP's question:
The ideal configuration seems to be an SSD for an OS drive, and a large HDD for an Audio / Samples drive.
If you can afford a very large SSD drive for samples, they will load much faster as opposed to the HDD drive.
Though, you must weigh the consequences about how long the SSD drive will last . . . just have a foolproof backup plan . . . then no worries.

I think that's great advice noynekker. I would add that having your vsti samples on a large ssd is far less of a concern than using one for your actual audio recording drive, as the longevity problems apply to the write cycle.  Like all tech, no doubt it will continue to improve.

 I have managed to accumulate about 2.5 TB worth of sample libraries, so keeping those on SSD is not practical.  I have a primary drive that is SSD, and 4 additional drives - each of those is a 7,200 RPM standard 2 TB HD.
 
I have no performance bottlenecks running with the above configuration, and everything is wonderfully stable.
 
I cannot say the same for when I ran with a much smaller set off samples on 2 500 GB SSD drives I had at one time.  I lost one of those drives 6 months into having it, and I returned that one and the other one and picked up the standard 7,200 drives instead, and have never looked back.
 
The stability/longevity of SSD drives will continue to improve - not sure it is there yet, and since things are running smoothly for me, I will not likely convert this computer's drives back to use more SSD's, though will evaluate the situation when gathering info for next computer build.
 
I also happen to have 32 GB of memory in both of my desktops, so lots of things get fully loaded into memory anyway.  I would additionally suggest looking at using 16 or 32 GB of memory for a computer running Sonar.  (Some motherboards let you go up to 64 GB).
 
Bob Bone
 

A huge advantage SSDs have over HDDs, besides the generally (much) faster read/write rates is the random seek time when lots of small files have to be loaded. This gives them an advantage when loading samples, even more when streaming them from disk.

Though if you've lots of samples, as Bob says the cost effective route is still HDDs simply because of the drive capacity HDDs have.

Personally I regard SSDs as quite possibly a kind of semi-consumable, use one until it deteriorates too much then swop it for a newer, bigger, cheaper one.

Having said that my two Intel drives are now a few years old and working fine - I use one for the audio recording drive and it measures as fast now as it did when new. I do have a solid backup policy just in case though. They have outlasted the last three Seagate Barracudas I had - bought two to use as a RAID 0 array. One failed six months later. Replaced under warranty, then the other one failed at less than 12 months and the warranty replacement one lasted under 18 months. No more Barracudas for me.

For what it's worth my Macbook Pro has an Apple SSD in it and Apple are happy to provide the full Apple three year extended care/warranty on their drives. Lots of laptops are now going down the SSD route because the drives are fast, draw little power and completely unaffected by shock.

So, I have 4 SSDs (a total of 1.5 TBs) on my system, all used to store and playback sample libraries ONLY.  I think I am doing the right thing here but based on what you guys know, is this a GOOD approach?
 
Thanks,
Jim
 

I don't see the point of a boot SSD if the system can't deliver the samples any quicker because they're on HDDs. All or nothing seems to be the way to go but I don't know for sure, hence the post.

I purchased an SSD as more of a test, to see how long it would last.
I only paid 80.00 for a 220GB PNNY on sale.
ive re formatted it over 10 times copy/paste/deleted.
that was almost 2 years ago. I have yet to see any problems or wear down, im sure someday it will just stop working but the tests I saw 2 years ago, suggest that they don't wear out as fast as one would think and more close to HHD wear out times.
the SSD is just faster to retrieve and load.