SSD Party

You can skip over this paragraph--
I may be late to arrive at this party. Since I started recording with computers I've used lots of different mediums. Tape, DAT, Zip Drives, SCSI Drives, Sata old fashioned drives, eSata. I could tell you the Zip drives failed a lot. :-( And that the conventional drives were pretty reliable. I can tell you that in the old days when you pulled the plug on a DAT, whatever was recorded was recoverable but if you pulled the plug on an old Windows machine you could lose the recording not saved (same was true with the Tascam 2488). I can tell you that if you pull the plug on my current computer while recording with digicheck, you still have most of the recording, even if you didn't hit save. Why is it a risk? When you're at a bar and the band stops, there is always a risk you're about to be unplugged.
 
But wow SSD is something better than anything I've had before.
 
I've used USB SSD for Linux for years, but it didn't seem that different to me from conventional drives. It was just handy b/c it was small and light.
 
Why I bothered trying an internal SSD...
I record many tracks continuously for hours. When Sonar opens the project, it has to convert all the tracks to wave forms so I can find my way around the recording. This takes time. Sometimes 10-15 minutes or more. Also, Midi is saved in the project file. When I practice, I record 1 stereo track (synth output), my guitar, and a the midi from the GR20. I record over and over and over. I count my practice time in megabytes. When Midi builds up in a project, saving the project takes a noticeable amount of time.
 
What I learned...
SSD over SATA2 is at least 3 times better than my pretty darn fast conventional drives. IDK what came in my StudioCat computer, but they're not weak drives.
 
So, to all my Forum Friends, know that a 500 GB SSD used for storing Sonar Projects is way cool. You don't need to keep everything on SSD. I still have the OS and Sonar installed to conventional drives. But for the purpose of recording big projects or even just having fun practicing without IO related dropouts (means you can keep great heaps of takes), try an SSD.
 
 

I've been working on PC's since right around the time the Dell Dimension was released. Maybe a bit earlier, 2002 or so. Since then I have been building a new PC every 2 years or less. Sometimes using those parts to carry over builds (taking the hard drive, video cards and putting them in newer builds). The SSD was easy as I bought the EXT ears and screwed them in to the cage where my old HDD was.
however I began to notice a small rattle when ever one of the other internal HDD's would cycle/kick on
(Drives D+E are running in low power mode).
I figured it out. The SDD cage was picking up Vibes from the HDD next to it in slot 2.
 
Have to say though, anyone looking for a quick/cheap .. well sometimes cheap upgrade, an SSD is where its at.
I bought a PNNY 220GB for only 60 bucks in 2014. They have come down a bit in price but still a great value.
I would suggest a 500GB like you bought though GSwitz. Welcome to the SSD family.

Ive noticed the same thing with exports. I don't see a great difference in processing speed.
Not like I thought I would. Almost appears as if HDD and SSD bounce or export at the same speed (in reference to time).
That could have something to do with Sonars engine (which im guessing probably does)
Sample rate and bit rate conversions.

abacab
If you watch Windows Task Manager you should see the reason for the speed of the exports.
 
If you were bottlenecked with disk throughput (disk I/O), you would see your disk pegged at 100% during the export.
 
Since the CPU is showing a heavy load instead, it is because of the computation (math) required during the export, and a faster disk cannot speed up that task.

That's what I was thinking. Disk is pegged during export on HDD, the same as SSD is.
Good explanation there A-Cab

During exports, CPU would normally be the bottleneck, not I/O. Where the SSD shines is booting up, loading projects and loading sampled instruments.
 
At the moment, only my boot drive is an SSD. I want to have one for my Kontakt libraries but it would have to be at least 1TB. Although those have come down, they are still $300. So for the time being I'd rather spend that money on more Kontakt libraries and just continue to exercise patience.
 
They'll come down further, I'm sure. I can remember the first time I worked on a 1 GB drive, c. 1982, at a Seattle bank's bond-trading department. it was the size of a washing machine and cost $60,000. And they trusted me to take it apart and put it back together! They would have had a frickin' cow had they known that my assistant and I had been smokin' dope on the way there.

I almost never see my CPU over 40-50%. That's largely because I keep my buffers at 2048.

Hi there:)
 
Partition C
 
Windows + Sonar + other Music Software --> 256 GB SSD
 
Partition Record
 
--> 256 GB SSD
 
Partition Cakewalk Content
 
--> 512 GB SSD
 
Partition Samples
 
--> 1000 GB HD on sATA
 
I'm just waiting for a cheap TB SSD for my Samples Partition. 
SSDs are the greatest step on speedup your PC, after more RAM! I have only an i5, but with 32 GB RAM and my SSDs I've never had any (speed) problems yet!
 
Greetz,
Bassman.
 

TBH, I've never monitored it myself.
The only thing I noticed was the same time at which Exports took and the whining of my CPU stepping up like someone was sticking a fork in its bum.

@bit...
I was monitoring with resource monitor. That shows consumption by processor.

If there is some property I could toggle that would enable me to use more processor power, I would try it.

Does anyone ever see processors go above sixty percent when doing a fast bounce?... assuming you aren't doing crazy stuff in other apps at the same time.

https://youtu.be/d-F6xevvhFs
 
I know it's ridiculous to make a video about this, but I did.
 
It looks like the reason that the processor doesn't usually go much above 50% is that it can't work faster than the slowest track it has to process. So whatever the maximum latency introduced is, that's the long pole. When all the tracks produce the same latency you can see the processor approach 100%. 
 
It doesn't seem to matter whether you use VST2 or VST3.
 
Hyper-threading seems to have nothing to do with it.