There is a new class of disk drives that combines a standard cached hard drive with an on-board solid-state disk (2-level cache) with the intention of providing near-SSD performance at the cost of a regular hard drive.  An example of such a drive is the Seagate described here:
http://techreport.com/review/25425/seagate-desktop-sshd-2tb-hybrid-drive-reviewed
 
It provides 2 TB of disk space combined with 8 GB of SSD space.  The algorithms on-board the drive are supposed to automatically move the most frequently accessed data to the SSD.  For the average desktop user, this should mean that big parts of the OS are in SSD, allowing very fast boot time.  When using a DAW, we have such large sample libraries and we create such large audio files, that I am guessing this could really overwhelm the drive's algorithms.  If they made one with 64 GB of SSD, I bet that would be a very good fit, but I don't think anything like that exists yet.
 
Can anybody share any practical experience with a SSHD in a DAW setting?
 
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The Seagate solution is plug and play.  The SSD portion is transparent with data migrated automatically under hardware control.
 
WD has a different take on the problem.  They squeeze a separate 128 GB Sandisk SSD into their 2.5" hard drive package.  Here's a reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Black2-Dual-Drive-2-5-WD1001X06XDTL/dp/B00GSJ9X4Q
 
It literally is two separate drives, but they also provide special software drivers that allow you to operate as if it were a hybrid drive.  This might work better for the amount of data a DAW uses, but it sounds like a bit of a kludge.  Is anybody running with the WD dual drive?

The WD drive seems to intended specifically for laptops.

I'm using Seagate hybrid drives as the OS drive in my main DAW and a VEP slaved sample server. They learn the frequency of use of data and cache the data used most. They seem to work well for OS drives. I timed the boot sequence on the DAW and it was 1/3 the original boot time compared to using a standard hard drive. You probably wouldn't see as dramatic a difference on a drive that didn't have as clear of a pattern of usage.

I've got one on my laptop (not a DAW) - and it's not that great...

jbraner
I've got one on my laptop (not a DAW) - and it's not that great...

The WD or a Seagate?  They look like two completely different animals.  I think I am only interested in the Seagate at this point.  It is not much more money than a regular drive and it seems like it can't hurt performance.  I just doubt that 8 GB of SSD will really help SONAR very much.

I've just finished building my new DAW PC yesterday. Still putting all the software on.
 
I investigated the hybrid drives and read heaps of reviews on them. I ended up ditching the hybrid idea because I could find no technical data from reviewers to back up the claims made by both WD and SEAGATE. Boot times were in general improved, but not by much, but almost nothing else was significantly improved, and often quite a bit, slower? There seemed to be not much gained and maybe some to lose. I ended up opting for an SSD for the OP system and programs, which is really only going to be X3, and a couple of WD 1tb drives for data storage. The price of SSD's has dropped substantially and normal sata3 drives even less. Just didnt seem worthwhile to persue it any further.
 
Either way won't hurt you. I can tell you though, so far, with the SSD fitted, my new PC, which is based around an i7 4771 cpu, is a speed demon. Shut down and boot times are around 5 seconds maybe. I'm stunned. Can't wait to finish getting X3 on it tonight and get back to work.
 
Cheers. Dave.
 
 

The WD or a Seagate? They look like two completely different animals. I think I am only interested in the Seagate at this point. It is not much more money than a regular drive and it seems like it can't hurt performance. I just doubt that 8 GB of SSD will really help SONAR very much.

I'm not sure - it's the one that shipped with a new Dell Latitude...

Reading the review it says that it wont help large data transfers. This is where a DAW user would notice an increase in performance.As stated in the review its meant to help the average user not those dealing with video and I assume multi track audio.  

John
Reading the review it says that it wont help large data transfers. This is where a DAW user would notice an increase in performance.As stated in the review its meant to help the average user not those dealing with video and I assume multi track audio.  

My guess is that it would do fine in cases where there is a predictable working set that fits easily within the 8 GB SSD.  It might do well for loading the OS and apps, but if you use a lot of sample libraries that are much bigger than 8 GB total, that would probably drive the algorithm nuts.
 
If that is the case, then it could be a good strategy to use one of the Seagate drives for the OS and program files, but keep the really big libraries on another drive.
 
As a tangential item, I have an older Intel SSD -- 80 GB that I have been using as temporary project storage (I sync that up with a 4 TB NAS for permanent storage.  This SSD is supposed to have a sequential write speed of 70 MB/sec.  I have noticed that when saving large files from Izotope RX3 (and probably  from any other program) the data rate is becoming much slower.  Some of my files are about 1GB and they may take 2 minutes to save.  At 70 MB/sec, they should save in about 20 seconds.  The progress bar indicates the first half of the save goes very fast, but then slows to a crawl.  Maybe it has always been this way and I just never noticed before.  But I wonder about the SSD degrading in performance over time.  There are lots of postings about that, but little real information.
 
I'm about ready to replace all my hardware, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to diagnose that.

cparmerlee

John
Reading the review it says that it wont help large data transfers. This is where a DAW user would notice an increase in performance.As stated in the review its meant to help the average user not those dealing with video and I assume multi track audio.  

My guess is that it would do fine in cases where there is a predictable working set that fits easily within the 8 GB SSD.  It might do well for loading the OS and apps, but if you use a lot of sample libraries that are much bigger than 8 GB total, that would probably drive the algorithm nuts.
 
If that is the case, then it could be a good strategy to use one of the Seagate drives for the OS and program files, but keep the really big libraries on another drive.

Which is exactly how I have my drives set up: OS on the Hybrid; project, samples and other stuff on other drives.
If you have large sample libraries, I can't imagine you would want to serve them from the OS drive, regardless of what type of drive you were using.