Would someone clear up confusion over hard drives in DAWs?
 
I am currently using one dedicated disk drive for "C" and another dedicated disk drive for Audio Data. 
 
I have purchased one Solid State Drive (SSD) to replace one of those two disk drives.
 
Which of the two disk drives should be replaced by the SSD?
 
Or, is a SSD fast enough by itself, to use for both "C" and Audio Data? 
If it is actually fast enough, need it be partitioned? 
 
Or, should there be two separate SSDs?
 
 
 
 

Personally, I would just add the SSD as a 3rd drive to your system. You can then use it to store current projects/audio and then archive finished projects on the drive you're now using for audio. OR you could use it for streaming samples from any software synths that stream from disk. That's what I like to do, but not everyone needs that.
 
And yes, it's possible that the drive could be used for both OS and projects, although with very large projects it may not work well.
 
Scott

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Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
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Here is a test from Sound on Sound published in 2009, SSDs have much better performance, including audio recording.
Here are their findings:
 
SSD Test Results
 
Published in SOS December 2009

I have an SSD  for my OS and X3 is using the default C:\ drive for audio. No issues other than using the storage on takes. My DAW does boot 40% faster and it sounds better...   ;)

IF your current primary drive contents will fit on the SSD, then I would clone your C: to the new SSD drive, then boot from it, then wipe out the prior contents of the old C:, then use that empty drive to house your Cakewalk projects, since that is easier to move than all of your sample libraries and such.  (one simple Preferences change in Sonar to point to the new location for projects).
 
 
That is how I would approach it.  It is really all a matter of personal choice.  Your Windows performance and general program loading will be quite a bit quicker if you make the new SSD your primary drive, in my opinion.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
IF your current primary drive contents will fit on the SSD, then I would clone your C: to the new SSD drive, then boot from it, then wipe out the prior contents of the old C:, then use that empty drive to house your Cakewalk projects, since that is easier to move than all of your sample libraries and such.  (one simple Preferences change in Sonar to point to the new location for projects).
 
 
That is how I would approach it.  It is really all a matter of personal choice.  Your Windows performance and general program loading will be quite a bit quicker if you make the new SSD your primary drive, in my opinion.
 
Bob Bone
 

+1....always put the OS and Sonar on the SSD.  Boot times and DAW load times will be 
                                                        MEGAFAST.

If you use large sample libraries, your best bang for the buck might be using the SSD as a sample drive.

Samsung EVO 1TO for data and INTEL 320 for os  here ;)

By the time I add up all my streaming sample sets I'm approaching 2 terabytes of data. At this time it's easier and cheaper to locate them on a couple of fast HDD and keep OS, programs and plugins on an SSD. I aha mine setup on a 250gig SSD

Well, that seemed to answer things.  Use the SSD drive for everything!
 
Each to their own, but I think the most common use for SSD drives is the OS and programs.  SSD is expensive and usually smaller.  Unless you have a packed os drive, this would probably be the best use of it.  And you shouldn't have to worry about your OS hard drive crashing.
 
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