Best (good?) HD for audio recording

[Pathfinder]

So I built new PC. Not the top of the line but pretty powerful. Asus Prime Z590 A, Intel i7 11700, 32gb ram etc, etc. Case (Fractal Design) will take all the drives I want.

For the longest time, including as of this post, I use a 1TB SATA HD, the old type. Has always worked well. Just a home studio for me.
Now I have that, and 2 Samsung 980 Pro 1TB nvme m.2's installed . regular 500GB Sata SSD for OS and apps. 
did a lot of searching and keep finding advice that says use external HD to record? I would rather us internal.

So am I losing "quality" or whatever recording to a regular, (well high end WD 1TB) drive. Just the audio goes there. Samples ar on one of the 980 Pros.

Hope this isn't as confusing as some of my posts lately 🙂 

Thanks

Edited December 25, 2021 by Pathfinder

[Lord Tim]

You won't lose quality with any kind of drive you record to - internal, external, HDD, SSD, SATA, NVMe, USB... data is data.

However, you'll have substantially less speed recording to an external drive, which will mean far fewer tracks that can be streamed at once, and a much better chance of clicks and pops. Your NVMe drive is absolutely the best choice to record to.

That said, it's a really good idea to back that recording up to an external drive regularly. All drives fail eventually, so regular backups can sometimes be a life-saver.

[Pathfinder]

14 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

You won't lose quality with any kind of drive you record to - internal, external, HDD, SSD, SATA, NVMe, USB... data is data.

However, you'll have substantially less speed recording to an external drive, which will mean far fewer tracks that can be streamed at once, and a much better chance of clicks and pops. Your NVMe drive is absolutely the best choice to record to.

That said, it's a really good idea to back that recording up to an external drive regularly. All drives fail eventually, so regular backups can sometimes be a life-saver.

OK Thanks............That's what I will do.

[DeeringAmps]

On 12/24/2021 at 8:53 PM, Pathfinder said:

well high end WD 1TB

I have been using Western Digital Black drives for years; never had an issue. 
HTH,

t

On 12/24/2021 at 9:55 PM, Lord Tim said:

it's a really good idea to back that recording up to an external drive regularly.

backup, backup, backup; redundancy is our friend...

[Pathfinder]

1 hour ago, DeeringAmps said:

I have been using Western Digital Black drives for years; never had an issue. 
HTH,

t

backup, backup, backup; redundancy is our friend...

WD Black is exactly what I have used for Audio also................
I have multiple backup plan and even have a backup in my safety deposit box.........Very OCD......

[Pathfinder]

I remember some discussion, which maybe does not apply anymore. But it went something like this:

 

Regular old HD's SATA read\write scheme is better for audio because of the way the SSD's read\write. Don't remember the details, perhaps it was too long ago.

 

[DeeringAmps]

@Pathfinder I have to admit I'm am currently running an EVO 2TB SSD for audio in the studio rig.
The Black was getting some age on it, and I had the EVO; preventative maintenance.

The SSD read/write limitations would be a concern IF I was doing commercial work...

15 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Very OCD

did I mention backup, backup, backup?

t

[Pathfinder]

1 hour ago, DeeringAmps said:

@Pathfinder I have to admit I'm am currently running an EVO 2TB SSD for audio in the studio rig.
The Black was getting some age on it, and I had the EVO; preventative maintenance.

The SSD read/write limitations would be a concern IF I was doing commercial work...

did I mention backup, backup, backup?

t

By. your quote, "if I was doing commercial work",  do you mean SSD would be a concern?

IOW, my recording are for family and friends. Also I usually only have maybe 20 tracks, ALL MID VSTS except for vocals and ALL guitars.

I have a new EVO which I am going to use for audio. But I only record one track at a time so I image I won't be near the cons of the read\write possible issues of SSD's? Hope that makes snse.

Thanks for all your input!

[DeeringAmps]

3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

"if I was doing commercial work",  do you mean SSD would be a concern?

I'm not sure.
I've inquired a few times IF the SSD read/write limitations were an "issue" for audio drives.
Never received a definitive answer.

Of course, if I was doing commercial work, every session would be backed up multiple times.

3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

I have a new EVO which I am going to use for audio

I had the 2TB EVO, and was doing some other "maintenance", so I pulled the old "Black" and subbed the EVO.

only time will tell...

t
 

 

[Starship Krupa]

This is the first I've even heard any reference to any "SSD Read/Write limitations," for audio or any other application. Rather, I've seen so many people recommending them for audio production rigs that I started making jokes about it on the old forum.

When I Google "are there limitations to using SSD's for audio production?" I get nothing but people asking and being told "no, they're way superior." Therefore, I am going to stick to the belief that they are superior in every way to spinners except for cost per gigabyte.

In my personal experience, my SSD's read and write the ones and zeroes way faster than my spinny drives, and they don't discriminate based on what kind of file the ones and zeroes belong to.

Media production (and anything else with large file sizes) is probably the #3 task where a user is most likely to notice a performance improvement over a spinny drive.  #1 is system startup and #2 is program launch.

However, for anyone who has any SSD's that they feel might be holding them back, either now or in the future, I volunteer to help out and save you electronics recycling fees. For the cost of a 1st class stamp you can send them to me and I will dispose of them properly. If these limitations exist, I'm certain they would be worse for higher-capacity SSD's, so if you have any over 1TB capacity, I advise sending those right away.

Seriously, though. I have seen people talking fidgety about the fact that SSD's have a finite number of reads and writes in them, as if that's unique to them, as if HDD's have unlimited rewrite capacity. Well, the Easter Bunny was our parents, and HDD's have a finite number of reads and writes in them. In this, the SSD again has the advantage, although not by as much as it does the speed advantage. SSD's are way less fragile, though, way less subject to failure by external forces (impact from your computer falling off the desk, being near magnetic fields, etc., SSD's can survive conditions like flooding that mean instant death to a HDD).

The only advantage that HDD's have as far as reliability is that in some of their failure modes, they give warning that they are becoming flaky. So if you are using proper monitoring software, you will find out and maybe be able to replace it before it goes completely dead. Most people don't. When SSD's go, it's usually with no warning. They just suddenly won't be recognized by your controller. HDD's sometimes fail without any warning too.

We shouldn't choose one or the other based on whether sometimes one will warn you when it's about to croak, with the idea that this makes our data more secure. The solution to concerns about data security is not in choosing a more or less reliable primary storage medium (they're both pretty reliable and they both eventually wear out), it's in making appropriately regular backups of your data. Disks fail, therefore we make backups.

[Xoo]

You forgot that they are silent and don't vibrate cases too!

[Lord Tim]

Another stat to consider is the expected lifespan of a typical HDD is around 3 - 5 years on average, vs the 980 pro which is somewhere between 5 to 10 years if you really hammer it with many tens of GB each day. Looking at the stats, even in a commercial studio like I run, that's still a pretty hefty amount of work for a dedicated audio drive (I still recommend separate drives for your system, audio data and any sample sets just to spread the writes out, even though a single drive would easily be enough for most people speed-wise).

Erik is right, when your SSD dies, it goes away - see ya, data - whereas a HDD will usually give you clues that it's failing. But that said, I've lost a lot of HDDs over the years, and some almost overnight, but I've never actually lost a SSD, and the 980 pro is a damn good quality one.

But nothing is perfect - everything will eventually fail sooner or later. Like it says above, backup, backup, backup!