Billy86

Thanks everyone for the response. I've picked up a copy of Acronis Total Image and will be wading through the (gulp) 193-page manual. Good to see it doesn't have to run continuously in the background, but you can schedule it to do what you want when you want, so it's not taxing the CPU.

Thinking about automating back ups. PC World says Acronis True Image is one of the best, but this sounds resource unfriendly: “The download is a whopping 600MB, the installation about the same, and there are six separate background processes running at all times.” The review https://www.pcworld.com/article/3434607/acronis-true-image-2020-review.html Anyone using a program they like?

Hi I have the 2.5.1 driver if someone needs it. It’s for the Gen 1 2i4 I have. Works flawlessly. I’ve had no luck with driver updates since this original driver.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in. After much research, and patient, generous support from a couple of (non-Dell) guys on the Dell Community board, I'm in good shape. Finally! TVR, yes, I agree, it should be simple! WTH!! I had previously done this exact thing on a Dell 8500; only difference is it was a SATA SSD, while this is an NVMe form factor. Had no problem with the 8500. It was six generations old, and the only thing I can figure is that Dell BIOS must have been configured differently back in 2012. The 8930 BIOS does NOT have a way to change the boot order. Everything seems to be locked in a black box called "Windows Boot Manager," and it seems inaccessible (at least at my tech skill level, which is beginner/mediocre at best. I go into a cold sweat when someone mentions "registry" values!) I could see no way to access the in BIOS. Long story short... was able to boot via the cloned SSD -- a Samsung 970 Evo Plus, via Samsung Data Migration software, and installed Samsung Magician and Samsung NVMe driver -- in F12 environment. This is where I COULD manipulate the Boot order, but it's a one-time deal. Booted into the SSD, so I could tell it was working if the machine could FIND it in the boot sequence "tree." Detached the original HDD (which would ALWAYS boot first) and rebooted. It then found the SSD and booted up fine. And is it fast! Shut down and rebooted several times and it found the SSD every time (with the HDD detached). I'm letting things stabilize to make sure things are good. The HDD is sidelined at this point. At some point, I'll re-initiate the HDD to use it for storage, once I'm sure the SDD is rock solid. (I also have a USB Restore stick I created before going down this rabbit hole. The maddening part was... brand new machine. 8930/i9. Couldn't figure it out how to set up the SSD as the main OS drive, and the installed HDD as a storage drive. I KNEW it could be done. Everybody does it! But, at my wit's end, I called Dell technical support, and TWO of their techs told me I couldn't set it up this way because it was factory-set-up as RAID (the Samsung drive required AHCI mode). Whaaaat? That was the first hurdle. Figuring out how to changing the existing setup from RAID TO AHCI. Hmmm... speaking of which, I may have to create another Restore USB, because the one I have was created off the factory HDD with its devilish RAID set up.) Anyway... Finally poised to start making some music again! Was pulling out my hair! IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD, DELL! Thanks again to everyone who weighed in! -- Billy

Interesting... I installed the latest NVMe driver from Samsung.

Thanks for the info. The boot order appears "hidden" behind a Windows Boot Manager listing in the BIOS. It doesn't list a specific drive. I think I may have botched the sequence of steps in installing the SSD, no now I don't know where the "poison pill(s)" are lurking. The SSD is listed on the main tab of the BIOS (acccessed by F2 during boot up on this Dell), but not in the boot tab, or one-time boot options, accessed by F12 on this Dell. Thanks for the offer of a parts list. It may come to that if I go to Plan B!

Thank you, Colin. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know what I'm looking at. I'm not all that techie.

So. A couple of weeks ago, my DAW computer died. Just bought an 8930 i9 with the standard 1 tb 7200rpm HDD. I'm trying to add a 1tb Samsung NVMe M2 970EVO SSD. Want to make the SSD the Win 10/OS boot drive/CbB program drive, etc., and the factory HDD storage drive, like so many people here. Haven't been able to do it. Dell technical support is telling me I can't set it up that way. What??? - Installed the SSD... ran into a problem because the system was factory-set to RAID by default. I saw the AHCI option I needed, read up on to change it in BIOS and did that. Went fine. - Ran Samsung Magician Software to set up the SSD, updated the driver. Everything looks fine. - Cloned the HDD to the SDD with Samsung migration software. Fine. - Rebooted/F2 into BIOS. Can see the SSD listed on the Main page. - Went to Boot tab/boot options. The SSD isn't there. Only Windows Boot Manager... ORSI USB Stick Boot Entry... Onboard NIC (IPV4)... Onboard NIC (IPV6)... and Disabled. Those are the options. In Disc Management, new SSD (Disk 1) was listed as offline because it was (I'm guessing) n conflict with the HDD (Disk 0). I right-clicked it to bring it online, and it was assigned Drive letter OS E: I can see in File Explorer, it's an exact copy of OS on the C Drive (the factory HDD) Called Tech Support for help. They said I can't set it up like I want because the system is configured at the factory as RAID and simply won't work the way I want it to. WHAT??? They wanted to charge me to set it up as a single drive SSD, and said the factory HDD won't work any longer. It's RAID Only, and if I want primary and secondary drives they have to be the exact same form factor. What??? Have wasted hours trying to get this to work. The SSD is recognized in the system. And there it sits. Really frustrated. Don't know what to do. Couldn't believe his information was accurate. No where in any sales documentation, did it say this ships in some sort of RAID-only configuration. I even read the service manual before I purchased. The tech couldn't tell me where that was pointed out for buyers. I'm totally stuck. Any help would really be appreciated. Thank you! Billy

Did not know about this customization setting. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for all the input. Just realized I can throw a 500gig Samsung SATAIII SSD into the mix as well, which I’ll pull out of my dead computer. Still fairly new drive. So that gives me: — 1TB NVMe SSD — 500 gig SATAIII SSD — 1TB 7200 spinner HDD I want to maximize all the available speed I can and avoid choke points when recording and mixing with plugins and VSTi. How does one know which samplers stream data directly from the drive(s) and which load everything into RAM? (Kontakt, Slate drums, EZ Drums and Keys, Addictive2 drums and Keys). Or do they ALL rely on RAM, another potential choke point? Does the i9 cache essentially serve as “super fast” RAM and whatever doesn’t fit in cache then rely on system RAM? Trying to understand how the data flows.

How much SSD space will you need for that?

The user folders are your project folders with all the files and associated audio?

Thanks! This community is incredible, from the committed bakers to the experienced and helpful bakees!

Am getting a brand new computer. Dell i9. Stoked! Will have the stock 1 tb hard drive. Am adding a 1 tb NVMe M.2 Samsung SSD. Will remove the bloatware. I run mainly Waves and Izotope plugins. Not shy using them. Also use AD2 drums and keys, Steven Slate, EZ Drummer, EZ Keys, Kontakt 6 with multiple instruments. So, ample virtual instruments depending on the song. Will obviously run the OS (Windows 10) and CbB on the SSD. Want to take most advantage of the SSD for all the stuff I use. What should be on it? All the plugins? Kontakt? All the VSTi programs? What about the samples, which can be large? What can stay on HHD to save space on the SSD? Thanks!

Thank you. Great resource. Though I’m not looking at the “K” series, which can be overclocked, the difference between the straight 9700 and 9900 would be in the same ballpark.

The link appears to be broken?

Thanks for sharing this, Colin. Nice work. I'm looking at a Dell XPS 8930 (i7, maybe i9) right now and am eager to see the performance jump from a third generation i5 that just died on me. Just wish I could use the 32gigs of DDR3 Ram from the old machine in the new one (DDR4) , but I've read that's not possible. A new NVMe SSD to run things should help too!

LOL! Of course! Faster, higher, farther...!!!!

Hi. Thanks for the response. I'm not shy when it comes to plugins, for better or worse! ? I like trying a lot of things and was consistently maxing out my Gen 3 i5 machine. Got to be pain. From what I've discovered while researching a new computer and the specs, hyper-threading has little to no effect on audio processing because audio processing is linear, while hyper-threading is a parallel process, two threads per core, which is great for some apps that can take advantage of that, or in the case where the users is constantly multitasking, which a number of programs all running at the same time. I try to run only CbB. That being said, "multitasking" is an interesting concept, and I suppose other programs/applications running in the background while CbB is also running running (is the computer multitasking?) might be able to benefit from hyper-threading -- freeing up more resources for CbB. Guess, what I'm trying to determine is if there is a point of diminishing returns between the two chips, given the performance difference between a latest generation i7 and a latest generation i9. The i9 might be a bit of future-proofing since I'll likely have this new computer for years. I'm leaning toward the i9 for that reason. Thanks again. I enjoy reading your responses on a variety of topics...

Is i9 overkill for home studio recording mixing? An extra $170 gets me to an i9 9900 up from an i7 9700. Will pair with a super fast SSN. Brand new machine. 16 gigs DDR4 ram.

I think the issue with AMD/Ryzen is that some plugins don’t work well. Benchmark performance on the top of the Ryzen line is definitely blazing though.

Hi. Yep. Everything I’m looking at supports that protocol. Can’t wait for the speed upgrade, even from a SATA SSD I was using in the crashed computer. Thanks.

Yeah, me too. I started with the free and bumped up. For the price, it seemed a no-brainer.

Thanks so much. Have you ever heard of/used this: https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/ I been using it for a few years on my computer and it prevents cores from parking, spreading the work load. It made a big difference for my old i5; before using it, core 1 would nearly max out before any other core engaged and the CPU would really chug. After installing it I could see my 4 cores working evenly in the performance monitor and the GUI park control has. Easy to configure depending on what you need. It has a "highest performance" mode which I believe automatically overrides all the Windows power management settings.

Hmm. Confused about this. I'm looking at a new Dell computer and have been looking into the issue of hyper-threading because the current 9th gen i7 doesn't have it, and the 8th gen i7 did. From what I've been able to learn, hyper-threading has little to no impact on DAW production because the read/write process is serial in a DAW, so it doesn't benefit from hyper-threading, which is a parallel read/write process (two threads per core, so two parallel processes). Am I understanding this correctly? Thanks.