Best SSD drive ( Spec ) for Audio work?

[Tezza]

Yes, I've used those on the Latitudes and Precisions, they work fine.

[aidan o driscoll]

11 minutes ago, Tezza said:

Yes, I've used those on the Latitudes and Precisions, they work fine.

@Tezza  Any specific make you could recommend? I see alot of them on Amazon with varied reviews of flimsy, bad build etc

[aidan o driscoll]

BTW .. just tried the Samsung Clone tool from existing drive to new Samsung SSD attached to USB3 port. 4 hours, got to 99% then failed unknown reason, very helpful.

Now trying Macrium FREE.

But i wonder is is better to just clean install rather than clone in the longrun?

 

[Tezza]

7 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

@Tezza  Any specific make you could recommend? I see alot of them on Amazon with varied reviews of flimsy, bad build etc

Not that I can think of. I bought mine off Ebay, they are all aftermarket knockoffs, however you want to be very clear that you are getting one specifically for your laptop and the bezel, the side plastic cover, is compatible with your laptop in shape and color. I seem to remember that some of them are better in this regard than others. I got one once that wasn't curved as well as the original in my laptop so it stuck out a little. I never had any problem with the functionality of them though, I used them for video editing.

[aidan o driscoll]

On 3/2/2021 at 6:32 PM, aidan o driscoll said:

BTW .. just tried the Samsung Clone tool from existing drive to new Samsung SSD attached to USB3 port. 4 hours, got to 99% then failed unknown reason, very helpful.

Now trying Macrium FREE.

But i wonder is is better to just clean install rather than clone in the longrun?

I decided to go the fresh install route. I stuck the old drive into a USB caddy and attached. The used a forgotten command in a DOS window ( via CMD, admin )

ROBOCOPY

Compared to using windows / File explorer / drag drop etc to copy from USB to HD or internally, its like a rocket.

So if you have a folder on USB ( eg F drive ) called cakewalk the command at c:\ dos prompt ( via CMD ) is:

robocopy f:\cakewalk c:\cakewalk /E

The /E copies any other sub folders also inside the cakewalk folder

The only other thing is if a folder name is more than one word then surround both source and dest links with inverted commas:

robocopy "f:\cakewalk files" "c:\cakewalk files" /E

 

[Starship Krupa]

On 3/2/2021 at 10:32 AM, aidan o driscoll said:

is better to just clean install rather than clone in the longrun?

I have done both in the Windows 10 era, and I would say that it depends on how much you like your current Windows 10 installation. Anything prior to Windows 10 I would have said to go ahead with the clean install, but Windows 10 seems to handle being cloned pretty well. Also it doesn't cruft up over time as badly as earlier Windowses.

Of course for content creation people like us, we have so much software where registration is system-dependent, which for me tilts the scales toward "clone." It is a non-trivial task to go through and deauthorize/reauthorize every plug-in and program, and since I don't stick to certain ecosystems, some of mine are Waves, some iLok't, with licenses being either on the hard drive (Plug-In Alliance) or USB dongles (when possible). Some places have no discernible deauthorization process, or it must be done via their website. How to remember which and how many I have to do? I always forget a few. Others, like A|A|S, W.A. Production and Meldaproduction, don't have any deauthorization process, but if you register them to "too many" systems, they will refuse and require you to contact them and plead your case for further authorizations. I have something like 600 plug-ins because I'm an amateur and a geek who loves to try things out.

[mettelus]

Another consideration for "clone vs clean install" is from an organizational perspective. I did a clean install with this machine to purposefully look at what I was loading onto the machine (scraping off the stuff I never use), and set up junctions as I went (I keep my C drive small for imaging purposes). But even that route isn't fool proof, since I have 536 programs installed now and use maybe 10% of them with any regularity (junctions could actually be considered "bad" in this case, since it allowed me to put those 536 programs in less than 100GB of the C drive).

Also... if using junctions... be sure to keep batch files for the creation of them. During a "clean" install you can simply run the batch files daisy-chained together (copy/paste them all into one master batch) to re-link a new C drive to the other drives in the machine. I let everything install to default locations for the most part, then junctioned anything (data file directories) that exceeded 4GB. The fastest drive in this machine is actually the x4 NVMe.m2 drive, so data files that do get used regularly went there.

[aidan o driscoll]

@Starship Krupa @mettelus

I went the CLEAN install in the end as i always do. I was having trouble with each clone application inc Samsungs .. some sort of error on old source drive ( which only came up after hours at the end of the samsung software process 7 failed ) that would have meant doing a complete chkdsk/r .. which being a 2TB drive would have taken almost the time a clean install would have. Once i am happy with that clean install I intend formatting that old drive now in an ext usb caddy and use it for backups etc.

The EVO 870 drive is a flier .. the difference is night and day. Its turned my Dell Inspiron 17" laptop ( 16GB ram ) into a system arguably faster than many new systems i set up for clients. Great investment so far

TBH in all my years trying cloning etc I have NEVER had a positive no quible experience with it, always some stupid error like above poping up after hours of letting the clone happen.

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by aidan o driscoll

[Hatstand]

@aidan o driscoll I have just paid £85 from ebuyer for a 1Tb Samsung. I started getting occasional beeping noises followed by a crash which after much googling I put down to an issue with my current 750Gb MX300. Mind you after I bought it I had a windows upgrade come through and no beeps since. I believe it is due to a clash with bitlocker and the crucial encryption.

In any case the drive was probably due replacing. This will give me a 1Tb system\program SSD, the MX300 will become my sample\kontakt\project drive which leaves me a 1Tb rusty for personal stuff and a 1Tb external rusty for back up.

I then have Google drive and OneDrive for cloud\collaboration work and mailbigfile if I need to send massive zip files.

I will update on how the cloning goes

[aidan o driscoll]

4 hours ago, Hatstand said:

@aidan o driscoll I have just paid £85 from ebuyer for a 1Tb Samsung. I started getting occasional beeping noises followed by a crash which after much googling I put down to an issue with my current 750Gb MX300. Mind you after I bought it I had a windows upgrade come through and no beeps since. I believe it is due to a clash with bitlocker and the crucial encryption.

In any case the drive was probably due replacing. This will give me a 1Tb system\program SSD, the MX300 will become my sample\kontakt\project drive which leaves me a 1Tb rusty for personal stuff and a 1Tb external rusty for back up.

I then have Google drive and OneDrive for cloud\collaboration work and mailbigfile if I need to send massive zip files.

I will update on how the cloning goes

Yip @Hatstand ... I have to say this Samsung Evo 870 2TB is excellent so far in my 6yr+ old dell i5 16gb Ram 17" laptop. Made it into a new system  

I studied these SSD drives a bit to find not all are the same. Crucial are great but it seems the Samsung EVO range in general tops the lot for the "trad" type SSD drives ( closest in SSD drives you will get to the NVMe Drive cards ), you pay a bit more but ... ( Samsung also do a cheaper version - the QVO range )

The difference for my audio stuff - CW etc is huge .. for all plugins also especially KONTAKT, samplers & the like. So far its been a top investment

I mentioned NVMe SSD cards above. I call them cards because they are a circuit board very close in look to RAM. Thing is though, for us with older systems, there is no NVMe interface so we have to go with the "trad" SSD type drive

Edited March 17, 2021 by aidan o driscoll

[Hatstand]

So a quick update on this. Got the SSD, not much in the way of instructions, downloaded the Samsung migration utility, couldn't find the drive, formatted the drive, still no joy so restart.

Tried again, couldn't find the drive, checked disk manager, drive partitioned but not online, put in online started migration. Migration stops with error message, restart.

Tried migration again and this time it worked, restart.

Change boot drive in Bios, restart.

All good!!!

Restarted again just to make sure, all good so reformatted my crucial mx300. Now moving my sample libraries and Kontakt libraries to crucial mx300 from 1Tb rusty F drive

Next step is to change drive letters so that the crucial becomes F instead of E as it will save on remapping file paths....hopefully

Edited March 17, 2021 by Hatstand

[mettelus]

16 hours ago, Hatstand said:

checked disk manager

On Win 10 I have noticed just about everything plugged in internally needs to pass through Disk Management to get recognized. I am glad you got it worked out! Changing drive letters is no big issue, but the Disk # I have never figured out, and mine are all out of order. That only bothers me when I use an app that sorts by Disk #, but doesn't affect anything else.

[Tony Carpenter]

I use Samsung evos and crucial mx500 SSD drives. Really can’t go wrong so far been fast and reliable. I do have a higher end nvme of some high end type as boot drive on the audio pc too. 2018 MacBook Pro has hard soldered nvme also I think. Once you’ve gone SSD whether it’s recalling sample (superior drummer 3) or audio, spinny disks are just dead slow. A spinny disk is still very large backup if you prefer local storage of course. Sometimes I do miss my old tape backup system lol...