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Hard drive choices for audio

jono grant

By jono grant
in Cakewalk by BandLab

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jono grant

jono grant

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Hey there,

I'm building a new win 10 machine and wondered about the best way to divide up the drives for audio.

I have a 2TB m.2 drive for OS (C drive) all programs and plugins

I have a second 2TB m.2 drive for Audio projects and Soft-synth libraries

Then a 3rd 8TB SATA drive for file storage and back up.

(SD3 library on an external as it's huge...)

Does this make sense in terms of data streaming? I figure the m.2 drives are incredibly fast so put all the audio and soft synths on the second one.

Is there any reason I should be utilizing the SATA drive for any of that? 

Thanks!

Jono 

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Zaquria

Zaquria

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4 minutes ago, jono grant said:

Anyone know about this? thanks

Jono

That is more or less the way I have my system set-up.

I have my OS, Cakewalk Projects, and VST instrument and libraries all on different drives.

My OS is a SSD drive, Projects on a SSD and my Libs on a SATA Drive.

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jono grant

jono grant

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15 minutes ago, Zaquria said:

That is more or less the way I have my system set-up.

I have my OS, Cakewalk Projects, and VST instrument and libraries all on different drives.

My OS is a SSD drive, Projects on a SSD and my Libs on a SATA Drive.

Thanks! I guess what I'm asking is, is it okay to have project audio on the same drive as soft-synth libraries? 

J

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Zaquria

Zaquria

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Just now, jono grant said:

Thanks! I guess what I'm asking is, is it okay to have project audio on the same drive as soft-synth libraries? 

J

Personally, I prefer keeping them separate, especially on mechanical drives, just to keep head movement to a minimum.

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DeeringAmps

DeeringAmps

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Old school here:

OS: SSD

Samples: m.2 my system supports 1 and VSTi load so fast from the m.2 it would be a “waste” for anything else. Superior Drummer loads “yesterday”!

Projects: still using WD Black drives. Until the last word comes in that write/rewrite is not an issue on SSD that’s where I’m staying. 

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jono grant

jono grant

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10 minutes ago, Zaquria said:

Personally, I prefer keeping them separate, especially on mechanical drives, just to keep head movement to a minimum.

I totally agree, but these new M.2 drives are SSD, crazy speed... up to 32 GB per second transfer rate!! Libraries are loading in an instant. I guess I'll try it and see how it performs.

Cheers

J

 

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Zaquria

Zaquria

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1 minute ago, jono grant said:

I totally agree, but these new M.2 drives are SSD, crazy speed... up to 32 GB per second transfer rate!! Libraries are loading in an instant. I guess I'll try it and see how it performs.

Cheers

J

As long  as you have enough space for everything, then I would defiantly give it a shot..... nothing ventured nothing gained. 

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jono grant

jono grant

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30 minutes ago, DeeringAmps said:

Old school here:

OS: SSD

Samples: m.2 my system supports 1 and VSTi load so fast from the m.2 it would be a “waste” for anything else. Superior Drummer loads “yesterday”!

Projects: still using WD Black drives. Until the last word comes in that write/rewrite is not an issue on SSD that’s where I’m staying. 

Could you point me to the issue with write/rewrite on SSD that you're talking about? Don't know about it...

thx

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DeeringAmps

DeeringAmps

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The “word” on SSD’s originally was that you shouldn’t constantly write and overwrite. So for OS use or samples, you write to the drive, then you read from it. I’m sure it was recommended not to de-frag an SSD, because again you are writing/rewriting. Modern SSD’s maybe not an issue? When Jim at StudioCat recommends SSD for the audio drive, I’ll be “all in”; until then...

 I haven’t googled it lately, maybe times have changed. 

Tom

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chuckebaby

chuckebaby

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35 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

All SSD's have a limit on how many writes they can survive.  While it is a high number, you can hit it, just might take a while.

https://www.ontrack.com/blog/2018/02/07/how-long-do-ssds-really-last/

That number is real high. im not sure exactly what it is for my particular SSD, but I bought it back in 2014 and have re wrote 1000's of files, including reformatting the drive for OS reinstallation over 10 times. This might be more of an old wives tale than truth.

Matter of fact im not sure I've met anyone yet who has had an SSD die on them.

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Matthew Sorrels

Matthew Sorrels

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Samsung Magician says how many TB you have written.  My new computer is just about a year old and it's saying 50.8 TB.  The drive according to Samsung is good for 600TB (minimum).  So ~12 years at the rate I'm using it.  But if that article is correct drives can go a lot more than that spec.  I don't think I'm that worried about it.

 

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chuckebaby

chuckebaby

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1 hour ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

So ~12 years at the rate I'm using it.  But if that article is correct drives can go a lot more than that spec.  I don't think I'm that worried about it.

Yea, that's probably longer than the common HDD SATA drives life expectancy. You do bring up a valid point no doubt and its worth letting the end user know about its rewrite life span. I just haven't seen it yet.

Now watch. tomorrow I will wake up with a dead SSD :D

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MediaGary

MediaGary

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So far the "Death Modes" that I've directly observed with SSD's have *never* been matters of wear.   A "good" controller will simply make the SSD read-only when the wear limits of the flash array have been reached.  

Of the four failures I've been able to get close to (three of mine, one in an online forum with SMART telemetry info) the failures have been as follows:

- New (yes, new) SanDisk 2TB CloudSpeed ("enterprise-grade") had its internal DRAM controller fail, so it dropped writing speed down to 14 MBytes/sec.  

- Very old 90GB OCZ SSD intermittently freezes while remaining visible to the OS.  That's a classic controller failure.  It's now in a landfill with the others. 

- Patriot SSD 128GB would "disappear" from the SATA port.  That's another classic controller failure. 

- Online guy with SMART telemetry info had the controller completely lose all info about bytes written and its empty cells map.  Cannot read or write at all.

The basic takeaway is that there will be no warning about imminent failure, so good backup disciplines are essential, perhaps more essential than before.  

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