solid state hard drives

[Chewy Papadopoulos]

Poor guy... I tried to warn you.

Chewy

[Brandy]

SSD is the way to go. It is like going from an old analog 15'' screen to 2x24'' tft or something like that.

When I built my i7 DAW 2 years ago SSD where quite expensive. So I just used a 128GB drive for the system.
Using 1 TB Seagate drives (50 bucks each) for data - coming from all kind of "Raid0 Raptor" "U2WSCSI" stuff in the past I was impressed how smooth (quiet) and fast those modern hds are. I felt that there is no need to go SSD for data.

But I was wrong - 8 months later the price was way lower, I installed an additional 256GB Vertex 3 - well, and it was like having a new computer. With SSD the harddisc is almost "not there" anymore - it is NOT that you need them for playbacking 500 tracks.. a good hd can do that as well... It is the access speed!! This is important when editing, when jumping back and forth with the cursor/playback, when having countless snippets of multitrack drums.. And yes, saving time increases big time.

Of course 256GB are not much so I still have 2 x 1TB hd in use, one for sample librarys one for projects. Usually I use the regular hd for work (mastering, regular recording sessions) - if I have the feeling I need more speed I go SSD.

AFAIK the time of dying SSDs is over, be sure to just use quality stuff!!

I installed a 512GB Samsung SSD in my 2011 MacbookPro. WOW!! I had a 750GB hitachi drive in it because 2011 the SSD option was very very expensive. Well, using the MacBook with the SSD is like having a new Computer with fresh installed OS

Backups are important in any case - with hd or SSD..


Brandy

[Bifop]

Hi Brandy, I've yet to put my audiodrive on ssd (no big audio projects at the moment), but reading you, I'm tempted.

The only thing holding me back is the size of drives. I've got heaps of 1TB drives as media drives, samples, recording, video editing and backups. But it might take a while to get affordable 1TB drives.
In the meantime, I feel like going for two samsung 512gig 830 ssds (audio drive, samples) for an all ssd workstation.

I tried Omnisphere on a laptop with an SSD and it was like a hardware synth ! Schocking loading speed.

Speaking of reliability, Samsung has a warranty of 5 years on their ssd now. In three year time, mechanical hard drives will be like 5" floppies, jazz iomega, syquest 135, tapes...

[Brandy]

Yea, Bifop!

Two years ago SSD was expensive as hell, so it made usually only sence to use it for the system. The system usually only needs to read and not to write, so the earlier drives had not that much errors...

Yea, that Samsung drive I installed last week in my MacBook. On Mac you have to use the app "Trim" to enable some features regarding the writing process (to avoid that the same sectors will be used all the time, as far as I understand)

The 256GB SSD was at 700 EUR 2 years ago, I bought in August 2011 for 450 EUR - and now the 500GB Samsung is below 300 EUR. Still a lot of money and there are way more expensive ssds out there - but wait 2 years... In the meantime for "storage" there is no alternative for bigger regular harddrives... 2 TB or even 3 TB... I installed two 3TB WD hds to a NAS the day before yesterday - raid1 - 6TB of storage (when not in raid1) for about 250 EUR - it will took some time that this is realistic with SSD I would think..

[Fredo]

FWIW, my DAW builder recommended me to use no other brand than Intel SSD's.


Fredo

[Brandy]

as far as I heard they are very good quality indeed. But quite expensive as well. What are his arguments? Some years ago it was fact that you "have to use Intel CPU and Asus board" for a serious DAW...

A big plus is, that they are (as far as I know, again) supported by the apple computers - other brands need that "trim" application - but this is just "one click" and activates those necessary ssd-features..

[Chewy Papadopoulos]

FWIW, my DAW builder recommended me to use no other brand than Intel SSD's.

And I was advised to use nothing but Samsung. (I got neither). When doing my research before jumping in I saw some discussions about Intel SSDs, and it seems as if they were definitely the superior option early on, but it looks like the others have pretty much caught up, based on reliability and speed tests (and warranties!).

But what can you believe from the internet, anyway???

Chewy

[Breeze]

FWIW, my DAW builder recommended me to use no other brand than Intel SSD's.

Fredo

I stick to Intel for system SSDs: I don't know if this is till the case, but at one point Intel was the only manufacturer to provide proper diagnostic and maintenance programs for their SSDs. I was surprised to find out that most manufacturers didn't and that users of those drives have to rely on third party tools. It's extremely important to me to be able to test a drive for warranty and support reasons; especially true for a system drive. I've "dared" to use other SSD's for my sound and synth libraries because they're basically read only, and not nearly as stressed and likely to develop problems.

[Bifop]

FWIW, my DAW builder recommended me to use no other brand than Intel SSD's.


Fredo

Intel, Samsung and Crucial are considered reliable now. Then it's a matter of price per gb, better writting speed here, better reading speed there...


http://www.tekhelper.com/ssd-head-to-he ... te-drives/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... 269-6.html

@Brandy : "6TB of storage (when not in raid1) for about 250 EUR". Which brand/model of Nas did you got for that very low price ? DIsks included ?

[Lydiot]

FWIW, my DAW builder recommended me to use no other brand than Intel SSD's.


Fredo

Intel, Samsung and Crucial are considered reliable now. Then it's a matter of price per gb, better writting speed here, better reading speed there...


http://www.tekhelper.com/ssd-head-to-he ... te-drives/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... 269-6.html

@Brandy : "6TB of storage (when not in raid1) for about 250 EUR". Which brand/model of Nas did you got for that very low price ? DIsks included ?

If I may add a website that so far has provided me with really good info it's "TechReport". They have a "scatter plot" that takes performance/$/GB into account which can be really convenient. Check it out:

http://techreport.com/review/23990/sams ... eviewed/10

[Jim Clark]

Hey guys,

I really like the idea of using a SSD as my boot/OS drive. Can I clone my current SATA boot/OS drive to a SSD of the same size?

[Brandy]

Hey guys,

I really like the idea of using a SSD as my boot/OS drive. Can I clone my current SATA boot/OS drive to a SSD of the same size?

Yes, this should work! And: Size does not matter As long as the SSD is large enough. But you have to use disk-image software for that, you can not just copy the files with the explorer.

[Bifop]

If I may add a website that so far has provided me with really good info it's "TechReport". They have a "scatter plot" that takes performance/$/GB into account which can be really convenient. Check it out:

http://techreport.com/review/23990/sams ... eviewed/10

Good info on it indeed ! Thanks Lydiot, bookmark added.

Hey guys,

I really like the idea of using a SSD as my boot/OS drive. Can I clone my current SATA boot/OS drive to a SSD of the same size?

Yes you can. If you're on windows 7, you can create a system image with the included utility under Control Panel/System and Security/BackUp & Restore. You can even clone to a bigger disk, but you'll have to use the disk manager to use the "extra space" (append).

[Brandy]

oh, I was not aware that there is an imagine software in win7?! I am still using Arconis 2009 for that

[Brandy]

oh - something regarding track-count vs disc-speed:

In my experience the pure playback of a higher track count is not really demanding to the storage. Yesterday I connected an USB3 stick with a 7GB project - it opened fast and I was able to work / mix /safe fast and without problems.

Though - on the Laptop the biggest problem - even with i7 and 8GB of ram - was for me the speed of the internal disc - system and data on the same harddrive... made drumediting nasty and slow. Now with the SSD it is not comparable!!

[Bifop]

oh, I was not aware that there is an imagine software in win7?! I am still using Arconis 2009 for that

Yeah Brandy, there are lots of hidden gems in windows 7 & 8. With Diskpart & the disk manager, you can forget acronis or Norton ghost for all cloning/partitions tasks.
I got rid of the antivirus in 8 (defender works quite well).

[Fredo]

http://techreport.com/review/23990/samsung-840-pro-series-ssd-reviewed/10

What's of most interest to me is the failure rate.
Regarding my DAW builder, the failure rate of the Intels (we have the 335 series - 240 GB) is below that of regular mechanical Hard Drives. 3% if I remember correctly.

Fredo

[Jim Clark]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I also did not know there is a built in utility in Win7 for cloning.
I use Acronis to clone my system drive now. Based on your experiences, I'm going to go for it - I'm looking forward to the speed of SSD!

[Antonio Escobar]

Heads up for a SSD as system drive!

My vintage Intel Mac Pro 2006 8-cores feels fastest than my brand new MacBook Air. Everything works smooth and fast, 20 seconds for booting, programs needs 1/5th of time to open. No regrets, so far (3 weeks).

In fact, I'm thinking to sell my firewire work RAID for a SSD, just to avoid noise and speed things up.

[Jim Clark]

Heads up for a SSD as system drive!

My vintage Intel Mac Pro 2006 8-cores feels fastest than my brand new MacBook Air. Everything works smooth and fast, 20 seconds for booting, programs needs 1/5th of time to open. No regrets, so far (3 weeks).

In fact, I'm thinking to sell my firewire work RAID for a SSD, just to avoid noise and speed things up.

Nice!!!

[Jim Clark]

I just wanted to let you guys know I received my 512gb SSD drive yesterday, and was able to clone my system drive without incident. The results are impressive. Boot time is significantly faster, but the main difference for me is all programs launch much more quickly, and there is less "waiting around" in general. I usually upgrade my processor and ram every two years. This year I did not do that, but this one change makes it feel like a new system! Awesome.

[munchkin]

Can I install the solid state hard drive but still keep some of the programs top open from the old hard drive?

Can I keep them both as boot drives so that i can take my time with the transfer of programs and choose one or the other to boot Windows until I have transferred everything??

[Bassman]

I just wanted to let you guys know I received my 512gb SSD drive yesterday, and was able to clone my system drive without incident. The results are impressive. Boot time is significantly faster, but the main difference for me is all programs launch much more quickly, and there is less "waiting around" in general. I usually upgrade my processor and ram every two years. This year I did not do that, but this one change makes it feel like a new system! Awesome.

I'm not a technical specialist in this theme, but I think, I have read somewhere in the Inet, that clone a HDD partition to a SSD drive isn't a good idea, because a SSD has a different data structure compared to HDDs. It's recommended to make a fresh install on a SSD. Therefore I'm still on HDD. Too much work ...

[Antonio Escobar]

That's a non-sense. Think that to use a SSD you don't need any special driver or precaution, you just plug the drive and work with it like any other drive. That's because the logic controller in the drive takes care to translate the SATA commands to its inner hardware structure and behavior, that it's very different of a normal drive.

In fact, there are some minor optimizations for SSD, but it's just to improve (a little bit) the life of the drive, they are not for compatibility.

So you're safe cloning a drive to a SSD, you will be moving data for one drive to another. Let the controllers take care of the logic considerations.

[Jim Clark]

[I'm not a technical specialist in this theme, but I think, I have read somewhere in the Inet, that clone a HDD partition to a SSD drive isn't a good idea, because a SSD has a different data structure compared to HDDs. It's recommended to make a fresh install on a SSD. Therefore I'm still on HDD. Too much work ...

i didn't mind trying to clone my OS drive to SSD, because if it didn't work I would still have my existing drive to use (plus my OTHER cloned backup drive!) Like you, if I had to do a new install, I would not have done it either. It would take too long with all the plugins and authorizations. But it is working great. I think if you try it, you will like it.