solid state hard drives

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-head-test-crucial-m4-vs-intel-330-vs-sasmung-830-solid-state-drives/

@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/samsung-840-pro-series-ssd-reviewed/10

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 :slight_smile: 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.

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

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).

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

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!!

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).

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

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!

Heads up for a SSD as system drive! :nerd:

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!!!

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.

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??

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 …

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.

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.

I cloned my W7-64 Boot HD to SSD and its been running for over a year without issues. I also cloned a larger drive to a smaller SSD (larger in capacity but the data fit on the smaller drive); the only free software that allowed you to do that at the time was a free cloning utility from EASEUS. Does the Windows 7 disk utility allow you to do that?

BTW, I was thinking lately that at the price SSD costs new, you could start using an SSD per project. Compared to how much 2" 24-track tape used to cost, it’s comparable. The question is how well an SSD can retain data over the long term for archive purposes. But it would be a handy way to work and archive.

IMO, do not touch a running system. Therefore I think, SSD will come in my next DAW. And regarding “slow” speed of HDD, I have learn to live slowly in this hectic world ;o)

I agree. I have cloned many many HDD’s to SSD’s with no problems. However, if you are running Mac Lion or Mountain Lion, you will also want to clone your “recovery partition” as well. Doing this is easy with “Carbon Copy Cloner” (“Disk Center”). There are other, more complicated ways of doing it, but that is the easiest by far.

Another benefit of cloning is that it actually results in a completely defragmented drive, without having to do a reinstall.

As far as drive brands, there were problems with Intel 320 series:

This has been fixed with firmware updates, but not sure if the firmware updaters run on Mac. This is a common issue - firmware updaters requiring PC’s to run.