Hi,
I have been running a DAW now with an OCZ Agility 3 128Gb SSD, and overall, I am very pleased with its performance. It’s a superb step-up from a standard HD being very quick and responsive. HALion samples, for example, load-up much, much more quickly than with an old 7200 drive.
However, I have a query or five!
- Is there any benefit in having Cubase/HALion/VSTi’s on a different SSD to the OS?
- Does anyone have experience of the Agility 4? Would that be best for my OS, and have my DAW on my Agility 3?
- …Or, Agility 3 for the OS, and Cubase/HALion etc on the Agility 4…
- Does anyone have real experience with the OCZ Vertex 4 or Vector Series? Are these really that much more noticably quicker than my Agility 3 in real-world situations?
- Anyone got two SSDs in a RAID set-up for their OS for supreme performance?
Look forward to any constructive replies!
All the best,
Neil.
Hi Neil ,
I wish I could contribute to your question. I believe 1 year ago when i did this, the issues with ssd raid configurations had to do with ACHI and trim. Subsequently, I simply installed the second SSD as a separate drive . I have read several of your posts and would like to ask if you have experienced any accumulations of other data taking up space on your SSD OS . I run a 64gb SSD for win 7 and another 64 gb SSD for Cubase 7. Running day to day I am getting notices now from the OS about my c:/ not having much more space available.
I am meticulous about keep anything from updating or writing to my c:/ but in the last 6 months or so it went from 20 gb free space to 1gb. It just seems that whenever some updates run they just take the space . I look for other options to assign other locations for these installs but regardless … It’s gotten very full
I am at the point of re- formatting just to try it again and see if I can’t keep it freed up. Any thoughts.
Hi knuckle47,
Interesting post for me to read.
I had my current SSD in an old machine, and with W7, Cubase and HALion, plus a few other programs, I had around 67Gb of free space.
I then built a new PC, and used the same SSD, and after formatting it (was that a mistake - not sure!?!), re-installing W7, Cubase etc, I now have only 61Gb free space. In fact, I haven’t even installed some VSTi’s and other programs, so I reckon I would be down about 58Gb free space compared to my old machine. So basically, I seem to have lost 10Gb somewhere.
I use East Tec Eraser and System Mechanic to keep things tidy, and the East Tec Eraser can clean the free space and file-slack, so I have noticed a build-up of files reducing my free-space like you have seen.
I did read that when re-installing Windows you should never do a FULL format, only a quick-format. Not sure why. I would try a free downloadable program such as CCleaner CCleaner Professional | Try the world’s most trusted PC cleaner, free! to see if it can clean up your problem files that seem to be taking up so much space. I’ve used it a lot too, but just stick to East Tec Eraser at the moment.
Regards,
Neil.
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the suggestion…ran Ccleaner a few minutes ago and recovered over 8gb on the SSD OS drive. That overhead gets me back to updating a few files that …even though they are indicating an install or update on the 2TB drive D, failed to do so because of only 70mb free earlier on C:
Now IF, I can only keep it clear… AL
Hi,
I’m glad that CCleaner seemed to have helped.
Can I also recommend you investigate how the TRIM function for your SSD operates. TRIM tidies-up and deletes files to keep everything working sweetly. Sometimes, you have to log-off from Windows itself, and leave your PC at the log-in screen for it to operate. Other controllers/drives use a wiper.exe program for it to work.
Check out some forums for TRIM and garbage collection for your specific SSD.
Neil.