Okay, question about SSDs and interfacing guys. Is there any significant difference between a standard SSD drive and one for the m.2 format? Does m.2 offer any significant throughput advantages?
SSD for an audio drive?
- Thread starter Ermz
- Start date
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Not to worry - I have been super baked for most of my builds and they've all worked fine.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...e-interface-that-will-speed-up-your-next-ssd/
The TL;DR is that the current SATA interface is slower than the SSD's themselves, so the bottleneck has shifted to the bus rather than the drive. Practicality in audio? I don't think you'd see a huge jump, but you'd notice it a bit in moving/copy/compressing files in Explorer, for instance.
It would be an advantage but not one I'm sure you'd really appreciate vs the cost/headache associated with getting drives + a mobo that can take the format.
Yes; having your session on a separate drive from the OS improves your performance on platter-drives, too; not putting extra stress on your OS drive from running session files is a good thing.
I've been researching around and it seems the mid to high end ASUS boards all offer two x4 m.2 ports. That should work perfectly between the audio and system drives. I figure it should provide some level of future-proofing, as SSDs are only set to get faster, and you don't want to be limited by an outdated bus, 3 years from now. Currently have my eye on the ASUS X99-Pro, unless something manages to sway me to pay up for the more feature-rich X99-Deluxe. So far it mostly just seems to be a shuffling of extra ports here and there, extras like wi-fi, diagnostic LEDs, and in particular the layout of the PCI-E x16 slots seems to be a huge issue for the gamer nerds, because the x99 chipset makes it difficult to get their precious Tri-SLI setups going due to limited PCI-e lanes (Christ, I used to think two GPUs were excessive).
On the upside it seems that ASUS have a fantastic auto OC feature on their AI Suite software, so I won't need to worry about trawling message boards and hastily-scribbled guides on how to fry your rig most efficiently. How far we've come.
On the upside it seems that ASUS have a fantastic auto OC feature on their AI Suite software, so I won't need to worry about trawling message boards and hastily-scribbled guides on how to fry your rig most efficiently. How far we've come.
Matt-Steele
Member
Hey Ermz, I used to run a HP Workstation with two quad core Xeon processors before Haswell. The new Haswell processors are faster and more efficient in every way. Expect better performance across the board especially if you're overclocking. Just make sure to get the good hardware to support the overclock. I was using this rig with firewire with my Apollo until it was made clear that UAD were going to primarily be supporting MAC and Thunderbolt connectivity only when console 2.0 arrived. The 5960X is a beast and ate everything I threw at it for breakfast with zero issues, but then again, the sessions I'm working with are not as nearly track intensive as yours, so I'm sorry to say I just don't have that kind of experience of 100+ track sessions. I've since made the switch over to a 5K retina IMac for my Apollo with Thunderbolt 2 for tracking. I use my 5960X for everything else I do. Thunderbolt 2 might be a serious sticking point for you as well in the future?
Much better choices IMHO. I contemplated the Delux vs the Extreme myself when doing my build.
AI Suite is pretty cool and yes, when I first built my machine, I used it to OC my processor to a stable 4.4ghz. Beyand that, you'll have to do it manually though. I think they have two speeds available, 4.2 and 4.4. That's it. But manually overclocking your processor shouldn't be that difficult. It's just the lottery of your chip if it can support it or not.
Be warned about the AI Suite though, my Z87/4770K system with MAXIMUS VI FORMULA mobo forces me to completely reinstall the OS if I attempt to auto OC with it. It works flawlessly with my X99 system tho.
Again, good luck!
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Jesus, shit has really changed in a year since I was last researching this. Am I going to have to do another build soon? 
If m.2 is available on mobo's at a decent speed... do it. The system drive in my MBP is on that and it's snappy as fuck.
If m.2 is available on mobo's at a decent speed... do it. The system drive in my MBP is on that and it's snappy as fuck.
bryan_kilco
Member
I don't have much to offer except that my 128GB SSD was definitely a game changer. Though I wish I'd gone a bit bigger.
I only have my OS and Reaper on it, and I think 1 video game. Recently she's been filling up (like 10GB free =/) and I also recently installed GTA V on the HDD. Wellllll........the install managed to sneak a little folder under the SSD "Libraries" directory and I'm not certain I can just move that over to the HDD without causing problems with the game. =/
I only have my OS and Reaper on it, and I think 1 video game. Recently she's been filling up (like 10GB free =/) and I also recently installed GTA V on the HDD. Wellllll........the install managed to sneak a little folder under the SSD "Libraries" directory and I'm not certain I can just move that over to the HDD without causing problems with the game. =/
I have that issue with steam...i need to sort out where all my games go and put em all on the 2nd ssd I just got. I'm down to 40 gigs left out of 240 on my OS drive and performance suffers when you fill ssds up too much.
Matt-Steele
Member
Jesus, shit has really changed in a year since I was last researching this. Am I going to have to do another build soon?
If m.2 is available on mobo's at a decent speed... do it. The system drive in my MBP is on that and it's snappy as fuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLqL2g13V-U&index=3&list=FLWFtm33tO-A4hiVHbaY9X-g
Once GTA V came in at 60GB, I knew there was no way in hell anything less than 512GB on a system drive would cut it going into the future. It's only going to get worse from here, haha. I've topped up my present 512GB system drive, but that's because I have a dual installation of windows and some excess games floating around. Thinking I'll drop the dual installation this time around - it was just too much of a pain in the ass maintaining two separate OS, and frankly I didn't really notice any stability increases.
Thanks for the low-down, Matt. Haven't looked much into Thunderbolt 2, so not really sure what its utility for audio is. Thinking the x99-Deluxe might be the better option just to play it safe with features down the track.
Thanks for the low-down, Matt. Haven't looked much into Thunderbolt 2, so not really sure what its utility for audio is. Thinking the x99-Deluxe might be the better option just to play it safe with features down the track.
Oh, before I forget! This is the case I own, and will be building the system into: http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=242
Will I need any sort of conversion brackets to fit the new SSDs into the existing drive bays?
Will I need any sort of conversion brackets to fit the new SSDs into the existing drive bays?
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
Most drive bays these days have holes pre-drilled for 2.5" drives in addition to standard platter-sized drives; I don't think you'll run into any issues.
Matt-Steele
Member
Sadly, it appears EVERYTHING is going Thunderbolt. Just take a look at any of the new interfaces coming out. I just loved seeing some of the interfaces stating, "need legacy Firewire support?". Very bottom of this page - http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/828x UGH! Us PC users are being forgotten quickly when it comes to audio recording. The brand new Apollos are totally Mac only. No PC support what so ever. http://www.uaudio.com/apollo
I'd check your case out for any SSD drive support. If the case doesn't support them, I'd pick a few up. They are cheap.
bryan_kilco
Member
Yep. I was confused at first and thought I had to get a bracket but then noticed the holes pre-drilled to mount an SSD.
Pedro Teixeira
Member
Jeff how long have you had your SSDs? I keep reading that SSDs die off "relatively" quickly as opposed to their mechanical counterparts : l
bryan_kilco
Member
I'm not Jeff, but I've owned my 128GB SSD for about 2 years now. Apparently there are software tools available to let you check the life of your SSD.
According to some of the stuff I just read, most current/modern SSDs should last a fairly long time and people "shouldn't worry". Not sure how true this holds in general, but I've also seen a few people say 1-2 years for an SSD. Now I'm a bit worried......
According to some of the stuff I just read, most current/modern SSDs should last a fairly long time and people "shouldn't worry". Not sure how true this holds in general, but I've also seen a few people say 1-2 years for an SSD. Now I'm a bit worried......
ForHerDeadEyes
Señor Member
No worries: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...w-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/3
You can write A LOT to SSDs and they don't die like drives when you've worn them out, the data becomes read-only, but at that point you need a new drive..
You can write A LOT to SSDs and they don't die like drives when you've worn them out, the data becomes read-only, but at that point you need a new drive..
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
I am Jeff, and I've had a couple for staggered length; oldest is 2 yrs (running strong!) and newest is 2 weeks - it's currently waiting for Yosemite to be installed a manner that works on my Hackintosh build, but it works, too.
I've not experienced any practical limitations to the read/write span; IMO the SATA bus will be obsolete before the drives themselves die (m.2 is being discussed in this thread which proves my point).
That said, real world use usually projects 5-10 years of SSD life from what I've seen, which speaks to my previous point re: obsoletion.
I've not experienced any practical limitations to the read/write span; IMO the SATA bus will be obsolete before the drives themselves die (m.2 is being discussed in this thread which proves my point).
That said, real world use usually projects 5-10 years of SSD life from what I've seen, which speaks to my previous point re: obsoletion.
Melodeath
Moonbow
What about USB-C? I've seen people speculate that Thunderbolt is going to die off quickly and will be replaced by USB-C. The logic was some sort of European law basically mandating adoption of USB-C for everything. I'm not "in the know" enough on this subject to know if any of it is true/accurate.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
USB C isn't widely available enough, let alone available at all on any pro-level machines, to be that much of a concern. Companies have only just started to fully get into Thunderbolt, and USB3 is stupid fast/still backwards compatible without an adapter. You may see computers move to using USB C, but you'll still be able to use an adapter into that to get USB/FW/TB/Ethernet/etc.
My RayDAT is PCI-e x4....
PS. Everyone is jumping ship from ADAT, thankfully. I could barely source an LT-ADAT card for my Lynx Aurora. What's the point of having a converter there, to brag about it having been owned by Forrester Savell, unless you can actually pass signal through the bastard as well!?
The guys I'm talking to about the bulk of this build are having a bit of a disagreement. It seems x4 m.2 compatible SSDs are still quite dear, and potentially not worth the cost. It's a good port to have on the MoBo for future proofing, but at the moment seems unnecessarily expensive to fill. So I'm wondering whether to go for the Samsung EVO 850 drives, or Intel 520. Both will be limited by the Sata 3 port, from what I gather.
Also, I've heard that trying to run two WD Green drives in RAID 1 is silly. Apparently the Red Pro drives are the go. Any thoughts?
Still tossing up between X99-Pro and X99-Deluxe, and trying to find the right ram for the build.
PS. Everyone is jumping ship from ADAT, thankfully. I could barely source an LT-ADAT card for my Lynx Aurora. What's the point of having a converter there, to brag about it having been owned by Forrester Savell, unless you can actually pass signal through the bastard as well!?
The guys I'm talking to about the bulk of this build are having a bit of a disagreement. It seems x4 m.2 compatible SSDs are still quite dear, and potentially not worth the cost. It's a good port to have on the MoBo for future proofing, but at the moment seems unnecessarily expensive to fill. So I'm wondering whether to go for the Samsung EVO 850 drives, or Intel 520. Both will be limited by the Sata 3 port, from what I gather.
Also, I've heard that trying to run two WD Green drives in RAID 1 is silly. Apparently the Red Pro drives are the go. Any thoughts?
Still tossing up between X99-Pro and X99-Deluxe, and trying to find the right ram for the build.
