SSD for an audio drive?

[Matt-Steele]

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.

Hey Ermz,

Honestly I think you'll be fine with a few Samsung Evo's. Coming from traditional storage, it'll be plenty fast for you. In time when prices come down you can always think about upgrading, especially that processor. I'm running two 500GB Samsung EVO's myself and they are plenty fast for me and fairly inexpensive for what you're getting.

 

[Ermz]

I'm thinking a regular SSD should be fine for the audio drive. I can't imagine the read rate needing to be insanely high unless my track counts go up to like 600, at which point I'd have long since committed suicide anyway.

I've decided on the X99-A board. I don't really need any of the features offered by the higher models.

 

[Astrikos]

Is ssd raid usefull for audio?

 

[Torniojaws]

Just a quick comment about SSD lifetime. I've had my 80GB Intel X25-M G2 since May 2010, and it's still going strong.

 

[kaomao]

instead of seate I'd buy a WD (western digital) costs more but is way more reliable, at least that's my experience

 

[Melodeath]

instead of seate I'd buy a WD (western digital) costs more but is way more reliable, at least that's my experience

I have had the exact opposite experience. All my Seagate drives have been fine, and the one WD I owned started having issues right after the warranty expired. However, I know a bunch of Seagate 3TB drives had major issues a year or two ago.

 

[fremen]

So Ermz, how's your computer working after many months ? Curious because I have the same processor, and two SSD drives, one for system and one for drums and synths librairies (both Samsung EVO). I still record on conventional hard disks but I consider shifting to SSD for that as well.

 

[Ermz]

It's working great. No complaints so far.

 

[ArsMemoria]

Ermz, what capacity did you go for? Wondering what a good size would be for an audio drive run on an SSD instead of getting a 2TB+ platter drive which would seem like the better idea.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Ermz, what capacity did you go for? Wondering what a good size would be for an audio drive run on an SSD instead of getting a 2TB+ platter drive which would seem like the better idea.

I ended up going with a 1TB HDD for old projects/sample libraries/games/PDFs and mp3s and a 250GB SSD for active projects, the OS, and plugins. If you have an actual studio you might need more, but it's working great for me so far. Already transferred my active projects from my laptop and my SSD has plenty of space. Should gain more when I upgrade since Windows 10's footprint is smaller too.

 

[JeffTD]

Should gain more when I upgrade since Windows 10's footprint is smaller too.

Playing fast and loose with the word 'upgrade' are we?

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Playing fast and loose with the word 'upgrade' are we?

I'm waiting until the bugs are ironed out. So 2019 probably.

 

[ArsMemoria]

I ended up going with a 1TB HDD for old projects/sample libraries/games/PDFs and mp3s and a 250GB SSD for active projects, the OS, and plugins. If you have an actual studio you might need more, but it's working great for me so far. Already transferred my active projects from my laptop and my SSD has plenty of space. Should gain more when I upgrade since Windows 10's footprint is smaller too.

That's the same thing I'm doing with my rMBP at the moment since it has the SSD built-in, just without the backup drive for old projects, samples, etc.

 

[JeffTD]

I'd still recommend and honestly believe that you'd get a performance boost by running one SSD for your OS, plugins, and programs, and another separate, entirely different SSD for active sessions. Running everything off one drive is still not ideal, even on an SSD.

 

[Ermz]

Ermz, what capacity did you go for? Wondering what a good size would be for an audio drive run on an SSD instead of getting a 2TB+ platter drive which would seem like the better idea.

With the cost of SSDs at present you're not going to be able to get one to both run active sessions and archive them. I've got a 250GB Samsung EVO for active sessions, and a 4TB RAID1 array for important storage and session archives.