New SSD drive

donchilcott · 08-04-2015, 08:24 PM

I wasn't sure what sort of performance change I would see... Answer. Almost none. Pretty underwhelming. Machine boots up faster but other than that. Waste of $ unless I'm kissing something. Also, the cloning did not work flawlessly. Now I decided I might as well change motherboard and processor as I will have to reload everything anyway. Not a problem but I thought others contemplating ssd drives might want to know what to expect. As I said, maybe I'm missing something.

g8torcliff · 08-05-2015, 04:00 AM

Believe me, I don't know much about this but I'm in the market for a new drive and have come across some info you may not know about.

It might be your SATA port. It makes a big difference if you have SATA 1, 2 or 3 on your momboard. Your SSD can only run as fast as your SATA port supports with 1 being slowest, 2 next (backward compatible), 3 fastest (backward compatible). A new SSD on a SATA 1 port will only run as fast as the SATA 1 port will allow.

Just sharin'

cliff

Retro Audio Enthusiast · 08-05-2015, 05:26 AM

With an SSD, make sure that the default setting in the BIOS is AHCI not IDE.

serr · 08-05-2015, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donchilcott

I wasn't sure what sort of performance change I would see... Answer. Almost none. Pretty underwhelming. Machine boots up faster but other than that. Waste of $ unless I'm kissing something. Also, the cloning did not work flawlessly. Now I decided I might as well change motherboard and processor as I will have to reload everything anyway. Not a problem but I thought others contemplating ssd drives might want to know what to expect. As I said, maybe I'm missing something.

It depends on what you are doing of course. A Yugo will keep right up with a Lamborghini in a 25mph school zone.

If I'm mixing a small 40 channel or so mix in the studio, I will see zero performance difference between having the audio on a SSD vs. a HDD (ie. nothing is maxing out with the HDD). But if I'm running live sound with a system latency of under 11ms and recording all the multitrack to the drive at the same time, it will not work error free with a 7200rpm HDD. A SSD is required.

After that - just little things.
I'm converting a large DTS 24/96 file to a 5.1 WAV file at present + downloading something + transferring files to my Mac Pro and browsing the internets (including Daily Show watching) is still full speed as though the computer was not doing anything else. That would not be the case with a HDD.

Internet browsing in general is noticeably quicker with all the cache files.

Reaper is still really snappy even with intensive GUI activity with a 200 track mix with HD audio with a SSD.

FYI:
Run a speed test just to make sure something isn't defective.
You didn't get one of those Samsung EVO (non-pro) SSD's that had the defect did you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by g8torcliff

It might be your SATA port. It makes a big difference if you have SATA 1, 2 or 3 on your momboard. Your SSD can only run as fast as your SATA port supports with 1 being slowest, 2 next (backward compatible), 3 fastest (backward compatible). A new SSD on a SATA 1 port will only run as fast as the SATA 1 port will allow.

Just sharin'

cliff

Yep. If you have a pre-2008 machine with SATA1, you will not see transfer speeds increase for large files. You'll still get some benefit from dealing with lots of small files from the much quicker seek time (no mechanical heads to move). (Internet browsing being a good example of this.)

jiff 41 · 08-05-2015, 09:07 AM

[QUOTE=serr;1553829][........
You didn't get one of those Samsung EVO (non-pro) SSD's that had the defect did you?.....]QUOTE]

Which problem?, I'm thinking of getting an SSD & I've been looking @ these very ones!,, Should I give these a swerve? any recommends??

sostenuto · 08-05-2015, 09:47 AM

Mine (SSD)are older and smaller, but help clearly. One of (3) Desktops has Seagate Hybrid 1TB HDD and it improved on standard HDD, but not quite like other (2) SSD systems.

How often do you drive in school zones?? Ha!

Thom B

ivansc · 08-05-2015, 11:14 AM

Don - you got the wrong drive by the sound of it.
I added a Samsung 850 EVO 500gb drive to my lowly i5 laptop and everything got snappier, including the internet.

Just seen your post saying yours is also a 850EVo.

I would suggest you wipe the sucker and do another clone using the samsung utility provided.
Worked perfetcly for me and the new drive really has improved just about everything.

donchilcott · 08-05-2015, 02:18 PM

[QUOTE=jiff 41;1553855]

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

[........
You didn't get one of those Samsung EVO (non-pro) SSD's that had the defect did you?.....]QUOTE]

Which problem?, I'm thinking of getting an SSD & I've been looking @ these very ones!,, Should I give these a swerve? any recommends??

i'LL CHECK , IT IS A SAMSUNG EVO 850 - 256 GIG

Fergler · 08-05-2015, 07:50 PM

For me SSD was the best computer-related purchase, besides a mouse, I've ever made. Computer starts rapidly, yes, but also anything else that requires loading files from the drive - i.e. Reaper projects, large programs such as GIMP or a video editor, and opening files such as music files or large image files is very very snappy.

I take it for granted how fast my machine is with an SSD until I connect my old spinning-disk drive (the one I took out of my laptop and placed in a USB case) and move files to and fro, and then I remember.

My startup time is literally 3 seconds, it takes longer for me to enter my password than it does for my entire computer to be ready to go. I love 2015.

jiff 41 · 08-05-2015, 11:49 PM

So the Samsung 250G evo is OK then?

I've got a 500G HDD now & it has everything I need & more & I'm still only up to 60G that's why I thought a 250G would be enough!

zacki · 08-06-2015, 12:23 AM

I'm having almost no experience with SDDs, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

But if I'm running live sound with a system latency of under 11ms and recording all the multitrack to the drive at the same time, it will not work error free with a 7200rpm HDD. A SSD is required.

I'm running live Sound with SAC and record the Shows in parallel with REAPER. No Problems at all. Audio buffer of my RME RayDAT is set to 64 samples. In SAC I'm using FOH + 10 Monitor consoles with up to 32 Audio channels. No dropped Audio Frames during 5h shows. All Tracks are recorded in FLAC. Everything with conventional HDDs

Softsynth · 08-06-2015, 03:01 AM

As you are using an SSD make sure TRIM is enabled:

http://lifehacker.com/5640971/check-...e-in-windows-7

serr · 08-06-2015, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacki

I'm having almost no experience with SDDs, but...

I'm running live Sound with SAC and record the Shows in parallel with REAPER. No Problems at all. Audio buffer of my RME RayDAT is set to 64 samples. In SAC I'm using FOH + 10 Monitor consoles with up to 32 Audio channels. No dropped Audio Frames during 5h shows. All Tracks are recorded in FLAC. Everything with conventional HDDs

It's because of the Waves plugins I like to use. If I just put up REAplugs for example, I'd be able to run with a 32 sample buffer and an HDD for the recording would likely be fine. (The SSD is not so much about the data stream to the drive either. More about keeping the I/O flowing with absolutely zero need for CPU assistance for any kind of OS buffering whatsoever.)

Basically, if the system runs stable at 11ms or less, I'm good. May as well use some heavier plugins.

Cool to see more Reaper-like products for live work too!

Curious what that system would do if you loaded up your own plugins instead of the stock plugs they give you.

Any reason you're running Reaper as a 2nd app to record instead of just doing it all with SAC?

Anyway, sorry for the digression!

zacki · 08-06-2015, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

Cool to see more Reaper-like products for live work too!

Curious what that system would do if you loaded up your own plugins instead of the stock plugs they give you.

Any reason you're running Reaper as a 2nd app to record instead of just doing it all with SAC?

Anyway, sorry for the digression!

I'm also sorry for being offtopic, but just a few words. SACs built in EQ and dynamics are comparable with ReaEQ and ReaComp soundwise and in efficiency. I'm also using several other VSTs in SAC (three instances of ReverberateLE, Kjaerhus Classic Chorus, TSE-BOD a cool Sans-amp clone...).
SAC is just for live mixing. You can't do multitrack recording. You have to use SAW but that's way too expensive for me, hence REAPER which I love more and more

[/offtopic]

ivansc · 08-07-2015, 12:45 AM

I got a nasty shock when I saw the price for the basic SAC, let alone what Sawstudio is up to these days! GULP!

serr · 08-07-2015, 06:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivansc

I got a nasty shock when I saw the price for the basic SAC, let alone what Sawstudio is up to these days! GULP!

Good grief! And it can't even record?!
Ha! Reaper still wins for live sound production.

Since you have to run Reaper anyway to catch the multitrack recording, why not just mix with Reaper too and have more processing power available all for Reaper?