Old 05-11-2021, 07:42 AM   #1
DrGed
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Default A couple of questions

1) The hard drive on my PC is just standard SATA and I was wondering if replacing it with a SSD would improve the latency in Reaper.

3) My digital interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. The output from it goes into a stereo power amp and then to two studio reference monitors* which are too big for the desk I have. Given that I live in the UK, can anyone please recommend a pair of speakers of a reasonable size that that can take their input directly from the digital interface?

* each one is 25cm x 33cm x 65cm

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Old 05-11-2021, 08:10 AM   #2
DVDdoug
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Quote:
1) The hard drive on my PC is just standard SATA and I was wondering if replacing it with a SSD would improve the latency in Reaper.
No. At least not "directly". The monitoring path doesn't go through the hard-drive.

There is a slight-chance that the hard drive is a bottleneck so faster drive might allow you to get-by with a smaller buffer (lower latency) but I'd say that's unlikely.

...Your Scarlett has a "direct monitor" button which should give you zero-latency monitoring.
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Old 05-11-2021, 08:20 AM   #3
serr
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Your connected storage doesn't directly affect latency. The base latency of your interface + the block size is your system latency. The lowest you can set that without getting dropouts is the bottom line there. However, the performance improvement in the system as a whole could easily lead to being able to use a lower latency setting that would have been unstable and led to dropouts before.

The SSD is the biggest computer related performance upgrade in the last 10 years while everything else has kind of plateaued. It will be a performance upgrade in general. OS and apps on the SSD. The free space left is your high performance workspace.

Back in 2009 I was using a C2D machine to run live sound using Reaper. Having a SSD made the difference between being able to record the source multitrack or not while running live. Today, maybe a faster CPU than was available then with a slower drive would also work? Hard to argue against a SSD though, I think. Frees up your CPU from managing a slow hard drive.

FYI
The SATA connected SSDs improve disk read/write by magnitudes over the HDD. The NVME pci connected "blade" SSDs are another level beyond that are really only relevant for stuff like working with raw 4k video. Don't fall for the gaslighting where people are talking about SATA SSDs like they're slow!
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Old 05-11-2021, 10:57 AM   #4
DrGed
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Many Thanks, DVDdoug and serr!

I appreciate your help.
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