Single SSD drive for boot and audio?

[buenavista]

With the advent of ssd and all its technical characteristics that I know nothing about, do the same reasons for having two hard drives still exist as with spinning drives?

For the sole purpose of quieter operation I'm going to SSD. But just wondering if there are any performance characteristics of SSD where it makes sense to just get one drive and make a separate partition for audio.

[emwhy]

SSDs have a finite amount of times you can write to them vs. an old fashioned hard drive. So while it will be quieter and quicker, you're shortening the lifespan of the drive if you use it for audio. Best to put your OS and programs (and sample libraries if you have those) on the SSD and use a regular drive for recording.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by emwhy

SSDs have a finite amount of times you can write to them vs. an old fashioned hard drive. So while it will be quieter and quicker, you're shortening the lifespan of the drive if you use it for audio. Best to put your OS and programs (and sample libraries if you have those) on the SSD and use a regular drive for recording.

Once you factor in mechanical failures, SSD's will typically outlive HDD's.

Originally Posted by buenavista

But just wondering if there are any performance characteristics of SSD where it makes sense to just get one drive and make a separate partition for audio.

Partitions are a waste of time, they will just slow down disc access. Whether you need separate drives comes down to the number of simultaneous tracks you will be recording.

[Reason]

Originally Posted by emwhy

SSDs have a finite amount of times you can write to them vs. an old fashioned hard drive. So while it will be quieter and quicker, you're shortening the lifespan of the drive if you use it for audio. Best to put your OS and programs (and sample libraries if you have those) on the SSD and use a regular drive for recording.

https://techreport.com/review/27909/...heyre-all-dead
The first problems showed at 300TB worth of writes. To put that in perspective, if you had a 1TB SSD and you completely overwrote it once a day, every day, starting January 1, those errors would show up on October 27. That particular drive failed between 800 and 900 TB of writes; the longest lasting drive failed at around 2.5PB.

Does it shorten its life? Yes. But if you're writing so much data that this will affect your usage, you should already have a viable backup plan in place, tested, and usable.

You have to weight the cumulative time you lose using spinning drives vs the potential time you lose if your SSD fails prematurely. I'm of the opinion that it's a bigger risk to waste time now.

[serr]

Originally Posted by buenavista

With the advent of ssd and all its technical characteristics that I know nothing about, do the same reasons for having two hard drives still exist as with spinning drives?

For the sole purpose of quieter operation I'm going to SSD. But just wondering if there are any performance characteristics of SSD where it makes sense to just get one drive and make a separate partition for audio.

Short answer: no.

Adding a HDD to the mix (with a SSD) would only decrease system performance for anything using it.
Adding a 2nd SSD would mostly be a moot point.

If you have a large sample library that needs to live on a 2nd SSD and is run directly from the drive (not loaded into ram), there might be some merit to discussing a 2nd SSD. In most cases it would not be a performance increase whatsoever.


The claim that suggests HDD's were long lasting or not a consumable compared to SSD's is completely false. HDD's are very much consumables in that they wear out and fail from normal use. SSD's are also a consumable technology but will be longer lived in general vs the mechanical HDD.


All hard drive storage devices are consumables. We handle this by making multiple copies.

[Skijumptoes]

A lot of all this talk of separate drives, partitions and life cycles is unfounded conjecture. I've seen machines running 5400RPM drives without problems capturing multiple sources at live events, for example. It's funny to think that even though technology has moved so much most people are still working to 44/48k and 16/24 bit files. So disk access, really has by far out-performed requirements for the masses.

What i will say is that unless you're spooling ALOT of data from the drives, we're talking massive projects, sample libraries or very high sample rate files that don't load up into RAM then you would still be fine running from a single 5200RPM internal HDD for small projects and single 7200RPM internal HDD for larger ones.

So factor in that SSD is such an improvement to both of those, so of course you'll be fine. And as above, partition does nothing than offer you an area of the drive which can remain if you want to format the main, or keep one encrypted and the other not. It's not a performance tweak that's for sure!

In regards to running a single SSD, You'll hit other bottlenecks before the SATA bus is the problem. What is that like 500MB/Sec or something? I think it's beyond that now. But at 500MB/Sec That's over 35 minutes of 44k/24 Bit waveform data that could in theory be transferred in a Second i.e. >2000 (35*60) audio tracks.

Theory doesn't reflect actuality of course, but even if you're using 25% of that bus it's still 'in theory' good for 500 tracks simultaneously on a single bus. I think most SSD's are capable of hitting 125MB/sec in their sleep, more likely to be around 200MB/sec reliably.

The only thing that could rock the boat is if you had an application where the drive was having to find many different small files, as it takes more time to seek a file than it does to read it. Not sure under what conditions that would occur though. Nor do i know how Reaper handles projects if you threw a load of small wave files one after the other.

[Philbo King]

For SSDs using partitions won't make sense. Each memory cell of an SSD is good for a finite number of writes. To extend the life of the drive, the low level firmware distributes writes all over the drive to avoid reusing the same cell as long as possible. The inplications of this are that a drive or partition that is nearly full will have a much shorter usable life than one with ample free space, since there are many fewer places to choose from when doing a write. Additionally, a large SSD will have a much longer life than a small one, for the same reasons.

The practical implications for audio depend on how the drive is used. For mostly-read-only applications an SSD is ideal. That would be things like the boot drive, sample libraries, and long term and infrequent backup. It has much faster access time and is typically bottlenecked only by the speed of the SATA interface.

For applications that write frequently or constantly, a shorter life span is predictable. Especially when that data is rarely erased, leaving less free space for those distributed writes.

[EvilDragon]

Actually, AFAIK writing itself doesn't reduce the life of the drive, but write-delete cycles per cell.

[buenavista]

Just a little background on my setup I should have mentioned in first post--x58 board with sata 2. 24gb memory. 90% of what I do is recorded audio. The other 10% midi triggered samples. No live situations. Just a simple project studio. I'm leaning towards a single drive, just from an affordability standpoint. Thanks all for the replies.

[msundh]

As I see it, to have the OS on a separate drive is to prefer regardless of technology.
Clone your os drive and backup your library and song the normal way.

[Skijumptoes]

Originally Posted by Philbo King

For applications that write frequently or constantly, a shorter life span is predictable. Especially when that data is rarely erased, leaving less free space for those distributed writes.

Thing is, we're not going to know for sure for many years yet as to the real world chances of losing data on SSD's vs HDD's. I've read in the past that an SSD has approx max of 10 years of being reliable if data is stored and archived hence why many of the better drives max out with 10 yr warranty.

I've also read reports of SSD's tested and capable of writing between 700TB and 2 petabytes (2 million GB) data before failing, so when saying that their shorter lifespan is predictable, i think that needs to be quantified with some kind of facts as to what is predicted or else we're not being sensible. Also, the read from an SSD is causing no ill effects whatsoever whereas a moving parts drive is having to work, generating wear and tear and heat.

So really, i think people are just being silly over-cautious when warning of SSD's failures, as most of us would be replacing a drive with a larger one anyway between 5-10 yr period. I am FAR less comfortable with a moving parts drive in my machine for reliable data retention, particularly in summer months or if we have storms/electrical issues. That dreaded clunk from a HDD is the stuff of nightmares when you're mid-work.

Personally i think SSD's win out in terms of failures over HDD's, and that echoes my experience personally and professionally. I honestly can't think of a single SSD failure for about 7-8 years that i've been using or servicing machines with them in. Whereas spinning HDD's failures are into double figures easily over that same period, and that includes two drives personally that i've had in our family iMac (Ran hot two subsequent summers and cooked itself i think, since SSD installed it's been much better in terms of performance and cooling).

[msundh]

I also prefer SSD over HD, but when a SSD fails, all is lost. When a HD fails, it generally fails sector by sector, making able to recover parts of the data.
That'sthe most important info to know.

[SonicAxiom]

Originally Posted by buenavista

With the advent of ssd and all its technical characteristics that I know nothing about, do the same reasons for having two hard drives still exist as with spinning drives?

For the sole purpose of quieter operation I'm going to SSD. But just wondering if there are any performance characteristics of SSD where it makes sense to just get one drive and make a separate partition for audio.

it's very highly recommended to store all personal data like image files, videos, docs, emails, audio files, project data, project media, etc. on a separate partition or physical drive than the operating system - regardless of the type of hard drive used! System failures usually happen on the operating system's partition, putting any data stored there on risk. Other partitions are hardly ever touched by OS failures so data is relatively safe there.

SSDs may speed up boot time and maybe also program launches but how often are you booting your computer per day? I'm booting my computer once a day. I'd be gaining 40 sec. per day by using an SSD boot drive. In my opinion, it makes much more sense to use SSDs for storing samples and big VST sound libraries. By this, you will benefit of the quick access times the whole day through and not only once during boot time.

.

[Juan D'Fall]

I have a small SSD for my system and as little else as possible and a bigger one for data. It's just how I like to organise my system. It makes backups easier (for me). Although it's a moot point now with modern SSDs with no moving parts. One large drive should be fine, the seek time is the same no matter where in the disk your data is. Seek time (the time it takes a drive to find your data) was one of the original reasons behind using different drives with mechanical ones. I don't think service life is of any concern these days for the normal user. I used to have no end of drives and drive controllers failing in the old days. The golden rule really is do regular full backups of your entire system (image for your system drive), it will be easy to put it back together if any drive falls over or you just want to upgrade one. And maybe get the biggest one you can afford, they're getting bigger, better and cheaper as time goes on.
Jim

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by SonicAxiom

it's very highly recommended to store all personal data like image files, videos, docs, emails, audio files, project data, project media, etc. on a separate partition or physical drive than the operating system - regardless of the type of hard drive used! System failures usually happen on the operating system's partition, putting any data stored there on risk. Other partitions are hardly ever touched by OS failures so data is relatively safe there.

Of course mechanical failures can screw up any partition regardless. So it's actually better to spread things out to multiple drives, rather than multiple partitions.

[SonicAxiom]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Of course mechanical failures can screw up any partition regardless. So it's actually better to spread things out to multiple drives, rather than multiple partitions.

absolutely, if more than one physical drive is available!

The scandal is that 99% of the pre-configured Windows computers are sold with a single hard drive which is configured to make only one gigantic C:\ partition available to the user but also holds a no. of hidden system partitions which renders the creation of even a single additional user data partition virtually impossible.

Best way to overcome this is to make an image of the C:\ partition, then delete all partitions, re-partition the entire hard drive to taste using an app like Partition Wizard and finally restore the system image into the resized C:\ drive. All this should not be done by a unexperienced user, though!

.

[serr]

"Pre-configured" computers...

When you get a new or used computer, wipe and reformat any and all hard drives and install any OS yourself. No exceptions! You're just asking for trouble trusting ANYTHING someone else did. From the sounds of it, this is even more important with a brand new machine right from the store.

Don't take that shortcut and just start using a machine someone else loaded up. Just don't.

Note that you can make backup clones along the way as you successfully install things. Saves you redoing things if something goes wrong along the way.

[Philbo King]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Actually, AFAIK writing itself doesn't reduce the life of the drive, but write-delete cycles per cell.

If the chip is empty when it holds all ones, then the only time a delete would need to happen is when the bit to be written is a zero. Or vice versa. If you assume statistically that half the bits in a block of data will be zeros, then that will simply double the life of the drive, as compared deleting all data before every write.

Frankly I don't know which method is commonly used. Internally reading each bit before every write to determine whether a delete is needed would certainly be smarter. I suppose it might possibly take longer too.

[drumphil]

These days nearly all my computers just have a single SSD, and if I can't store as much as I need I either get a bigger SSD, or move the files off the computer on to my file server, depending on whether the files really need to live locally on that computer or if it's just old stuff that I'm not working on any more.

About the only exception is computers holding stuff that is really critical where I might have two SSD's in a mirrored raid configuration.

For audio work, modern SSD's are barely breaking a sweat. Unless you're doing some serious HD video work, I can't see the point of running multiple SSD's for reasons other than needing more space than you can get with one SSD.

[serr]

This business with just a single M.2 SSD slot and everything shaved down with no room for anything else in the laptop. I was looking forward to upgrading laptops as soon as I saw a new Apple machine with 2 M.2 slots. Still waiting... Meanwhile they're selling these machines with the glass screen shield removed and a single M.2 SSD soldered to the logic board. They even removed the charger port from the cheaper model and make you charge it through a USB port. BS cheap laptops nowadays. The pro machines from a few years ago are becoming valuable and you can only buy them on the used market now.

I still like the SSD + HDD combo in a laptop. Pull the optical drive and put the HDD there instead. The Mac Pro is full of drives.

[buenavista]

Originally Posted by SonicAxiom

it's very highly recommended to store all personal data like image files, videos, docs, emails, audio files, project data, project media, etc. on a separate partition or physical drive than the operating system - regardless of the type of hard drive used! System failures usually happen on the operating system's partition, putting any data stored there on risk. Other partitions are hardly ever touched by OS failures so data is relatively safe there. .

If there is failure or corruption in the OS, how does that affect non-OS data on the same partition? I mean, if the system failed to boot due to corrupt OS (as opposed to failed drive) couldn't you just connect the drive to another computer to retrieve non-OS data?

[drumphil]

I was kinda thinking about the same thing. I think it might also have to do with a small glitch in a video file not making it unwatchable, vs a small glitch in a critical operating system file causing obvious crashing.

Errors in active OS files and applications are probably going to have more un-ignorable consequences than errors in media files, or long term storage that is rarely accessed.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by SonicAxiom

System failures usually happen on the operating system's partition

Ya don't say? Since the "system" partition just happens to be where the system lives. Coincidence? There isn't much additional risk because of that, it's just the convenience of installing a new OS and the user files conveniently being on an existing drive. I do keep mine on another drive on one machine but it was originally to save space because that OS drive was only 180 GB. One could make an argument that the system drive's constant use compared to other drives would inch it closer to it's MTBF.

Even if on another drive, NTFS is likely going to require you to retake permissions anyway, or at minimum remove the old ones the new OS is going to be oblivious too. That's easy to see, the permissions on the files from the previous OS will show up as unresolved SIDs instead of user names.

If there is failure or corruption in the OS, how does that affect non-OS data on the same partition?

It doesn't, see above.

Thing is, we're not going to know for sure for many years yet as to the real world chances of losing data on SSD's vs HDD's.

I have all I need to know, I have a number SSDs with OS running on them for 6-7 years now with as good or better a track record than non-SSD. I'm willing to call this a non-issue at this point.

[Skijumptoes]

Originally Posted by buenavista

If there is failure or corruption in the OS, how does that affect non-OS data on the same partition? I mean, if the system failed to boot due to corrupt OS (as opposed to failed drive) couldn't you just connect the drive to another computer to retrieve non-OS data?

I think they were implying that a 'system' failure is more likely to happen on the drive with the OS installed. I think the term 'system' was used in relation to hardware, not software. i.e. a physical failure.

But yea, i had the same question in my mind when reading that post, and kinda filled in the gaps as so.

[SonicAxiom]

Originally Posted by buenavista

If there is failure or corruption in the OS, how does that affect non-OS data on the same partition? I mean, if the system failed to boot due to corrupt OS (as opposed to failed drive) couldn't you just connect the drive to another computer to retrieve non-OS data?

Sure, this is what you are going to do. But saving all personal documents etc. on a different partition than that of the operating system in the first place doesn't require the annoying effort to remove the hard drive, connect it to another computer and try to manually backup all personal files and folders from the OS's partition. You may easily forget to backup valuable files because you need to remember everything valuable and its respective storing locations yourself.

If you keep the personal docs etc. on another partition right from the start, you only need to boot the defective computer (I'm talking about a Windows pc here) into a rescue environment like Macrium Reflect Free of AOMEI Backupper and restore a perfectly functioning system image that you had hopefully created earlier. C:\ drive will simply be overwritten without worrying if any valuable data could also get overwritten and lost forever at the same time.

.

[cutnpaste]

Originally Posted by buenavista

With the advent of ssd and all its technical characteristics that I know nothing about, do the same reasons for having two hard drives still exist as with spinning drives?

For the sole purpose of quieter operation I'm going to SSD. But just wondering if there are any performance characteristics of SSD where it makes sense to just get one drive and make a separate partition for audio.

I wouldn't worry about this just use the ssd for two years and replace with a new one, they are very inexpensive.

[sickamorz]

Originally Posted by cutnpaste

I wouldn't worry about this just use the ssd for two years and replace with a new one, they are very inexpensive.

I have to agree.

[serr]

Originally Posted by cutnpaste

I wouldn't worry about this just use the ssd for two years and replace with a new one, they are very inexpensive.

What if my 9 year old SSD is still happy and healthy?

[lolilol1975]

Originally Posted by cutnpaste

I wouldn't worry about this just use the ssd for two years and replace with a new one, they are very inexpensive.

Look for the TBW characteristic.
TBW = Total Bytes Written = the number of bytes written the maker guarantees before failure. For consumer SSDs, it's usually in the hundreds of TB. This means you write the equivalent of several hundred times the full disk before you start to have failed cells. BTW, failed cells are like bad sectors on spinning disks. The controller detects them and just marks them as no longer usable.

For professional/server usage, the TBW is often in the thousands of TB. These SSD usually cost in the $500-600 range for 1TB, or above $1,000 for 2TB. These ones are only useful if you rewrite lots and lots of data (think database application backing a commercial website for instance).
This isn't the typical audio usage, where audio files will usually be written only once. Audio editing will create dozens of new files, but before you reach hundreds of TB, you'll need to edit like crazy. I wouldn't worry about it as this should easily last 10 years for most people. Your SSD will likely be full before losing one bit due to cell wear. But still, if you do, go for a pro range SSD, with a TBW > 2,000 TB.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I have all I need to know, I have a number SSDs with OS running on them for 6-7 years now with as good or better a track record than non-SSD. I'm willing to call this a non-issue at this point.

Have you done much deleting on them Karbo?

Also is there any way to check for bad cells?

I've got 3 SSD drives now and I've been pretty careful to not delete unless it's absolutely necessary.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Tod

Have you done much deleting on them Karbo?

Also is there any way to check for bad cells?

I've got 3 SSD drives now and I've been pretty careful to not delete unless it's absolutely necessary.

Hi Tod,

It hasn't been a concern really. It's my main OS drive which gets a lot of daily activity and I treat it as I would an HDD type drive. I really wouldn't worry about how you use it, use it as you normally would as it's designed to be used.

Keep backups like you always have and you should be good. I've had plenty of HDDs fail sooner and SSD has been battle-tested long enough now that I'm not really concerned. I did get bitten very early on when they first came out - I had bought an OCZ SSD which failed after a couple months but that was poor quality IMHO (company went under a short time later) then bought by Toshiba IIRC.

My last audio project was SSD as well. I purchased a 500GB Samsung SSD and the entire recording project from drum tracks to release was done on that SSD.

Side Note: A lot of the SSD failures in the early days of SSDs were controller failures if memory serves (the IO controller inside the drive), not necessarily the SSD sectors themselves but I'd have to confirm.

[cutnpaste]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Hi Tod,

It hasn't been a concern really. It's my main OS drive which gets a lot of daily activity and I treat it as I would an HDD type drive. I really wouldn't worry about how you use it, use it as you normally would as it's designed to be used.

Keep backups like you always have and you should be good. I've had plenty of HDDs fail sooner and SSD has been battle-tested long enough now that I'm not really concerned. I did get bitten very early on when they first came out - I had bought an OCZ SSD which failed after a couple months but that was poor quality IMHO (company went under a short time later) then bought by Toshiba IIRC.

My last audio project was SSD as well. I purchased a 500GB Samsung SSD and the entire recording project from drum tracks to release was done on that SSD.

Side Note: A lot of the SSD failures in the early days of SSDs were controller failures if memory serves (the IO controller inside the drive), not necessarily the SSD sectors themselves but I'd have to confirm.

I use 3 ssd I don't worry about the fact that they have a specific life. Ssd are so low in price just buy a spare one to have on hand if you are worried about ssd failure.

[serr]

SSD's nowadays are even cheaper than the higher performance HDD's were a few years ago. And they continue to be FAR more robust than HDD's! Magnitudes.

The concern over their lifespan...
It's like someone being concerned about buying an aluminum boat because they're worried about leaks... when they currently have a rubber raft!

You don't need to coddle your SSD. It's the HDD's that need special handling!

I used to always diligently wait a few moments after closing the lid of the laptop before grabbing it and putting it in the briefcase. Now that I'm used to SSDs for almost a decade I just close it and shove it in the case without worry.

Back in the HDD days it always raised my eyebrows when I'd see someone else slam their machine shut, bounce it around and shove it in the case in 5 seconds. Or power on their machine while bouncing it around in their lap. Probably the leading cause of HDD failure.

[Steviebone]

Originally Posted by serr

"Pre-configured" computers...

When you get a new or used computer, wipe and reformat any and all hard drives and install any OS yourself. No exceptions! You're just asking for trouble trusting ANYTHING someone else did. From the sounds of it, this is even more important with a brand new machine right from the store.

Don't take that shortcut and just start using a machine someone else loaded up. Just don't.

Note that you can make backup clones along the way as you successfully install things. Saves you redoing things if something goes wrong along the way.

THIS ^^^^^