Though, I have to apologize, I didn't give you the context.
I'm currently building my Reaper template.
I am guessing that at least half of the orchestral libraries will get purged after I'm done with that.

Btw, why is batch resave not executed automatically when you add a library?

 

I know about batch resave... that's not what I'm reffering to. Just saying that Kontakt can not use the speed of NVMe when streaming samples. Kontakt has old tech and will not be able to harness the power of NVMes to increase voice count etc before they make a big overhaul of the engine. If you don't believe me go search various threads over at the VI-Control forum.

 

This is what i use, super small super fast https://www.bestbuy.com/site/crucia...VmYTICh3WBATrEAQYBSABEgJs7fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

I have a 7.6 TB SSD in my Windows i7 nuc running Kontakt over audio gridder and it works really well. I also have a 4TB Lacie Rugged external with thunderbolt running Kontakt and it works really well too (albeit a little slower to load)

 

Not a fan of proprietary disks like this where the disk doesn't conform to standard form factors. Usually, the USB port, controller and memory are soldered together as one thing. And if one the components has an issue you can basically only throw it away. With a regular disk and a seperate case you can just replace the disk and keep going.

 

Ugreen is the most reliable HDD/SSD enclosure company I've ever used so far. I also have been using Kontakt libraries on my external SSD 4TB with Ugreen enclosure. The SSD is WD Blue and it hasn't had any issue as well. As far as I believe, 8TB SSD is still unreliable. Most of them are QLC and you'll struggle with speed, durability and stability, especially if it is getting full of the libraries. Samsung 8TB SSD is also QLC. TLC nand is decent these days. I've been waiting SSD manufacturers release 8TB TLC SSD with low price, but it seems we need to wait a little bit more.

 

QLC is fine for sample libraries, where you mostly read small random files. But I wouldn't use it for video editing or write intensive tasks.

With a sample library disk you just move the libraries to the disk once and then you mostly read from it. Random read speed is what we are interested in here. QLC drives read good enough for Kontakt.

Only issue is that if you are moving more then 60GB of data at the same time, the disk will slow down after the 60GB cache is filled.
So when you move your sample libraries from your other disks to the QLC drive, yes it will take some time. But once you are done you are done, and you can use the drive without issues.

Also the write endurance for the 8TB QVO is 2880TB!!!

Tell me how you would write 2880TB to a sample library drive, within a reasonable amount of time. It would probably last a lifetime.

 

I have decided to go with this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09PRB8TMH/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=A22EAMR90FY8G9&th=1



I am then going to (initially at least), stick in 2 of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1U7C2O0KXAA7L&keywords=crucial+mx500+4tb&qid=1671094608&s=electronics&sprefix=,electronics,5029&sr=1-3



I will then have a total of 8TB across two 4TB SSDs in a USB C 3.1 Gen2 enclosure delivering 10Gbps transfer rates, which I believe should be plenty good enough for Kontakt libraries. It also provides me future expandability options in terms of being able to swap one out for an 8TB SSD, and then the other, as I never envisaging needing more than 16TB SSDs for Kontakt (unless Spitfire and Orchestral Tools begin to bring out 3-500GB+ libraries ). I have checked with the seller, and despite description saying it supports up to 8TB, it does apparently support more beyond 16TB without issue.

This seems like a good solution of being external, so able to use with my laptop and desktop easily, the external housing is ultra small and portable, and should provide plenty of speed to load up libraries so that the loading times don't stifle the creativity flow.

My question now, as the housing supports it and as someone who's never dabbled with RAID before, is whether it's worth leaving as JBOD/Spanned disks or is it worth considering setting them up as RAID 0 to get any further improved speed (which would clearly, as I understand it, cause issues with the upgrading one disk at a time in future)?!

 

Last edited: Dec 15, 2022

Is this what you're talking about?

"Kontakt Patch Loads: NVMe vs SATA SSD (Windows)"
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wL8XYGgd_O9fomMrK1EpSnZJeQwhVOAn91e82byj8s4/edit

This discussion is partially tempering my desire to get a Samsung 990 pro LOL (I've had a 960 evo for about 5 years).

 

I would check some info on VI control and such websites for the practical implications of using raid. not sure what issue they said it causes but i think someone mentioned about smaller libs/files becoming much slower to read or something like that. just confirm, there are a few threads on that.

I think though with your 32GB Ram you shouldn't need to stream samples but the initial load time of libraries might be an issue with raid depending on the library. someone confirm but I think thats what the forums were saying about raid.


**Edit: just checked and actually looks like it could improve slightly, but then there are some people saying it has negligible improvement if you already use SSD so just have a read lol interesting stuff tho.

 

Last edited: Dec 15, 2022

This is interesting news! I always run my projects fully purged to save RAM, so good to see that SSDs and NVMe drives are virtually identical in this type of use case!

 

Absolutely. If you can go for Thunderbolt 3 that would be even better. I have an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini (it's 90 bucks), it's a very portable RAID 0/1 enclosure that supports two SATA SSDs (up to 990MB/s) and it works with both TB3 and USB3/C. I use it on an old Macbook Pro in USB3 mode and the read/writes are definitely more than fast enough for use with EastWest OPUS. For drives I opted for two 4TB Crucial MX500s, not the crème de la crème of SSDs but they do their job and they don't cost as much as Samsung's potentially faulty 970s - I'm capped at USB3 and SATA speeds anyway so who cares. If you do get the Dual Mini always remember that you need to have it plugged into the wall if you use it on anything but Thunderbolt (and even then it's best to keep it plugged in)

 

I feel the same, if things are soldered. Removing a drive from a case is often no big deal and I have gotten 2 drives that way and put them inside machines for backup because they were cheaper on sale..
But unless a rugged case is needed, I'd rather use generic types.

 

That's a thorough document about the subject... good find!