As the header asks, my old style external HDDs are far too slow for Kontakt libraries, especially newer libraries. Instruments take an age to load and I'm looking for ways to speed things up.

I now work primarily on my laptop, which has a 6 core/12 thread Core i& CPU and 32GB RAM, and so contemplating using an external SSD to house my Kontakt libraries.

Open to any other suggestions anyone may have if there are better alternatives.

Cheers in advance

 

It depends on which interface you'll use for the external drive.
The interface will be the deciding factor concerning speed, not the SSD.
I have all my Kontakt stuff on internal SSDs and it's marvellous. ATA3, 6Gb/s.

 

The laptop is an Asus ROG GL503GE. It's basically this laptop, but with an upgraded 32GB RAM, 2TB NVMe OS drive, and a 2TB internal 2.5" HDD.

It only has the one USB C connector, which I use for my Audient ID14 MkII audio interface.

ASUS Strix GL503GE 15" 120Hz Full HD 6 Core i7 GTX 1050 Ti Gaming Laptop LN89106 - GL503GE-EN034T | SCAN UK

 

Yes, definitely! And for future proofing, the more space the better, with many libraries hitting 100-150GB nowadays. I also plan to subscribe to East West's Composer Cloud soon too, so will likely want to also use it to host them samples too.

 

Sata SSD's are perfectly fine for loading Kontakt libraries (make sure the libraries are batch re-saved). I have the Samsung 8tb sata SSD internally in my music PC and all kontakt libraries (Cinematic Studio Series, TSS, Spitifre stuff, OT, massive choir libraries, etc.) load basically instantly. As long as the enclosure you have/get supports up to 560/mbs which is where most 2.5" sata SSD's are capped you should be fine.

The only bottleneck I have is loading projects that have like 20-30+ gbs of ram loaded. Those take a couple of mins to open/close (Cubase 12), but I think that comes down to ram speed, but I could be wrong; loading single libraries in standalone or in Cubase is instant for me.

Here is the SSD I have:
https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-870-...mzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf

 

I have an older 500GB SSD drive with USB3 and it's fast enough as long as I'm connecting it to a USB port that can deliver the speed.
What other ports are available on your laptop?

 

As mentioned by @fishnose, the controller is the deciding factor. 'Controllers' would be a more apt description.

USB 3.0 controller - which generation and @ what speed - 5Gbs/10Gbps
USB cable and connectors - full USB power & DATA spec.
Connector & controller on external device
Type of NAND & cache implementation

As a reference:
https://integraudio.com/11-best-external-hdds-ssds-samples/

 

Absolutely. I have more than 5TB of Kontakt libraries, and it would be much more if I didn't avoid the really big ones like Spitfire.

 

Afaik USB3 internal protocol translation reduces the max speed/bandwidth,
so a SSD plugged to a USB3 port will be slower than if it was connected internally thru SATA..

We're talkin roughly about 500 vs 300 MB/s,
however those 300MB/s are still much faster than an HDD, so it's still worth to have it.

(The situation will improve or not be a factor with other type of connections like eSATA (quirky),
or I guess Thunderbolt as it follows a different protocol..?)

Besides, it's good to have multiple drives to avoid bottlenecking,
2x 2TB SSD better than one 4TB, then you also have the HDD.

The more you can spread libs the better

 

I don't buy anymore packed external HDD/SSD, because when they fail you throw away all, in past they were essentially just SATA enclosures, now they have a proprietary interface.
For me only external enclosures now (and I'm thinking of USB dock for 2.5/3.5 HDD), SATA->USB3 is fast enough to deal samples, but personally I just use it for backup purpose.

 

Would an external enclosure such as this be ok?

UGREEN 2.5 Inch Hard Drive Enclosure External 6Gbps USB C SSD Caddy Tool Free, Compatible with 2.5inch 10TB HDD SSD Western Intel Crucial EVO 870 PS4 PC Laptop, Drive Free for Windows Linux macOS: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

I was intending to pick something like this up, place in a Samsung 870 8TB SSD, and then connect to my laptop using one of the USB 3.1 Gen 1 5Gbit/s ports. I am hoping this would be fast enough?!

Would this setup likely provide a quick enough drive and access to not significantly delay loading Kontakt instruments, templates and so on?

I do have the option of placing it internally within my laptop, but not sure on the height of the 8TB SSDs as my laptop only accepts 7 or 9.5mm height drives I believe, though I think it's only the older physical drives that go up to 12.5mm at higher capacities isn't it?

 

Just a last shout out for thoughts before I pull the pin on this in the next day or two....

 

The question is how many of these libs do you use regularly?

Are you into orchestral music?

 

having such huge external/portable SSD, you're inevitably asking for sudden data loss,

are you already using Batch ReSave function in Kontakt btw?
and depending on how you configure Kontakt, you may either want to stream libraries directly from fast drive, or cache them through RAM (default),

I use some generic USB 3 enclosure for 1TB SATA SSD with libraries, but barely used it past year, browsing though more and more libraries is so much waste of time imo, can't imagine I'd effectively use 4TB+ Kontakt stuff

 

In my opinion, running such a high capacity SATA SSD as an external drive via USB 3.0 is a complete waste of money, bandwidth and time. I mean it works, but you can only get about 1/10th of the actual throughput that SATA 3 supports.

In other words: multiply the loading time of any library loaded from an internal disk by times 10 and you know what to expect when loading the same library from an external USB 3 Drive. Really, you will hate it. I know, I would. And since USB 3.0 is so slow you could just use a regular ass high capacity mechanical HDD instead which would save you hundreds of dollars too, btw.

On top of that: USB wasn't really designed as a permant storage connection. The connection is just not as reliable as connecting it internally. You can also easily corrupt the disk index by simply connecting it inaccurately by accident.

If your Laptop would support eSATA or a PCIe expansion slot, then you could at least utilize the speed of an SSD.

The best and most efficient solution in my opinion would be a large internal NVME disk (super expansive) split in 2 or more partitions, one for the OS one for Library data.

About data loss: It's a myth that won't die that SSDs are prone to data loss per se. SSDs have sectors that can only be written to a limited amound of time (there's a formula to calculate the lifespan of an SSD) but they can still be read. And since it is primarily used as a storage medium there won't be many re-write cylces.

 

I get a headache just thinking of having 4 terabytes of sample libraries.
And having to backup that too. Assuming it’s worth having in the first place..

I have managed to not even 1tb including the stock libraries from my daw and i even see that as a problem.
I wish I never had used any 3 party library in any of my projects, it showed that for my music it’s all about me playing, not about expensive massive choices that only clutter my thoughts

I’ll eliminate hopefully 40% of it very soon and have only the basic needed.

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2022

7200 RPM drives work well with Kontakt and USB 3.0 makes external workable.
For a while I ran Kontakt libraries (and others) from and external 7200 drive (USB 3.0 Gen 1) and it was OK.
I did "BATCH RESAVES" on libraries I expected to use. That is important.

I had and external SSD (bought my own case for $7 .. now i see a similar case from same vendor for $12 ... it has a cute light added).
I planned to use that SSD for Kontakt libs that "needed the speed" but I ended up using it to load Waves libraries and some others I can't recall, because they seemed really slow.
I never got around to putting any of my Kontakt libraries on there, so I can't give even an anecdotal comparison.

"Desktop" types come in larger or bulkier cases with a power supply.
"Portable" drives have smaller/slim cases and use power from the USB port ("Portable").

Using PCPartPicker :
The best price I am seeing for an internal 7200 is $12.50 per TB (WD Black 8 TB for $100) ... typical seems more like $14 per TB

For external 7200 Desktop (that adds an enclosure and power supply) the best price is $21.66 per TB for WD Black "D10".
So, you can see there is a significant difference in price.

True "Portable" types are usually even more expensive, but I see:
external 7200 "Portable" for only $22 per TB (WD Black "P10" 5 TB for $110)

For SSD externals (nearly all are basically "portable"- no external power supply needed) the best price I am seeing is $75 per Gig.

Personally, If i expected to use more than 1 TB of DAW Library, I would buy a dock or enclosure and buy a regular 7200 RPM drive.
Then I would buy an external SSD if you want particular libraries to load faster.

 

I am not worried about data loss. I currently have an 8TB external HDD i could clone onto for backup purpose, as well as some cloud storage for the most critical elements.

I currently have this 8TB external HDD: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/products/gaming-drives/xbox-gaming/game-drive-hub-xbox/

Despite only being 3 years old, it seems to disconnect regularly as if it's not happy being constantly connected. The issues seems to be more about the Seagate interface rather than the drive though as I shucked it and it works fine and never disconnects as internal drive in a desktop PC and in another external enclosure. However, this drive is painfully slow with Kontakt though, which is why I'm contemplating an alternative.

I've not tried batch resave yet, so may try that first but I can't see it making so much difference as some patches take minutes to load, with some even taking tens of minutes that no i then have to force close Kontakt just to duck out of it. Completely unworkable like this, obviously.

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2022