Disk 1 - 128gb SSD - OS
Disk 2 - 256gb SSD - Plugins, Projects
Disk 3 - 2tb - Audio Libraries

Samsung EVO vs Pro, warranty 3 years vs 10 years. Wouldn't be surprised if they are identical hardware (chips) with the 3 year failing long term reliability QA testing.

 

No big deal. it's just 250/500 GB for the SSD. I just bought a 4 TB HDD for only 100$. I'm going to backup the SSD partition every 6 months. Then if the SSD fails then just trash it, buy a new one and backup the partition. Problem solved.

EVO or PRO, both of them will fail. IF you have a "PRO", i'll suggest you to back it up anyway.The "Pro" doesn't mean that the SSD won't broke, they just have an avarage longer life. But when it fails it fails.

 

I couldn't care less about the name of my SSD. I can't help calling it "Pro" because it's the name, but if you mind I can call it "840 non EVO one" lol. I do care about endurance in written data specially if I'm going to use it as HDD cache, which involves a lot of writes. So I like this test because it throws a pretty good result.

Speaking of sudden SSD crashes, I originally bought an OCZ Vector (or Vertex?.. well, the faster one) with 5 years warranty, 2 on the same store and 3 more send it to factory. I totally got carried away by the marketing and 15 months later sudden death. No SMART alert. The guys at the store were kindly enough to suggest me to switch to a Samsung 840 Pro because OCZs were dying frequently.

At the end of the day all disk drives die eventually. Even if a HDD dies gracefully slow you've to keep a backup because with you never know where is going to begin the data slaughtering.

 

Last edited: Jan 10, 2016

FYI - OCZ is a company not worth investing any money in. Samsung is the best rated SSDs on the market PERIOD. The hype I keep reading on here is that SSDs will die....well, I've had plenty of HDD die on me over the years. No hardware part is unbreakable as ALL technology whether expensive or cheap is a crap shoot. SOFTWARE INCLUDED! LOL

 

Well, to be honest, OCZ was the best company (along with Crucial perhaps) in the DDR2 market. I use them since several years now and very satisfied. But still was my mistake, aside from the two or three years that passed until I bought the SSD, which in technology is pretty much, it's a different technology.

A mistake was saved by a success carefully selecting the best store in computer components plus customer support balance.

 

SO what is the CONCLUSION anyhow?

Reading this entire thread there seems to be no concrete answer as we have many people doing it differently.

PERSONALLY I have an SSD dedicated to LIBRARIES (Kontakt libs, Maschine Libs, etc)

Reason for it was my workflow was getting SERIOUSLY interrupted by load times.

example. When working in KONTAKT I would want a certain sound - so I search my libs for it... some taking up to 20 seconds to load. SO if I browse 30 different libraries taking up to 20 seconds each to load thats 10 minutes sitting there looking silly watching the load bar.

With those files on SSD they now load instantly. So when I feel a new sound is needed. I just saved 10 minutes - and less chance my inspiration wears off before the proper sound is found.

PERHAPS there is no right or wrong way to prioritize SSD allocation on a DAW. . .

Maybe it depends on individual preference and workflow.

 

That's why people answered elaborating his opinions, including you and me.

What happened to your caps lock key, by the way? :P

 

Why thats no CAPS lock in there. That is simply the accent on my METRONOME !

 

Alot of fuzz in here, so to recap.
You don't need a SSD but it has some dramatic advantages over a HDD:

• no heat
• no vibration
• no noise
• faster access time, no fragmentation (yes I compared it to a WD Black)

Which results in a less noisy system !
If you don't care about noise, heat or access time, you don't need a SSD

 

Audio files and libraries should be on SSD because they are (in most cases) read and written from/to disk drives. Plugins are transferred from disk to RAM and stay there as long as required. The only benefit from VST's on SSD is a bit faster loading time.

 

1 TB SSD are already affordable. In conclusion: one 1 TB SSD, followed by a second 1TB SSD.

 

The OS C: and Projects D: are both ssd drives. All the rest are WD Blacks. I collect all samples into a project when Im working on it. When I get done with a project I move it to the archive g: drive. My VstPlugins folder is on the Programs E: drive which is a 7200 Black. The Libraries I: drive is all the kontackt, Superior Drummer , etc. libs

 

Last edited: Apr 23, 2016

you actually have to wait a lot of milisecs longer (bummer) - but! - if the plugin comes with a massive library then the ssd might make sense, but in most cases you can install the plugin library data to a different location. Short: SSD for plugs is pointless

SSD is only essential for streaming sophisticated sample libraries from disk (mostly acoustic/orchestral) and huge disk recording sessions, everything else is up to you. Short: higher bandwidth demands require faster disks

 

I think @VroundS tried to say the same. Anyway, VSTs without possible big libraries are so small that keeping in the (probably SSD) system drive makes sense for most of us.

Regarding the libraries, HDDs are still way much cheaper for capacity. But certainly the almost zero latency of SSDs is a performance game changer compared to HDDs (more than the raw speed) in audio libraries and in general multiple small reads/writes scenarios (such as the OS). I'm waiting to have time (since 4 months ago lol) to make a test of a set up pretty much equivalent to an hybrid SSD-HDD drive (SSD caching the HDD). I'm convinced it should work pretty well.

 

I see a lot of bad advice here. SSDs are more beneficial for sample-based librarys. Particularly the large orchestral based librarys that are massive in storage size. An SSD will not make all your VSTs faster....only the samples that some of your VSTs use will be recognizably faster. Sure, an SSD works great on a system drive, but it will be better for the large sample libraries first. I have transitioned to using SSDs only. Rotational drives are only used for backup.

 

@One Reason
Any particular cloud hosting service you could recommend,a top 3 perhaps?

 

I did a fresh install this week and decided to leave the SSD out of the setup.

Results: (i7 laptop + Fresh windows 10 install + Cubase Pro + Komplete 10u + controller + 1 mic)

Recording - there was no real difference noticed by myself
Playback - there was no real difference noticed by myself
Loading ONE VST (example Kontakt Grand Piano) - slight delay - just a few seconds is all
Loading a VST guitar - very noticeable delay - over 30 seconds almost one minute

It is TOLERABLE when I know EXACTLY what I want. 30 seconds will not kill me....

HOWEVER...

I decided to search for a new VST instrument to replace one of my existing sounds.

Now that 30 seconds to 1 minute actually became a roadblock. THAT.... was beyond reasonable after testing a handful of sounds.

(test performed April 2016)

ALL IS NOT LOST !!!!
I will simply use a disk imaging software (many freebies out there) to clone my internal LIBRARY drive to an SSD.
There is still hope.

SYSTEM ON A SSD
vs
LIBRARIES ON A SSD

For my non-acoustic (VST user) habits the LIBRARIES drive seems to be a clear priority.

Your mileage may vary

 

That's exactly the reason why keeping plugins on SSD doesn't make sense because small data loads fast enough from HDD. The problem is large data on the slow drive.

 

https://mega.nz/ 50Gigs for free. ;)

 

Thank you brother!


You can now use the corsair voyager GTX 256gb USB flash drive with extreme speeds.
Have your libraries stored on your key chain.