SSD as external drive - what's the latest??

[vitolanzafame]

Hello.

I've been going through the DUC and generally the web, trying to see if its a good idea to use a SSD as my audio drive. This would also be the drive where i store all my sample libraries and lots of instruments.

Many of the posts had conflicting opinions and go back as far as 2008, when it was a relatively new technology. As it is changing quite quickly, i was wondering if anyone was now happily using ssd as an external drive?

as far as i have understood, the main problems seem to be lifespan and no option of data recovery....
in terms of speed though, i'd be using it with thunderbolt - does anyone know if i could have a stable and successful recording experience, compared to 7200rpm thunderbolt drive?

thanks for your help!

tom

[Darryl Ramm]

Ah you should not be putting samples on the audio/session drive (even if you can get away more with ignoring Avid's advice on that with an SSD).

I have no idea what you are reading. If you are looking on DUC it should be clear lots of folk are using SSDs as audio/session drives, and have been for the last few years.

SSDs are far from created equal. I would Samsung 840 Evo or Pro or (once it is available and has some folks using it likely the new 850 Pro) or Micron M550. You can install those in a variety of Thunderbolt docks (make sure they support EFI booting if you want to do that). Lacie make some nice but overpriced Thunderbolt SSD drives (e.g. https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10621) , but always deconfigure the RAID in multi-drive boxes like the Little big Disk 2 and use them as dual JBOD drives.

Make sure you install the SSD properly, for the above named drives when used internally or over Thunderbolt that means using Trim Enabler, you also should over-provision the drive. I've posted about this enough on DUC you shoudl already have found and read all that.

The lifespan of a good SSD drive will often exceed that of a good HDD. Just like a HDD lots of failure modes of SSDs can allow data recovery. Typical DAW write usage will have a hard time significantly wearing a good SSD. But data availability is primarily a function of how you make and maintain your multiple backups.

[vitolanzafame]

Hi Darryl,

I have indeed read a couple of your posts before regarding ssd drives - they are very informative. It's something i struggle a bit with understanding and i want to get it right so appreciate your posts.

I didn't realise that i should be keeping my sample libraries on a different drive from my session/audio drive. This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum: as i said in my earlier post, i am often working in the back of the bus, or in a hotel room- basically anywhere i can sit down! so i can't really take 2 hard drives around with me. Would it be better to put my instruments and libraries on the already crowded system drive (the ssd drive of my mac boo pro) or keep them on the session/audio drive?

You're right- the lacie SSD's that i was looking at are really pricey. I'm going to look into what you are suggesting - the thunderbolt dock approach. Is this basically a way to use an internal ssd drive over thunderbolt? Portability is quite important for me so I'll see what seems best.

Thanks very much!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by vitolanzafame

Hi Darryl,
/snip/

I didn't realise that i should be keeping my sample libraries on a different drive from my session/audio drive. This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum: as i said in my earlier post, i am often working in the back of the bus, or in a hotel room- basically anywhere i can sit down! so i can't really take 2 hard drives around with me. Would it be better to put my instruments and libraries on the already crowded system drive (the ssd drive of my mac boo pro) or keep them on the session/audio drive?

You are normally better off installing samples on the system/boot drive or on a dedicated sample hard drive. The session drive is the last place to put anything else besides audio/session files.

You're right- the lacie SSD's that i was looking at are really pricey. I'm going to look into what you are suggesting - the thunderbolt dock approach. Is this basically a way to use an internal ssd drive over thunderbolt? Portability is quite important for me so I'll see what seems best.

Thanks very much!

What exact model/date code MacBook Pro do you have? And what disk drives are installed in it now? (look at the System Information utility for information on SATA drives).

Roughly how large are all your sample libraries?

When portability is a need SSDs win greatly over HDD for reliability. But the problem with any portable system and reliability is too many damned separate, boxes cables and power supplies etc. So if you have a non-Retina MacBook Pro the best thing to do is to install one or two internal SSD drives in it (with the second one replacing the optical supedrive). I'd avoid use of any external disks at all if possible.

The Lacie Little Big Disk 2 advantage is is you don't need to assemble anything yourself and it has two built in SSDs so you can split the RAID and use one drive for samples and one for session.

[vitolanzafame]

is this the kind of adapter that you were describing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj4oP9NTUyo

I have a Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013 so don't think i can get in there and tinker.

my libraries and instruments are at about 78GB (i just had to look that up and was a bit surprised! its mainly kontakt libraries.)
Oh and i only have 20GB left on my system drive. Think i made a bad choice when i spec'd this laptop....

i'm just going to have to shuffle things around... find the things i really need most and put the other stuff on a separate drive that i don't carry around with me.

I think that ssd is the way to go though after taking into consideration these points...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by vitolanzafame

is this the kind of adapter that you were describing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj4oP9NTUyo

I have a Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013 so don't think i can get in there and tinker.

my libraries and instruments are at about 78GB (i just had to look that up and was a bit surprised! its mainly kontakt libraries.)
Oh and i only have 20GB left on my system drive. Think i made a bad choice when i spec'd this laptop....

i'm just going to have to shuffle things around... find the things i really need most and put the other stuff on a separate drive that i don't carry around with me.

I think that ssd is the way to go though after taking into consideration these points...

No I would not touch the silly Seagate thingy, you need a secure mounting enclosure. Unfortuantely I've had no experience with any of the small external Thunderbolt enclosures, but for example here is one...

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Enclosur...-bay~S252SMTB3 (I've had good experience with other Startech SATA products)

If you search around you'll find several other singe drive cases.

Other folks have also taken HDD based Lacie products and swapped the HDD in them for an SSD.

Again be aware if they support EFI firmware that enables booting or not.

For desktop use the obvious champ thunderbolt box to beat is this one... http://www.sonnettech.com/product/ec...rboltdock.html But it's far from portable.

With a Mac Book Pro Retina the Lacie Little Big Disk 2 may be a great way to go if you can afford it. You also have the option of the and you should check on the possibility of at upgrading your internal MacBook Pro Retina SSD if it is currently too small. Your early 2013 Retina uses an internal SATA SSD. OWC for example has 480 GB SSD upgrades available (I suspect you may have that size drive already installed--but you still have not said what drives you have installed now, so you are on your own there). If you end up just needing a single external drive then another portable option is the Lacie Rugged drives... https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10599.

[vitolanzafame]

i apologise, i thought i had included the drive info in my mbook- its just a 250GB ssd. It would be brilliant to have 2 hard drives inside my laptop. I'd not even considered it as a possibly before.

Can i just ask: regarding what you say about using trim enabler - is that something i'd need to do with ANY ssd external drive, even something simple like the rugged?

The little big 2 looks very nice, and its so cool that you can have one drive doing the audio, and the other the libraries. ... i'd like that sitting on my desktop. Until i sell some records though....

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Ah you should not be putting samples on the audio/session drive (even if you can get away more with ignoring Avid's advice on that with an SSD).

I have no idea what you are reading. If you are looking on DUC it should be clear lots of folk are using SSDs as audio/session drives, and have been for the last few years.

SSDs are far from created equal. I would Samsung 840 Evo or Pro or (once it is available and has some folks using it likely the new 850 Pro) or Micron M550. You can install those in a variety of Thunderbolt docks (make sure they support EFI booting if you want to do that). Lacie make some nice but overpriced Thunderbolt SSD drives (e.g. https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10621) , but always deconfigure the RAID in multi-drive boxes like the Little big Disk 2 and use them as dual JBOD drives.

Make sure you install the SSD properly, for the above named drives when used internally or over Thunderbolt that means using Trim Enabler, you also should over-provision the drive. I've posted about this enough on DUC you shoudl already have found and read all that.

The lifespan of a good SSD drive will often exceed that of a good HDD. Just like a HDD lots of failure modes of SSDs can allow data recovery. Typical DAW write usage will have a hard time significantly wearing a good SSD. But data availability is primarily a function of how you make and maintain your multiple backups.

@Darryl...I'm sure you will be thrilled to know that I followed your advice...just picked up a 32GB Samsung Evo...

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by vitolanzafame

Hi Darryl,

I have indeed read a couple of your posts before regarding ssd drives - they are very informative. It's something i struggle a bit with understanding and i want to get it right so appreciate your posts.

I didn't realise that i should be keeping my sample libraries on a different drive from my session/audio drive. This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum: as i said in my earlier post, i am often working in the back of the bus, or in a hotel room- basically anywhere i can sit down! so i can't really take 2 hard drives around with me. Would it be better to put my instruments and libraries on the already crowded system drive (the ssd drive of my mac boo pro) or keep them on the session/audio drive?

You're right- the lacie SSD's that i was looking at are really pricey. I'm going to look into what you are suggesting - the thunderbolt dock approach. Is this basically a way to use an internal ssd drive over thunderbolt? Portability is quite important for me so I'll see what seems best.

Thanks very much!

mac boo pro

Bet you get a lot of "ghost" notes out of that rig...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by bill denton

@darryl...i'm sure you will be thrilled to know that i followed your advice...just picked up a 32gb samsung evo...

32 gb?