SSD media drive for PT12 - OS 10.8.5

[zakco]

I'm doing a ton of TV work these days and I need a new SATA media drive for editing/mix work. It seems that SSD has come a long way in the last few years and now matches or beats spinning drives for lifespan and reliability.

Can anyone recommend a particular brand/model that will play nice with a Mac Pro 5.1 cheesegrater running OS 10.8.5?

[Southsidemusic]

I would stay with the Samsung 8XX and the new 970 series as they are fast and reliable as can be. Also the Samsung T5 series are great.

Member Darryl Ramm here on the forum has a knowledge over and above all of us collectively so wait for a reply from him. I will alert him to this thread aswell since I and basically everyone here on the forum trust his judgement And impressive understanding of the SSD world.

Hang tight

[zakco]

Thanks Christopher!

[YYR123]

Yes Chris is right stick with Samsung 9xx Pro units - I ran the 860 Pro units with Hackintosh’s without issues

They work fine, I currently love the performance of a NVME drive and could never go back. But yeah SSD’s are
Much better than Spinners for everything except long-term data storage.

[musicman691]

Along with what has been written keep in mind that large ssd's are going to be way more expensive than a comparable or large sized spinner.

Something to think about is if you want to speed things up is to put the ssd on a pcie card and stick it in a free card slot. It'll be much faster than in one of the drive bays. I learned that when I moved the ssd I use as my system drive to an adaptor and into the slot next to my video card. That leads to something else if you want to goose up system performance - get an ssd on a pcie card and use that as your system drive. Boot times will go way down and PT will be a lot snappier.

Oh yeah - you'll need an adaptor to fit the ssd into a drive bay carrier.

As an aside - how's PT12 working for you in that old OSX? What version of PT12 do you have? Keep this in mind - if you want some of the current Waves plugins you're going to need a newer OSX.

[zakco]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Something to think about is if you want to speed things up is to put the ssd on a pcie card and stick it in a free card slot. It'll be much faster than in one of the drive bays. I learned that when I moved the ssd I use as my system drive to an adaptor and into the slot next to my video card. That leads to something else if you want to goose up system performance - get an ssd on a pcie card and use that as your system drive. Boot times will go way down and PT will be a lot snappier.

Sounds like a great idea, but this box is full up with TDM, UAD2 and video cards, so the pcie route is not an option.

As an aside - how's PT12 working for you in that old OSX? What version of PT12 do you have? Keep this in mind - if you want some of the current Waves plugins you're going to need a newer OSX.

I am running the mythical, magical, PTHD 10.3.8 - PT 12.4 co-install on OS 10.8.5. on a 6 core/3.33 cheesegrater with a D-Command ES.

PT10 TDM with Lynx Auroras (32io) for tracking - I literally can't remember it crashing. No errors, just day after day, year after year work work working...

PT12.4 with RME UFX for mixing and editing - As long as I stay far, far away from VIs, it's really stable, has most of the PT12 goodies feature wise that I need.

I've been abandoned by Avid (Eucon), Waves, UAD, Slate and Kush, which is unfortunate, but I'm happily spending my money on DMG, TDR, OEK, Sound Radix, Klanghelm, Exponential Audio, iZotope and other forward thinking developers who haven't orphaned my OS. Besides all of my old plugins still work just as well as the day I purchased them...

I like this system SO much, that I doubled down and bought a second, identical Mac Pro 5.1 and installed a turnkey, backup system on it. I stepped off of the Avid subscription carousel, said goodbye to WUP and unsubscribed from all UA emails so I won't be sad about not being able to run their beautiful, but insanely priced, latest doo-dads. I could see myself staying put here for another 5 years easy. I know what this rig can do and I know what it can't do. It's REALLY liberating to spend literally ZERO of my time as an unpaid beta tester for Avid. My job is more relaxed and I make way more money than when I was on the bleeding edge...

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by zakco

Sounds like a great idea, but this box is full up with TDM, UAD2 and video cards, so the pcie route is not an option.



I am running the mythical, magical, PTHD 10.3.8 - PT 12.4 co-install on OS 10.8.5. on a 6 core/3.33 cheesegrater with a D-Command ES.

PT10 TDM with Lynx Auroras (32io) for tracking - I literally can't remember it crashing. No errors, just day after day, year after year work work working...

PT12.4 with RME UFX for mixing and editing - As long as I stay far, far away from VIs, it's really stable, has most of the PT12 goodies feature wise that I need.

I've been abandoned by Avid (Eucon), Waves, UAD, Slate and Kush, which is unfortunate, but I'm happily spending my money on DMG, TDR, OEK, Sound Radix, Klanghelm, Exponential Audio, iZotope and other forward thinking developers who haven't orphaned my OS. Besides all of my old plugins still work just as well as the day I purchased them...

I like this system SO much, that I doubled down and bought a second, identical Mac Pro 5.1 and installed a turnkey, backup system on it. I stepped off of the Avid subscription carousel, said goodbye to WUP and unsubscribed from all UA emails so I won't be sad about not being able to run their beautiful, but insanely priced, latest doo-dads. I could see myself staying put here for another 5 years easy. I know what this rig can do and I know what it can't do. It's REALLY liberating to spend literally ZERO of my time as an unpaid beta tester for Avid. My job is more relaxed and I make way more money than when I was on the bleeding edge...

I know it's taking this thread off topic but good to hear you've found a way through the wilderness.


There is a solution though if you're up to it if you ever want to use more modern plugins that need a newer OSX. And that is to partition your system drive into two partitions and run OSX 10.8.5 and your TDM system on one and the RME and PT12.4 on the other/newer partition. I had multiple partitions on my old iMac which actually had three boot partitions and now have it on my current 2012 cheesegrater with just two boot partitions. Combine that with going to an ssd as a system drive in a drive bay and you'll get responsitivity like you wouldn't believe. I could never go back to a spinner for a boot drive.

[zakco]

Originally Posted by musicman691

I know it's taking this thread off topic but good to hear you've found a way through the wilderness.

It's a wilderness indeed!

There is a solution though if you're up to it if you ever want to use more modern plugins that need a newer OSX. And that is to partition your system drive into two partitions and run OSX 10.8.5 and your TDM system on one and the RME and PT12.4 on the other/newer partition. I had multiple partitions on my old iMac which actually had three boot partitions and now have it on my current 2012 cheesegrater with just two boot partitions. Combine that with going to an ssd as a system drive in a drive bay and you'll get responsitivity like you wouldn't believe. I could never go back to a spinner for a boot drive.

Yes, that's definitely the solution if I find myself in a situation where I'm cornered into needing a new OS. Currently though, I'm enjoying the simplicity of my setup without the dual boot aspect as I do go back and forth a bit between TDM and PT12