Note: Windows 8 is not supported with Pro Tools HD 11.0 at this time

[End Over End]

Are you running PT 11 with a Native card with no issues on Windows 8/64?
Please specify your highest tested track and plugin count.

Please tell us your story and best known configurations.

Like many on here, it's time to get myself an SSD and I would like to start fresh with Win 8. On that note, is dual SSD necessary (audio drive) - please explain.

THX

[guitardom]

Originally Posted by End Over End

Are you running PT 11 with a Native card with no issues on Windows 8/64?
Please specify your highest tested track and plugin count.

Please tell us your story and best known configurations.

Like many on here, it's time to get myself an SSD and I would like to start fresh with Win 8. On that note, is dual SSD necessary (audio drive) - please explain.

THX

HDN and 11 runs fine on W8. Performance won't be much any different than on W7.

Probably not an SSD for the audio drive. My biggest issue would be life span. The cells can only handle so many writes/rewrites before performance degrades.

[End Over End]

your profile says win 764 - are you running win 8?

[guitardom]

Originally Posted by End Over End

your profile says win 764 - are you running win 8?

I am running both. Removable bay system for my C: drive. Keeping 7 around for the purpose of having both PT 10 and 11 installed at the same time. But I am also working on my 8 drive from time to time if I know I wont be jumping into 10. A couple little tweaks and 8 is not much different feeling than 7 for the most part. I have recently even moved my entertainment center/ media server PC to 8 and once I showed my wife how to get to the "Desktop view" even she can run it!!!

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by guitardom

HDN and 11 runs fine on W8. Performance won't be much any different than on W7.

Probably not an SSD for the audio drive. My biggest issue would be life span. The cells can only handle so many writes/rewrites before performance degrades.

Actaully they handle so many write/reads before they don't work at all. Oh no the horror. Any you know what, they are designed to work find just like that. And they are still more relaible than a typical old spinning HDD.

So lets guess a ~3k cell write life on say a 500GB drive. How much audio do you track per day? Lets guess 500 MB.

512 MB? ~ 500 x 10^6* 8/(24 * 96,000)
~ 9 x 10^5 seconds
~ 253 hours of mono audio @ 24 bit 96kHz.

Do you record/mixdown/bounce more than that amount per day?

And assuming flash with a median life cycle of 3,000 writes/cell (right ballpark for good MLC), gives...

3,000 x 500 x 10^9 Bytes /500 x 10^6 Bytes/day ~ 3 x 10^6 days
~ 8,000 years

In other words a very big number and so just not a practical problem. The actual calculation is more involved, maybe worse case the number works out at 10% or 20% of this depending on the amount of cell sparing in the drive, but basically its really hard to invent any consumer drive type workload that is going to result in cell wear being a factor in any modern/high quality consumer SSD. A very high end-server/database system might get closer to being an issue, but that is why there are better wearing SLC end enterprise MLC drives.

And why would you go SSD for an audio drive, oh its the orders of magnitude higher IOPs and factors higher sequential IO. Immunity from mixed workloads, mechanical robustness, better overall reliability, etc. etc.

But yes, most low-hanging fruits is typically replacing the boot/system drive with an SSD, sample drives and then finally audio drives. If you are in a high track count/high sample rate environment, or working with portable computers that you don't want bump/handling sensitive then an SSD audio dive may be more compelling, especially vs. needing multiple round robin audio HDD drives.

Darryl

[guitardom]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Actaully they handle so many write/reads before they don't work at all. Oh no the horror. Any you know what, they are designed to work find just like that. And they are still more relaible than a typical old spinning HDD.

So lets guess a ~3k cell write life on say a 500GB drive. How much audio do you track per day? Lets guess 500 MB.

512 MB? ~ 500 x 10^6* 8/(24 * 96,000)
~ 9 x 10^5 seconds
~ 253 hours of mono audio @ 24 bit 96kHz.

Do you record/mixdown/bounce more than that amount per day?

And assuming flash with a median life cycle of 3,000 writes/cell (right ballpark for good MLC), gives...

3,000 x 500 x 10^9 Bytes /500 x 10^6 Bytes/day ~ 3 x 10^6 days
~ 8,000 years

In other words a very big number and so just not a practical problem. The actual calculation is more involved, maybe worse case the number works out at 10% or 20% of this depending on the amount of cell sparing in the drive, but basically its really hard to invent any consumer drive type workload that is going to result in cell wear being a factor in any modern/high quality consumer SSD. A very high end-server/database system might get closer to being an issue, but that is why there are better wearing SLC end enterprise MLC drives.

And why would you go SSD for an audio drive, oh its the orders of magnitude higher IOPs and factors higher sequential IO. Immunity from mixed workloads, mechanical robustness, better overall reliability, etc. etc.

But yes, most low-hanging fruits is typically replacing the boot/system drive with an SSD, sample drives and then finally audio drives. If you are in a high track count/high sample rate environment, or working with portable computers that you don't want bump/handling sensitive then an SSD audio dive may be more compelling, especially vs. needing multiple round robin audio HDD drives.

Darryl

This is a VERY best case scenario. Do not to forget the fact that as SSD's become larger and faster, the cells become smaller and become more sensitive due to less charge. In case and point, leaving an SSD turned off for 3-4 months (temperature dependent) can result in a loss of data. Also its best case to keep your SSD at about 50% capacity or just over due to what you mention about the cell sparing or cell wear leveling. Running a drive at high capacities can result in a drastically shorter life span. Also "Quality" drives is most important in all of this. You can end up with a brick in a very short amount of time when writing heavily to a poorly designed drive. There are lots of variables to these drives still and the technology is still changing. I just don't feel its smart to recommend them to everybody for everything.

[Darryl Ramm]

But blanket not-recommending them to everybody as an audio drive, is simply not justifiable either. For folks who have demanding IO needs or probability/robustness etc. they are a great option. And in practice wearing is just not an issue. Controller technology, drive electronics and better firmware has kept up with decreasing per-individual cell wear life. Manufactures are well aware of what they are doing and are playing off density/cell size relatively, and moving to vertically stacked/3D technology etc. to increase density while keeping large cell size.

The real proof is in doing stuff, how many SSDs have you or other folks here actually worn out ? What brands/models? (serious drives from mainstream vendors only please). Doing what to wear them out?

The real issue with SSD today is cost/GB, cost/IOP is stunningly low, and lack of suitability for long term cold-archiving. Cost/GB may drop below HDD within a few years and improving archiving/cold-storage properties is likely to get looked more (when Facebook and their ~$1B IT spend tells SSD manufacturers they want that those vendors tend to listen).

[guitardom]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

But blanket not-recommending them to everybody as an audio drive, is simply not justifiable either. For folks who have demanding IO needs or probability/robustness etc. they are a great option. And in practice wearing is just not an issue. Controller technology, drive electronics and better firmware has kept up with decreasing per-individual cell wear life. Manufactures are well aware of what they are doing and are playing off density/cell size relatively, and moving to vertically stacked/3D technology etc. to increase density while keeping large cell size.

The real proof is in doing stuff, how many SSDs have you or other folks here actually worn out ? What brands/models? (serious drives from mainstream vendors only please). Doing what to wear them out?

The real issue with SSD today is cost/GB, cost/IOP is stunningly low, and lack of suitability for long term cold-archiving. Cost/GB may drop below HDD within a few years and improving archiving/cold-storage properties is likely to get looked more (when Facebook and their ~$1B IT spend tells SSD manufacturers they want that those vendors tend to listen).

You are correct, blanket recommending either way is not great. But asking if you "NEED" an SSD is like asking if you "NEED" an HD system. If you have to ask, you probably don't. I know when I "NEED" to upgrade something as you probably do as well.

With the cost currently double a standard hard drive, its still not attractive for large drives for most users. Then users trying to save $$ will inherently try to cheap out a bit has the potential to be disastrous. The OP also asked if it was "Necessary" and we can both agree it is not. But as you state and I feel, the technology is getting there and its really close for large scale use.

[End Over End]

Originally Posted by guitardom

I am running both. Removable bay system for my C: drive. Keeping 7 around for the purpose of having both PT 10 and 11 installed at the same time. But I am also working on my 8 drive from time to time if I know I wont be jumping into 10. A couple little tweaks and 8 is not much different feeling than 7 for the most part. I have recently even moved my entertainment center/ media server PC to 8 and once I showed my wife how to get to the "Desktop view" even she can run it!!!

Hey,
Now I have my dual SSD setup with win864pro installed and am about to install PT 10+11 and noticed your comment that alluded to not installing PT10 in Win 8 ???
Please fill me in on what does not work in this scenario.
I am planning a dual boot with win 7 if i need to - funny about having 2 SSD's is you can load an OS on each as well as doing audio drive duties,just point the other way and go...
That said I consider all the invested money in the SSDs as "throw away" so I dont care how long they last as long as they are FaSSSST.
I have Samsung EVO SSD units BTW a 750GB and a 500GB - the smaller ones had slow speeds comparatively. So far, its spankin fast.

I had a problem with PT10+11 install corrupting my install of SonarX2a so it no longer worked (guessing the PT driver was a culprit) - on Win764
so.. is there a trick to what NOT to do with my PT installs?
Lots of old songwriting trapped in Sonar...New install all is well but havent touched the PT install till I do a full backup of the OS drive!

Thanks for any tips.
EOE

[guitardom]

Hello,
I will take your thread in parts.

Originally Posted by End Over End

Hey,
Now I have my dual SSD setup with win864pro installed and am about to install PT 10+11 and noticed your comment that alluded to not installing PT10 in Win 8 ???
Please fill me in on what does not work in this scenario.

PT 10 is not supported on W8. Many of us have it going, but no guarantee everything will work properly including plugins. Co install is only supported on W7.

Originally Posted by End Over End

I am planning a dual boot with win 7 if i need to - funny about having 2 SSD's is you can load an OS on each as well as doing audio drive duties,just point the other way and go...

That sounds like trouble IMO. But I have far to many sessions and things going to even consider this. I have 4 OS partitions on each of my OS drives and do restores and have a certain purpose for each one. It allows me to keep new plugs or software off my main working partitions and keep them in testing partitions. I can clone any of my partitions to a "pre Pro Tools" state at any time when its time to update it and such. Again, my personal opinion and workflow.

Originally Posted by End Over End

That said I consider all the invested money in the SSDs as "throw away" so I dont care how long they last as long as they are FaSSSST.
I have Samsung EVO SSD units BTW a 750GB and a 500GB - the smaller ones had slow speeds comparatively. So far, its spankin fast.

Just be cautious if your recording to them as well.

Originally Posted by End Over End

I had a problem with PT10+11 install corrupting my install of SonarX2a so it no longer worked (guessing the PT driver was a culprit) - on Win764
so.. is there a trick to what NOT to do with my PT installs?
Lots of old songwriting trapped in Sonar...New install all is well but havent touched the PT install till I do a full backup of the OS drive!

Thanks for any tips.
EOE

No help for the Sonar issues. I have Reaper and Reason installed but nothing else that would be considered a DAW. Have not heard about that issue either, but honestly not something I would really be watching for. Have you tried installing Sonar last?