Hard Drive questions PLZ HELPz me FOLKZ!

[Adupr]

Hey gents, first off - can someone tell me the read/write speeds of a normal spinner drive and an SSD on a Mac Pro 3.33 6 core. I can't seem to download Blackmagic speed test with my old OS. I'm really curious what the speeds are for this machine.


Second question - I am about to receive a new Mac Studio Ultra and need to get drives ready. Obviously one for recording and one for samples. I can splurge and get an ssd for recording but don't think I can swing one for samples as I will need over 2tb. Is a spinner drive going to be ok for this. Is it going to be noticable? What drives do you recommend too? Thanks much!

[Darryl Ramm]

This area has been discussed in many many past threads.

"normal spinner drive" What exact model/make drive or at least what RPM connected to what controller... e.g. is it SATA II or III.

And "SSD" Performance varies widely. From slow SATA SSDs to super fast PCIe/NVMe SSDs. External USB or thunderbolt drives might internally use slow SATA SSD or super-fast technology, you have to be careful there of vendor ******** and be aware what you are buying. So the question is always for what exact make/model or at least what type of SSD, but better to talk exact models.

"speed" (e.g. commonly talked about data/sec) is probably not the most important metric that's most important for Pro Tools, it's lowest IO latency under load. (e.g. for the technical folks random IO throughput at large queue depth). The spread there from any spinning disk to a good SSD is so enormous it's not even worth comparing. Just get off that HDD junk.

There is no such thing as a Mac Mini Ultra.

You mean a Mac Mini?... make sure you max out the memory to 16GB, lack of larger memory options is potentially a serious limitation of these machines. I would not want to purchase one because of that.

You mean a Mac Studio Ultra? On such a fast computer with options for dual internal drives I'd be more inclined to pay more Apple Tax if stuff can fit internally, if not I'd be more inclined to use external Thunderbolt storage using NVMe/PCIe M.2 cards in an expansion chassis (not USB, nto SATA etc.). The computer is just so fast you should show it some love, and the only HDD near it should be used for backups or a door stop.

As has been discussed on DUC hundred and hundreds of times. (can you tell I'm starting to get cranky about this ) there is no requirement for you to put samples, sessions etc on seperate disk drives. That's ancient thinking that is wrong. In fact it's likely the worst thing you can do with any modern mac, and has been that way for ~ a decade. Nothing you can buy externally will surpass the performance of the vey fast internal NVMe/PCIe SSD. So the advice that I and other have been given here for many years is to run sessions on the internal drive and pay the Apple tax and max out that drive as much as you can afford (since you likely can't eve upgrade it). Of course you might put samples on external drives for cost or other reasons, but it's not a *requirement*.

How large are you sample libraries? There are reasonable cost USB/SATA or USB/NVMe SSDs like the Samsung T7, which at 2Gb for 2TB is a compact great little affordable drive. Those drives are slower than a NVMe/PCIe SSD connected over thunderbolt, but still way faster than any HDD. If you are price sensitive the T7 family are a great place to start. There are also 4TB options in the market of coming soon, and (sadly clunky) ways of using external fast M.2 PCIe/NVMe SSDs for folks who want external SSD performance to approach the internal drive performance. Are you having issues with sessions startup time being dominated by memory resident VIs sample loading or having problems running any streaming sample based VIs?

[Adupr]

Hey Darryl, first off really appreciate the response.
You will have to forgive me because I haven’t dealt with hard drives in years so I’m just getting informed on all the new stuff.

So I have a Mac cheesegrater 3.33 6 core that I have a 1tb ssd (samsung) that runs my programs and vi samples then I have a 2tb 7200 drive that I record too. I haven’t had too many problems with these. The reason I asked the speed of those was just curiosity of how much of an improvement things will be going from an internal Mac Pro setup to something external. I for sure don’t want to be losing speed ��

So I’m moving up to a Mac studio ultra and it will come with a 1tb internal. So here’s some possible external drive solutions for your thought on reliability and price/performance.

Option1 - OWC thunderbay 4 thunderbolt 3. Load with
1 Samsung ssd 4tb (samples)
1 samsung ssd 2tb (session)
1 HDD 7200 (barracuda?) for backup.

Will this setup be limited to approx 560MB speed?

Option2 just get a 4tb and 2tb external like sandisk extreme portable and an enclosure for the HDD backup

Option3 - Sabrent TB3 dual nvme m.2 enclosure load with a 4tb and 2tb plus hhd backup

Option4 - 2 OWC TB3 envoy express nvme enclosures with two separate drives. +hhd backup

If the nvme route, what drives do you recommend for good price good performance?

Last question - I’m used to the Mac Pro when it comes to everything being one unit and the Mac going to sleep. With externals will I always have to unmount or will they be fine left on while computer sleeps.

[Darryl Ramm]

[Again I'm forced to break up a reply because DUC is screwed up and it throws Access Denied errors]

You can search DUC and just find all you likely need in past posts. Like https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=419376 And you'll likely find more useful stuff that way because you don't even need to know all the questions to ask about modern SSD storage (betcha wouldn't have thought to ask about PCIe switches).

Originally Posted by Adupr

Hey Darryl, first off really appreciate the response.
You will have to forgive me because I haven’t dealt with hard drives in years so I’m just getting informed on all the new stuff.

So I have a Mac cheesegrater 3.33 6 core that I have a 1tb ssd (samsung) that runs my programs and vi samples then I have a 2tb 7200 drive that I record too. I haven’t had too many problems with these. The reason I asked the speed of those was just curiosity of how much of an improvement things will be going from an internal Mac Pro setup to something external. I for sure don’t want to be losing speed

Uh you won't be losing speed. But again SSDs are not SSDs, if you really are trying to compare stuff you need to provide details of what exact SSDs in any comparison. A "Samsung" SSD might be a SATA III SSD on a slow SATA II connection off the Cheesegrater motherboard or maybe you added a SATA III controller PCIe card. Or maybe that's a Samsung PCIe M.2 or U.2 or whatever else much faster drive connected to a PCIe adapter... which will be talking PCIe 2 not PCIe 3 in the Cheesegrater. We have no way of guessing. But it does not matter, you don't need a comparison.

So I’m moving up to a Mac studio ultra and it will come with a 1tb internal. So here’s some possible external drive solutions for your thought on reliability and price/performance.

If you are spending all that money on an Ultra why are you keeping the internal SSD at the bare minimum? If you want the fastest storage start with the internal super fast SSDs.

I'm not following the shift from your current setup. Seems you seem to have

1TB SSD boot drive which is where you put samples--but how much space is actually needed for samples?
2TB 7200 RPM SSD where you record session to--but how much space is actually needed for sessions? Or for sessions you are actively working on?

Many many folks will take forever to use much of a 2TB drive for recording sessions. And as you backup/archive sessions many of us would remove old sessions if needed, as long as they are archived in multiple places.

So again, can you put the sessions in the fastest place possible, on the internal boot drive?

Your sample size seems to have grown from < 1TB to now 4TB do you really need that? Again the starting place on a modern Mac should be to put all your samples on the internal super fast SSD, and only if they won't fit/the upgraded Apple SSD is so prohibitively expensive then look at external storage options.

I would also encourage you to think say about a 2TB or 4TB SSD in the Ultra and just run with that for a while, I hope we will see third party custom Flash cards that can be installed in the Mac Studio, and if not that then I hope to see better external M.2 storage enclosures (with fan and PCIe switch) available in future.

[Darryl Ramm]

Option1 - OWC thunderbay 4 thunderbolt 3. Load with
1 Samsung ssd 4tb (samples)
1 samsung ssd 2tb (session)
1 HDD 7200 (barracuda?) for backup.

Will this setup be limited to approx 560MB speed?

This is a Thunderbolt to SATA III RAID box. Each drive will at best give you SATA III performance, which yes peaks around 560MB/s. You may get less out of it depending on how things are implemented, I've not seen a detailed benchmark for the box, and would not be looking so... meh.

If you want fast storage performance I would avoid any of these SATA RAID boxes. It's the opposite of designed for best performance... for that you need NVMe/PCIe based SSD storage.

I would avoid RAID 5, it's often a PITA and often causes more problems for users than it solves, including I'd argue helping contribute to *increased* risk of data loss caused by user errors.

Where these RAID or maybe even better NAS boxes shine for me is running them as JBOD and using as backup/archive targets (I would not backup/archive to a RAID volume, not even a stripe... you may not be able to easily move those drives elsewhere to recover if the box fails... different story for large setups with IT staff.). As long as you remove those drives to offsite at times, or have other drives that you move offsite, and ideally also have some cloud backup. Archive to HDD not SSD, but again choose a variety of approaches and storage locations to be safe.

[Darryl Ramm]

Option2 just get a 4tb and 2tb external like sandisk extreme portable and an enclosure for the HDD backup

Sandisk Extreme Portable v1 are just a SATA III SSD inside a carry case. Ah marketing--they may be portable but it sure as sugar ain't extreme.

Sandisk Extreme Portable v2 (what I assume you are referring to if 2TB or 4TB) are NVMe running over USB 3.2 Gen 2 (aka USB 3.1 Gen 2 aka 10 Gbit/sec). They are therefore most comparable to a Samsung T7 which is also NVMe over USB 3.2 Gen 2. That's why they max out at ~1GB/sec, it's hitting the 10 Gbit/s limit.

Again if you want maximum performance, which is where you started this discussion you are looking for PCIe/NVMe based drives that connect over Thunderbolt 3 (or Thunderbolt 4 same thing) with its 40 Gbit/s limit, not USB based drives. Yes both use the USB-C connector but are very different.

[Darryl Ramm]

Option3 - Sabrent TB3 dual nvme m.2 enclosure load with a 4tb and 2tb plus hhd backup

Ah yes now you are talking: Thunderbolt 3 to M.2... but nah. Those two M.2 drives are capable of putting out a lot of heat into a pewny little case with no cooling fan, and if pushing them to do much I/O they *will* throttle and maybe also affect their life (but life is likely a very remote issue). And it's a cheap case with two M.2 drives inside it, they'll do that by being cheap skates and just physically splitting the 4 x PCIe 3 lanes that come out the back of the Intel Thunderbolt chip inside the case and sending 2 lanes to each M.2 slot, so you get half the maximum performance at any time from each drive. You can bring back the performance by striping/RAID 0. Lots of reasons I'd not do that as I've discussed on DUC many times now. A real multi-slot expansion chassis would use a PCIe switch chip to share PCIe bandwidth between cards. There is a serious lack of such expansion enclosures in the market now. Something I hope vendors will fix, I've certainly bugged several of them about this. The economics are not great the best Broadcom PLX switch chips are not cheap--but are doable, I know typical BOM costs for these parts, and it does not make a lot of sense to put many M.2 drives into an expansion chassis since one drive is getting close to maxing out a Thunderbolt 3/4 link.

Option4 - 2 OWC TB3 envoy express nvme enclosures with two separate drives. and hhd backup

Multiple separate M.2 drives is a good way of ensuring overall flexible bandwidth to any drive. You just dedicate a Thunderbolt bus to each drive and the Mac Pro Ultra has lots of Thunderbolt 4 busses. (each USC-C port is on a seperate bus). But then you have these enclosures that are not fan cooled, at least they are not two M.2 drives in one enclosure, and ideally there are thermal pads providing a good thermal connection between the M.2 card to the case and then you stick the case on to something like a large (hopefully cool) aluminum back of a monitor that can act as a heat radiator.... but then these drives are no longer portable, which may or may not be a benefit or disadvantage. In many of the cheap M.2 enclosure I've seen the thermal pads actually don't provide a good bond and might even make cooling worse. These vendors are making things that cost them a few dollars each, focus is on cheap not great.

[Darryl Ramm]

If the nvme route, what drives do you recommend for good price good performance?

Samsung 980 Pro
Western Digital Black SN850

Both PCIe 4 M.2 drives that will work fine in any PCIe 3 M.2 slot (which is all you get behind a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 connection)... and all mentioned in the thread I linked to above.

And what are the best high performance options for putting those drive in? That include a PCIe switch and fan cooling... All covered in that thread as well, and none of those include the ones you ask about above. And while not dirt cheap not bad cost for the performance/flexibility provided. But once you look at good option there, understand what you are paying for these better options then the cost of buying more Apple SSD inside the Mac Studio Ultra hopefully looks a bit less of a shock.

Last question - I’m used to the Mac Pro when it comes to everything being one unit and the Mac going to sleep. With externals will I always have to unmount or will they be fine left on while computer sleeps.

You should be OK. But if you have optimized your computer properly for Pro Tools it won't sleep, ever. If it does sleep, drives stay mounted. Now some drives may themselves sleep and then take more time to get going again...or cause other problems but that is more likely ever an issue with cheap consumer focused HDD more than SSD.

[Adupr]

Darryl you are the man! Apologies once again for having to deal with my newb drive questions.

After reading a lot I think I’m gonna save up a little more and just go the Sonnet Echo Express with the pcie/nvme cards.

Two last questions tho as my research is unclear and I want to make sure I’m 100% golden

Can I pickup any pcie/nvme card or is it a certain one that I must get?

Will the echo express Tb3 line (se, r and d) run a pro tools native card along with the two pcie/nvme cards?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Adupr

Darryl you are the man! Apologies once again for having to deal with my newb drive questions.

After reading a lot I think I’m gonna save up a little more and just go the Sonnet Echo Express with the pcie/nvme cards.

Two last questions tho as my research is unclear and I want to make sure I’m 100% golden

Can I pickup any pcie/nvme card or is it a certain one that I must get?

If you are installing a PCIe to M.2 adapter card that has a single M.2 slot on it then you can just about pick any card. They are very low cost because they really do nothing except route wires to a M.2 slot. Here is one I use, it's $13 street price. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I5VABFY I would recommend using a M.2 card that has built in heat sinks if using a card like that. Both cards I recommended come in variants with heat sinks built on.

Here you are leveraging the PCIe switch built into those multi-slot expansion chassis, it provides the best/fair routing of PCIe traffic between the M.2 cards installed on each of up to three of these dumb PCIe adapter cards.

If you want to use a PCIe adapter card with multiple M.2 slot on it then things can get more complex fast. And low costs cards may not work as expected, and you may want to be using cards that have their own on-board PCIe switch. Like the Sonnet Quad M.2 adapter card (only fits in the largest Sonnet expansion chassis) or a IO Crest card with a switch on it. If you are paying less than ~$200 for the adapter card it's not got a switch on it. There are some absolute scam multi-M.2 slot to PCIe slot cards out there including stupid crap like one M.2 NVMe slot and one M.2 SATA slot.

So for lots of reasons just start simple/stupid with M.2 card on single card slot adapter. You can have three such cards installed in a three slot Sonnet chassis, or two cards if also running a HD Native card in the chassis. If you want to do more in future you can upgrade from that $13 card to a fancier multi-slot card. And you don't want to go overboard stuffing lots of M.2 drives into one expansion chassis, the whole chassis only gets 4 x PCIe 3 lanes of bandwidth from it's Thunderbolt connection.

But did I mention the place I would start is maxing out the super fast internal SSD storage in the Mac Studio?

Will the echo express Tb3 line (se, r and d) run a pro tools native card?

There are compatibility issues with the HD Native card and some of those chassis. You need to look at the very good Sonnet support documentation. I'm not going to repeat that there, go to the source.

If you already have or want a expansion chassis like this to run a HD Native card then it makes sense to get one of these three slot chassis and install NVMe M.2 drives in there. Otherwise, and I cannot keep saying this enough, I would start with trying to max out the super fast internal storage in the Mac Studio.