Solid State Drives

[terrymunday]

Would installing a solid state drive improve performance? I'm talking about the audio cracking up when you add effects. Or is the processor speed the problem? Here're my system details:
XP Professional version 2 service pack 2. Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4CPU 3.00GHz, 2.99Ghz, 2.00 GB RAM. The disk speed is 7200 RPM.

Thanks
Terry

[GargoyleStudio]

Cracking audio is generally not to do with disk speed, more to do with latency and CPU speed.

I moved from a 3Gig P4 a while back to a Dual Core and the speed increase and stability increase was excellent. I then upped to a quad core and again, things are so much more stable - although of course now I just create more complex songs!

I'd recommend upgrading your processor + mobo before considering SSD disks.

Mike.

[MpVpRb]

[Hurican]

Yeah if your Audio is crackling, it is most likely that you are running out of CPU performance. (Do you have the Cubase performance monitor up? ...and if you do, how much is it using?).

I have moved from Dual, to Quad, to 6 core, and it helps immensely with stability. (I'm not on an intel system though).

Regarding HD, I can't say much about them at this time because I haven't experimented with them. I'm a "wait until almost everyone says.. go for it!" type of person. Right now I'm running upwards of 32 tracks on a SATA 7200, with no problems and less than 1sec read time when scrolling FF / RW across these tracks. So typical SATA drives are still good, unless you have seriously heavy audio based projects going on.
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[Computer] - Windows 7 (64) "Dedicated"
[Hardware] - Antec P183 Case / Biostar- TA890FXE / XFX GT 240 / AMD Phenom II 6 Core - 3.2 Gig / OCZ Reaper DDR3 1333 12g
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[(main) Studio Software] - Cubase 5.5.2 (64) / QL Goliath / Atmosphere / Izotope Ozone-Spectron / Antares / BFD2 / Speakerphone

I have PTMS- (Post Traumatic Midi Syndrome)

[Billum]

I agree with the others that audio performance would probably not see much benefit from an SSD, but if you replace a HD with an SSD, you *would* see benefits with faster loading (of libraries, applications, and/or the OS, depending what you put on it), and the massive benefit of silence! Always welcome.

Bill
_________________
Bill M
Cubase5.5.2 64bit, Hal3.5, GA3, Wavelab 7
Win7 64bit, i7 930 2.8GHz, 6GB RAM,
Samsung Spinpoint HDs, UAD-1&2, TC PoCo, Liquid Mix, ProFire2626, Apogee MiniMe

[karltl]

Could be disk related or a combination of insufficient memory plus HD issues. Your CPU spec sounds pretty strong. Since you have a single drive system you have a lot of stuff fighting for hard drive data (OS, Cubase application, Cubase trying to read and write audio data, page files swapping etc... Could be placing a heck of a load on the HD.Add to this a relatively small amount of RAM (2gig) and that can compound the issue.

I would start by downloading a program called HDTune. It's free.. Run that against you hard drive and see what kind of data thruput you're getting.

HDTune will test your drive thruput with various sice data packets. You'll see the slowest transfer rates at very small packet sizes. It'll increase as packet sizes get larger and eventually settle down to pretty consistant value. For a 7200 rpm drive, I would expect to see stable thruput numbers somewhere in the range of 70MB p/sec.

I'm assuming you've gone into windows and set performance option for "Background" services. Are you running anykind of antivirus, do you have a network card (particularly wireless)? Have you tried dis-abling network connections and antivirus. What ASIO buffer size are you running and what kind of audio card do you have???
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Intel i5 quad core CPU, Win7 64 bit, 8 gig ram, 7 hard drives, 2 Gforce 8400 fanless video cards, quad displays. RME HDSPe & RME Multiface, RME Fireface 800, Steinberg MR816X. Cubase 4.5.2, Kontakt3, Halion Player, EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold, EWQL Collosus, BFD2, Korg Pad Control, Steinberg CC121 controller, ART MPA Gold mic preamp.

Remote rig- ADK model 7600 laptop (i7, 17" mon). Mobile rack for the Fireface 800, MR816x , ART S8 mic splitter, Furman PL-8C power conditioner.

Mic's:AKG C414's (stereo pair), Rode NT5's (Stereo pair), Fathead Ribbon mic's (stereo pair), SM57's (5), SM58 (5), AKG Perception 200 condensor, AKG D112, Sennheiser e914 condensor, EV ND457 dynamic, AT 4033's (2).

www.ReferencePointRecording.com

[Spiked]

It probably will not help your crackling though. On my i920 system I had to turn off multiprocessing in cubase. Even on 1 processor it has plenty of power to handle anything I can throw at it, including 2 UAD cards which eat a ton of CPU. I thought I heard/read were 5.5 was suppose to fix this, but it still crackles unless I turn off multiple processing.
Anyhow - the SSD - it Fn rocks. I can go through samples in halion or any of the other samplers like it was a rom based external unit. Things load instantly. Its worth it for that alone, and I'm sure it doesn't hurt performance either. I still record/play audio to a spinning disk, but with an SSD system/application disk the load on the spinner is only the audio stream. Very happy.

[musicsound]

Currently I am working on my audio computer (XP32 but want to move to Win7 64) with 3 disks.

1) OS and programs
2) Cubase projects and audio files
3) Sample libaries

If I just replace one of them with a SSD - which one to choose as priority and which one secondly and which one at last ???
_________________
i7 920, Gigabyte X58-UD5, 3 * 2GB RAM, Gainward GeForce 9400 GT passiv, XP32 Pro SP3, Cubase 5, Wavelab 5.01b, UAD-2 Quad, TC Powercore MKII, Duende FW, MOTU 424 PCI audio card + HD192, 1296, 308 interface, Isochrone OCX, Lavry Blue

[midimaddness]

[DaveFry]

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
Also see my post on this thread ; http://forum.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=138521&highlight=
My Electric Keys sample library is 40GB ,just the Fender Rhodes part alone is 8GB . With my SSD and 12 GB of RAM my cheap MIDI controller keyboard plays like an expensive digital piano for a fraction of the price.
_________________
Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player._____________________________
I7 920, 12GB RAM, Windows 7 x64
Cubase 5.5.2 x64, CI2
MOTU Electric Keys x64, The Grand 3.01 x64

[terrymunday]

Thanks everyone. No, I hadn't set the performance setting to 'background'. Maybe that will help, but I think it's a case of upgrading the processor. I think, if you are gonna install an SSD it should be used for Cubase projects and audio files.

Terry

[terrymunday]

Oh, by the way. I have no internet, antivirus etc on this machine. It's just used for recording.

Terry

[midimaddness]

[Coppersky]

[midimaddness]

[easyman]

From what you say, save your pennies up and buy a new faster CPU (you will likely need a new motherboard and memory I expect).

The solid state drive will do nothing for you.
_________________
take it easy...

Core 2 Duo E6600, P5B Delux | Win XP Pro SP3 | Yamaha 01x, i88x, Remote 61 | Cubase SX3, 4, 5, Reason 3, NI Komplete, Omnishpere, Atmosphere, Trilogy, Lounge Lizzard, V-Station, Bass-station

[Patanjali]

midimadness, what failures in 3 months?

Most modern SSDs do not have the issues that plagued early devices. Also, I would be wary of what a HDD company rep says about SSDs!

Write lifecycle limitations do not lose data, but only begin limiting the capacity when writing new data. For most, this will probably NEVER happen. Reads have no limitations, making them perfect for samples. EastWest recommends SSDs for sample drives.

As for OSs, SSDs are typically not so good at small file random writes. But then, neither are HDDs! Just do some measurements

For the virtual memory file, MS telemetry data showed that its usage was mainly small reads and large 1MB writes, making SSDs the 'perfect' drive in their opinion, rather than the worst as many posters on many forums had said, based purely on what they thought happend with virtual memory.

Personally, we have only SSDs in all our computers, including laptops. They are silent and their cool running means less fan noise. The four Raptors I used to have added 40W to the case. I used to have a dedicated 120mm fan for them. Now its only a couple of Watts. The laptops do not vibrate desks like our old ones with HDDs did.

The good thing about SSDs is that you do not need to partition them to optimise them to make time critical data reside in the fastest part of a platter. They are totally random access because there is no head travel time.

We run all our SSDs with 64kB sectors. This relieves the OS of being involved in a lot of little disk operations. Even with HDDs, I noticed 30%+ improvement in a 1GB copy of mixed file sizes between drives using 64kB sectors. It does use up an extra 8% on drives with lots of small files like OS and data drives for general use, but only 0.5% for sample and project drives.

For many tasks, SSDs don't seem as fast as their specs would indicate relative to HDDs, but that is because most activities are not pure drive operations, but a mixture of program thinking and drive operations. However, sometimes SSDs just shine, like yesterday when I copied a half GB from my laptop to my desktop in a few seconds at 110MBps across a Gbit connection. I never noticed that with HDDs. Initial sample loads are a lot faster with SSDs.

SSDs are a big leap in expense, but we have never regretted buying them and I am loathe to use HDDs for anything these days. Whenever I use them - for project backup, etc - all I notice is the noise, heat and generally lower transfer times.
_________________
Patanjali

For a CD recorded, mixed and mastered in Cubase SX, see www.devaki.info (on AMD 2.4, etc).

Comp: i7 920, GA-EX58-UD4P, 12GB Cors, 2xGA8600GT+Palit9400, 4x Dell 30", SSD: Vtx 120+60, 2x Cors P256, UAD-2Q.
HW: Nmn U87 Ai, Rode NT1000, M-Audio Key Pro 88, Korg padKontrol, RME FF800, M-Patch-2, Tannoy Reveal+TS-12.
SW: Win 7 Ult 64, Cubase 5 64+32, Goliath, SO Plat Pro, Pianos, Sup/Drum 2.0, Kore Sax & Brass, AT7, Ozone4, Alloy.

[midimaddness]

[Patanjali]

[midimaddness]

[pj geerlings]

Please be aware that there is a write cycle limit and a read cycle limit for SSDs - you can track down the spec for the current crop of 'em but I'll bet it is still less than 100K lifetime writes per SSD memory cell. The read limit is substantially higher but it does exist.

Both of these cycle limits are handled internally "as needed".

But . . . . How?

The SSD device is over-provisioned such that in the normal lifetime of the drive there is enough extra storage to allow for moving around the sectors that are being accessed the most. Over time this process can slow down the drive. The over-provisioning is based on nominal usage profiles. (...and a DAW Diskdrive usage profile may not have made it into the list of profiles used to calculate a reasonable over-provisioning - buyer beware!)

Maybe if your SSD is big enough to start out with you'll never run into problems - but I wouldn't bet on it . . . .

At the moment my main box uses 4 64G SSDs for sample storage *only*

Rotational Media is used for everything else.

Peace y'all,
pj

[Patanjali]

midimaddness,

On an SSD, files are logically overwritten, but physically, the same blocks are not used due to the wear-levelling using the least used next rather than those freshly 'erased'. If one really has 'heavy' use, SLC SSDs with 100,000 write cycles per block would just make that a non-issue.


pj geerlings,

Yes, SSDs are overprovisioned, but that just delays the time until all possible blocks have been used at least once and so require an erase-then-write instead of just a write that a virgin block does. When that point is reached, average write speeds for the dives become about 85% of their 'new' specs, which is still a lot faster than ANY HDD.


To me the jury is still out on exactly how long an SSD would actually last in 'heavy' DAW use before one starts losing capacity due to write lifecycle endpoints. Data is not lost, though, just the pool of blocks to write to starts becoming smaller. For me, when that happens, I would use that SSD for samples (always seem to get more of them), and get a new one.


For our DAW use, which is just for recording one artist, and not for a full-time working studio, MLC SSDs will never reach their lifecycle limit in my lifetime.

The real big drawback for most possible users of SSDs is their price. However, once having decided that is not an impediment, SSDs will provide performance, power, heat and noise benefits over HDDs.


You guys might think you can categorically state that SSDs are no good for project drives, but neither of you have backed that up with empirical evidence in this thread. I cannot state categorically that SSDs will be suitable for all users for their whole life, except that they CAN be used for such use for a period of time that is totally dependent upon how heavily they are used. I will say that for most users, they would probably provide superior performance to HDDs and work reliably and fully for several years before capacity limiting begins. At no point is data at risk.
_________________
Patanjali

For a CD recorded, mixed and mastered in Cubase SX, see www.devaki.info (on AMD 2.4, etc).

Comp: i7 920, GA-EX58-UD4P, 12GB Cors, 2xGA8600GT+Palit9400, 4x Dell 30", SSD: Vtx 120+60, 2x Cors P256, UAD-2Q.
HW: Nmn U87 Ai, Rode NT1000, M-Audio Key Pro 88, Korg padKontrol, RME FF800, M-Patch-2, Tannoy Reveal+TS-12.
SW: Win 7 Ult 64, Cubase 5 64+32, Goliath, SO Plat Pro, Pianos, Sup/Drum 2.0, Kore Sax & Brass, AT7, Ozone4, Alloy.

[pj geerlings]

[Patanjali]

Hello pj geerlings.

Can you give some specific references about how 'thermal decay' applies to SSDs?

I googled "thermal decay" ssd and got 74 results, none of which dealt directly with that in relation to SSDs but only in relation to HDDs appearing on the same web page. Actually, most references re thermal decay in the list were to Seagate Momentus 2.5" HDDs, and the rest were for 'SSD's that did not relate to storage. Even the link to the Cubase thread where the words occur, YOU only discuss thermal decay in relation to HDDs. So why ask me to look up thermal decay in relation to SSDs?

Googling "thermal decay" hdd , I received 1820 hits, all specially related to the issue in HDDs and how it relates to the stability of recorded data.

Even "read limitations" ssd brought up no read limitations specific to SSDs.


So, unless you show some evidence of thermal decay in relation to SSDs, I would say the evidence from what YOU asked me to do, points to it being an issue very much related to HDDs and that YOU are the ONLY one publically trying to make it relate to SSDs, and without showing any indication of relevance.


I call your bluff. I want to know if there are such issues with SSDs, as I have made an investment in them and DO want to know if there are issues that affect the data I already have recorded. So far, I have come across none, and you have not expanded upon that.


In that Cubase thread I referred to above, you commented about write amplification and how it is affected by alignment to boundaries. Using Win 7 to initialise SSDs and format their partitions will automatically align to boundaries. When installing Win 7 on a system previously using an earlier Win, I used another Win 7 system to format the drives, then installed Win 7 on them.

To further mitigate write-amplification, I format my partitions with 64kB sectors, so that only two are used per SSD block. Even between two WD Raptor HDDs, transfer times for 1GB of mixed-sized files (from the OS drive) were 30+% better with 64kB sectors on each than with the default 4kB sectors.


Win 7 does a lot of stuff to cater for SSDs (like turn off defragmentation and ReadyBoost), but there is probably still a lot of embedded optimisations for HDDs that could also be disabled, as well as more SSD optimisations implemented. We have become accustomed to HDD limitation workarounds being engineered into OSs and forget that SSDs are also allowed to have their deficiencies compensated for, as will future technologies.


As for some saying there are NO ADVANTAGES of SSDs, anyone who wants silence, less heat in their cases, no vibrations, and improved performance in almost every aspect over HDDs, will definitely find them advantagious, and worth paying the price premium for.

I decided to upgrade to them after a couple of my WD Raptors started going flaky and the OS one failed. Fortunately, the government was allowing extra depreciation rates for any capital items at the time, effectively discounting 15% off the price. I did not miss the 40W of heat (for 4), head chatter and the 120mm fan no longer required. Now to cut down on fan noise and vibration.
_________________
Patanjali

For a CD recorded, mixed and mastered in Cubase SX, see www.devaki.info (on AMD 2.4, etc).

Comp: i7 920, GA-EX58-UD4P, 12GB Cors, 2xGA8600GT+Palit9400, 4x Dell 30", SSD: Vtx 120+60, 2x Cors P256, UAD-2Q.
HW: Nmn U87 Ai, Rode NT1000, M-Audio Key Pro 88, Korg padKontrol, RME FF800, M-Patch-2, Tannoy Reveal+TS-12.
SW: Win 7 Ult 64, Cubase 5 64+32, Goliath, SO Plat Pro, Pianos, Sup/Drum 2.0, Kore Sax & Brass, AT7, Ozone4, Alloy.

[pj geerlings]

[jcschild]

since my name was mentioned.

1) pops/clicks wont be fixed by moving to an SSD (unless your drive is going bad and replaciong it with a standard drive is the answer)

2) XP is not wise for an SSD it does not support trim. you can by a program like Perfect disk.
even with WIn7 the fill issue can and will be an issue

the fill issue; http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829
I RECOMMEND READING THE FIRST ARTICLE FIRST

its been a yr but the issues remain.

i have been thru 3 SSDs personally each was the next gen and faster
i personally experianced the trim issue on 2 OS.
having bought the prefect disk it did improve.

i only use the SSD for an OS.

the area i have seen the bigget improvement with an SSD OS drive is for video editing due to the vast amount of temp files.
particularly when a large # of effects are used.

for Audio i still have a hard time recommending them other than for live playback due to how fast your libraries load.

3) i have not had any SSD die on me yet, again the issue was the fill issue
_________________
Scott
ADK
home of the "Kentucky Fried DAW"