Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
noland
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by noland » Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:08 pm

Packing a second harddrive instead the cd/dvd is a regular thinkpad feature, and it really helps a lot to stability and speed. Highly recommended!
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trevox
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by trevox » Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:35 pm

samtastic wrote:
trevox wrote:I have two HD's in my MBP too (one SSD, one regular 7200RPM drive), but I use them differently. I have my OS and all apps installed on my SSD and read/write all audio to the regular drive. I guess if you can get a big enough SSD, it would be great, but I record my audio at 96kHz (sometimes 192kHz) and my current 80Gb SSD would get eaten up quite quickly. Having your OS on a SSD is far more useful in terms of performance anyway IMO. Obviously 2 SSD's would be the dream - maybe when they get a little less expensive for the larger drives! BTW, I have recorded 16 tracks of audio at 96kHz in my setup and my machine did not bat an eyelid! I am sure if I had more inputs, it could have handled plenty more....


yeah that sounds really similar to what i want to do!

except I don't think I'll record at such high sample-rates.


Yeah I was thinking i'd install the system on the SSD, as well as the Live Library (mine is about 42gb) and maybe some key sample libraries (30gb) (for vst-instruments, I don't really use samples that much anyway)...



and I can see the logic in your recording/reading audio from the HDD.


My only question is:

if your System & Live Lib are installed on the SSD, and you're recording and reading all audio from the HDD, where would be the best place to keep your ableton project folders? On the SSD with your live library, or on the HDD with all your audio?

To me, it makes sense to keep it on the HDD with your audio, as that's what most of the data in an Ableton project usually is

and i'd also keep the latest couple of productions I'm working on at that time, I reckon. And also my live sets.

42+30 = 72gb (of 120gb total SSD, can't afford the larger-capacity ones!)


All photos, media and emailing stuff, I'll use my older Macbook (2.1Ghz, white 2008 model)... so the quad-core will be for audio only : )
I have my Library on the SSD - I have no idea how yours is 42Gb's as mine is around 5Gb! Do you have a load of additional stuff in there that you could maybe store somewhere else? But I don't see any reason why you couldn't store that on the other drive - don't see how it can affect performance during playback. Sample libraries most definitely are on the audio drive. After all, every time you play a sample, it's reading audio!

My theory is have everything that would be considered application "configuration" on the OS drive. Everything that is a document or file specific to a project or audio in general, keep it on the other drive. Well that's what I do anyway and I only had to buy a relatively small SSD (80Gb) which didn't cost the earth and it works very well.

Oh, and if buying a SSD, don't pay too much attention to the contiguous read/write speeds, the random read/write speeds are FAR more important for the drive you're storing your OS/apps on. The Intel X25 series are very cost effective drives.

ionic
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by ionic » Sun Aug 28, 2011 8:28 pm

do you guys think it would be wise to have a small SSD drive for active production projects? my projects tend to get quite bulky with tons of frozen tracks, so i would like to decrease the render time and help my projects run mroe smoothly. after the project is finished, i plan on moving them to a normal hard drive so they dont bulk up my SSD. does this sound reasonable?

also, do you guys know of a good firewire 800 compatible external SSD?

thanks in advance!



ionic
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by ionic » Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:27 pm

20mbps doesnt seem very fast for me, what do others think?

trevox
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by trevox » Tue Aug 30, 2011 6:35 pm

ionic wrote:20mbps doesnt seem very fast for me, what do others think?
No, that's not very fast. Sequential read/write speeds should be 10 times that. Decent random speeds would be >40Mbps. I cannot stress how much the random read/writes is more important than sequential. Again, I don't work for Intel, but 6 months or so ago when I did my research, the X25-M really thrashed the competition in terms of lower priced SSD's.

samtastic
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Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by samtastic » Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:56 am

hey ionic, that's what I now plan to do, but keeping it all internal by using this:


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+Wo ... DDAMBS0GB/




got two HDs in my macbook pro now. SSD for the system disk & current work-in-progress projects (120gb) and larger sample libraries, instruments, and older projects on a HDD (750gb).



having the system on the SSD makes such a difference. she's now the fastest-feeling computer I've ever used. faster than my 8-core Mac Pro (though it's system is on an traditional, magnetic HDD).

strongly recommend running the system of an SSD (for all - I'm sure it could give extra life to many older computers)




my 2¢ : )


to answer the original question:


"Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?"

yes. but stick the system on the SSD instead. if you can afford two SSDs, then use two. one for system, one for data.

trevox
Posts: 659
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:58 am

Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by trevox » Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:03 pm

samtastic wrote:hey ionic, that's what I now plan to do, but keeping it all internal by using this:


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+Wo ... DDAMBS0GB/




got two HDs in my macbook pro now. SSD for the system disk & current work-in-progress projects (120gb) and larger sample libraries, instruments, and older projects on a HDD (750gb).



having the system on the SSD makes such a difference. she's now the fastest-feeling computer I've ever used. faster than my 8-core Mac Pro (though it's system is on an traditional, magnetic HDD).

strongly recommend running the system of an SSD (for all - I'm sure it could give extra life to many older computers)




my 2¢ : )


to answer the original question:


"Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?"

yes. but stick the system on the SSD instead. if you can afford two SSDs, then use two. one for system, one for data.
Glad it worked out for you! I do take the point from others in terms of using the SSD as the audio disk, but the difference in overall machine performance is so radically improved, I feel having the OS/apps on the SSD is more beneficial. What SSD did you get in the end?

samtastic
Posts: 195
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:03 pm

Re: Live gigs: worth having a second drive (SSD) for audio?

Post by samtastic » Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:35 pm

went with OWC's 120gb one. The higher-spec one. Zooming.


curious to see how it goes with recording... see if it's possible to record to the SSD at the same time as playing live (from a Live lib that is also on the SSD).


or perhaps it'll perform better reading/recording the project on the HDD???


will have to experiment a bit. Only just got it all set-up in the last few days.

will keep you posted : )

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