Got an Ableton Laptop? Get WD Scorpion Black!

[miekwave]

I purchased Scorpion Black WD drive with a USB 3 adaptor chasis... I moved all of my Ableton Packs and VST to that drive, and updated my preferences.

Now when I open Ableton Suite 9, not only does it load faster, I am getting far less "disc read" errors when loading large sets. Wow that just made my day!

Edit: WD Scopio Black is a poor mans SSD

[TRB DJ]

what HD did you use before moving your stuff to the new drive?

[infernal.machine]

First reaction: Pfft, like a disc drive is going to come even CLOSE to a solid state

After looking up its specs and price:

[miekwave]

what HD did you use before moving your stuff to the new drive?

I am transitioning from using Pro Tools Desktop to mobile Laptop for the sake of portability and perform ability. This way I can work in the Studio and take the Laptop home with me. When I work on a set at home, I can transition it into my desktop for final mixdown.

Before I was using a Toshiba 5200 RPM drive on a USB port. Original intention was backup storage, but then I discovered that when I load the orchestral Patches, my internal drive goes nuts and I get lots of unpleasant (and potentially speaker breaking) drop outs internal 5200 HDD.

I got the 300GB Scorpio 7200 WD Drive + USB3 Chassis for $110. So now, I just load all my one shot loops, mini clips and samples on the Toshiba drive. I moved my VSTi, Ableton Packs and Heavy Sample sets to the Scorio Drive. Samples/packs load into RAM in the matter of a few seconds and whatever happens to stream from disc, it's doing quite a good job!

Before when using the internal and Toshiba drive, I would get DISC errors when attempting to play 40+ voices on Orchestral packs. Now I don't even get DISC errors, so far. I'm gonna test it to the limit (maybe 120+ voices at the same time) to see how far I can take the Scorpio Drive before hitting drop outs/pops. If you can't afford laptop SSD, Scorpio is the way to go. Lets see how far it takes me.

[distaudio]

So you have transitioned from a desktop to a laptop for portability but have put everything on an external USB drive.

I tried that for awhile but being chained to a USB device was too much as I move around alot.

Does your laptop have a optical drive? I have had two laptops (Asus and a Macbook Pro) were I have purchased a optical drive hard drive caddy and replaced it with an additional hard drive.

Perhaps you could try this as an alternative if being at the end of USB cord the whole time ends up driving you nuts?

[miekwave]

So you have transitioned from a desktop to a laptop for portability but have put everything on an external USB drive.

I tried that for awhile but being chained to a USB device was too much as I move around alot.

Does your laptop have a optical drive? I have had two laptops (Asus and a Macbook Pro) were I have purchased a optical drive hard drive caddy and replaced it with an additional hard drive.

Perhaps you could try this as an alternative if being at the end of USB cord the whole time ends up driving you nuts?

You make some good points. I have a Blue Ray / DVD RW drive that I use regularly (I main reasons I purchased this laptop was to watch Blue Ray DVDs, Remote Office Work, and Starcraft 2).

In the past I had no interest in using Laptop DAW, but after I purchased Ableton Suite, I installed it on my Lappy to work on MIDI tracks on it, so it grew on me.

Moreover, this is more a temporary measure until I get a new system built that will service both my recording and Ableton needs.

[miekwave]

First reaction: Pfft, like a disc drive is going to come even CLOSE to a solid state

After looking up its specs and price:

Lol that was my exact reaction, i was at the store. I had a $150 budget, and i was eyeballin the 120GB SSD drive, but I would have to replace my internal drive for it (which already had about 400GB of content). And an External caddy for the SSd was $40. Then I remembered some reviews for WD Scorpio drives, I got more than twice the memory and a 3.0 USB Candy for less than the price of one SSD.

[Stephen Hernandez]

First reaction: Pfft, like a disc drive is going to come even CLOSE to a solid state

After looking up its specs and price:

Lol that was my exact reaction, i was at the store. I had a $150 budget, and i was eyeballin the 120GB SSD drive, but I would have to replace my internal drive for it (which already had about 400GB of content). And an External caddy for the SSd was $40. Then I remembered some reviews for WD Scorpio drives, I got more than twice the memory and a 3.0 USB Candy for less than the price of one SSD.

Miekwave, I'm shopping for a new SSD right now and I've seen prices cheaper than $150/120GB. Standard prices have dropped below $1/GB on 75% of the SSDs I've looked at. But there's always a few stragglers that are more expensive. If you aren't picky about brand you'll save more, and if your willing to purchase refurbished (which has to meet the same technical standards as a new product would) than you can save even more! Also, shopping online gives you the advantage of being able to Google coupon codes, and check for cheaper prices from merchant to merchant. I hardly ever by hardware or software in stores anymore. There's usually a better price online. I hope this information helps.

@Infernal, LMAO at the bug-eyed smiley.

[miekwave]

First reaction: Pfft, like a disc drive is going to come even CLOSE to a solid state

After looking up its specs and price:

Lol that was my exact reaction, i was at the store. I had a $150 budget, and i was eyeballin the 120GB SSD drive, but I would have to replace my internal drive for it (which already had about 400GB of content). And an External caddy for the SSd was $40. Then I remembered some reviews for WD Scorpio drives, I got more than twice the memory and a 3.0 USB Candy for less than the price of one SSD.

Miekwave, I'm shopping for a new SSD right now and I've seen prices cheaper than $150/120GB. Standard prices have dropped below $1/GB on 75% of the SSDs I've looked at. But there's always a few stragglers that are more expensive. If you aren't picky about brand you'll save more, and if your willing to purchase refurbished (which has to meet the same technical standards as a new product would) than you can save even more! Also, shopping online gives you the advantage of being able to Google coupon codes, and check for cheaper prices from merchant to merchant. I hardly ever by hardware or software in stores anymore. There's usually a better price online. I hope this information helps.

@Infernal, LMAO at the bug-eyed smiley.

You are right, I;'ve seen some deals on Tiger and NewEgg, Ebay, etc. Some studio guys I talked to insisted on Intel SSd 520 Series drives and Samsung 840PRO series drives are the best drives for doing Orchestra type Sampling. SSD manufacturers like OCZ sport impressive read/writes per $, but they use a proprietary driver raid scheme and are more prone to drive failure than Intel and Samsung 840 under heavy sample lead conditions which use sandforce, (compared to SSD which do not contain an sandforce) into the SSD board of the drive. It is suggested that two Raptor drives in raid 0 (coupled with at least 32GB ram) are more reliable than most SSD drives (thats not 520/840pro) for heavy failure free usage, pro SSD when used with large sampler packs, at least that is the conclusion I came to when researching SSD products in DAW environments.

I am not discounting other SSD products, maybe they work awesome, especially for more casual DAW uses, but I would prefer to go with one that is true and tested, also the Intel drives have a 5 year warranty, other manufacturers have 1,2 or 3 year warranties. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

I'd like to try four 120 GB SSD drives in Raid 0 for ultimate performance, and am aware of problems plaguing people who attempted Raid 0 SSD, but I discovered that the LSi 9271 raid controller with Fastpath and Cache vault provide the fastest possible error free SSD performance. (But that controller cost $600 lol)

Daw Bench even indicates that Samsung 840 Pro and Intel drives are the top SSD performers of the bunch.

Also on an added note, after more testing, I am still plauged with drop outs at approximately 60+ voices (still better than the toshiba drive) using the Scorpio HDD when sequencing "Full Patches", but most drop outs disappear after a minute or so after playing the same patches for a few bars. Its so wierd that droppouts happen at the beginning of my sequences but at about the 30 second mark the drop outs disappear (ever after replaying??) I'm gonna try this with the "LE" version of the samples

[glitchrock-buddha]

Just wondering, what is particularly impressive about the WD Black specs? The 7200 rpm and 16 mb cache?

I just ordered a Hitachi Travelstar which is 1TB 7200 rpm and 32mb cache, which will go in my laptop superdrive bay. Seems like it should be smokin fast. I've always had a 5400 rpm drive in my laptop, hasn't performed too bad. Last summer I put in a crucial 512 gb SSD in my macbook pro and the thing has worse performance with audio apps than my other internal drive which is 5400 rpm. I get drop out s so fast with big sampled instruments and my system freezes regularly for about a minute. Something's not right with it but I don't what to do with it, rather than change the drive.

[RhinoInRio]

Pfffttt 7200 rpm...
SSD is the way to go. Almost instant booting. No HD noises. No glitches due to slow reading/writing. It is way worth the cost. Love it. (and Live 9).

[miekwave]

Pfffttt 7200 rpm...
SSD is the way to go. Almost instant booting. No HD noises. No glitches due to slow reading/writing. It is way worth the cost. Love it. (and Live 9).

I agree, SSD makes excellent OS drives, but using it to stream 100+ voices is a different story.