Ableton Forum

Do those of you using SSDs have a small one - like 128, to boot from and run Live and then use another to record on/load samples from? Or do you just have a large SSD?

I was considering getting a 128 SSD and then doing the optical bay swap but I don't really use tons of samples, so I was thinking of just getting a 256gb SSD and leaving the optical drive - that way I wouldn't have to bay for the mount.

Thoughts?

I have a 90gb sad which I boot from yet it is partitioned so that I have my live library on its own partition so if I ever need to wipe my system my library is still in tact.

I find that on a i5 system with 8GB of RAM that I am no where near using 100% cpu usage however I would like a dedicated SSD audio drive and will upgrade once they are more affordable,

I keep my sample library on my 1tb hard drive but make sure I always do a collect all and save so my live set will work regardless

I would recommend partitioning your ssd and allow say 20gb for ableton that way it saves you buying another dedicated drive and then once you do eventually upgrade to another drive just relink your library and use that once the ssds are better priced

That is all fine and dandy for small library but for Komplete 8 update is 110GB of samples/instruments. If you have something like that you'll want a second SSD for it and leave the OS on main SSD (Live stuff should be fine on that drive as it won't mess up a typical install). I would like to go SSD but a) price, b reliability and c) longetivity are my concerns. I have read where people have had them die in ~1 yr, others not but it depends on brand/size/how new (model-wise) they are.

If you got the coin, go for two. I would need a 256GB to put what's on my lappy's 500GB drive at cheapest cost for an SSD. Would love to go 480GB so image restore doesn't need resizing, etc...but they are still pricey at the larger capacity. Sweet spot seems to be the 240-256GB sizes.

You can get a 512GB SSD for as little as $399. It makes no sense to go smaller.
For example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148531
and: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227809

Johnak47 wrote:I have a 90gb sad which I boot from yet it is partitioned so that I have my live library on its own partition so if I ever need to wipe my system my library is still in tact.

I find that on a i5 system with 8GB of RAM that I am no where near using 100% cpu usage however I would like a dedicated SSD audio drive and will upgrade once they are more affordable,

I keep my sample library on my 1tb hard drive but make sure I always do a collect all and save so my live set will work regardless

I would recommend partitioning your ssd and allow say 20gb for ableton that way it saves you buying another dedicated drive and then once you do eventually upgrade to another drive just relink your library and use that once the ssds are better priced

so is just your library saved to partition or is all your Live work saved to that partition in addition to the location on on the boot portion of the drive? So say you work on a set and save it, is that saved work also saved to the partition?

simpleton wrote:You can get a 512GB SSD for as little as $399. It makes no sense to go smaller.
For example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148531
and: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227809

hmmm. I think 256 may be adequate for me; I don't have any huge samples libraries like Komplete. Just Live and some VST synths. I can't say my library won't grow. I may just got with a single 256gb SSD.

simpleton wrote:You can get a 512GB SSD for as little as $399. It makes no sense to go smaller.
For example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148531
and: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227809

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ageSize=20 for 480GB models. A little pricier but seem to have better reviews. OCZ and Crucial have been ok from last I recall reading about the newer models, but the first one you listed guy said was going offline every couple of days, w/newer firmware every ~5 days. Can't be having that happen, especially if you are doing a live set, or have a large set loaded and it disappears = possible data corruption....not good at all if that happens.

If I went SSD in laptop It'd be at least 256GB because I am sitting at ~135GB space used on a 500GB HDD. And that was before I updated to K8 (last night/this morning, took ~5 hrs to load it in completely) so it is probably closer to ~150GB used...Also my lappy is SATA II so if I could find a good model SATA II I'd go that route (256GB or larger) but don't see a lot of good reviews for that size. And most people seem to be going for SATA III's...even if they running on SATA II bus.

Mike

My understanding is that you don't want to be doing a lot of writing and moving around and removing of files to and from an SSD. I asked about this in an earlier thread in the lounge and that seemed to be the consensus there -- SSD for OS and Programs, regular "platter" drive for library.

Chris

Yeah, hence my hesitation on getting one due to limited writes to it (yeah a lot, but depends how hard you are using it will eat into that amount. So you'd want maybe one of those hybrids for your 2ndary drive perhaps or 7200rpm. Personally I don't do live stuff so I don't have to have the speed and will spend the coin elsewhere for now

so is just your library saved to partition or is all your Live work saved to that partition in addition to the location on on the boot portion of the drive? So say you work on a set and save it, is that saved work also saved to the partition?

I save my live sets on the ssd so they load quicker and have good latency, I regularly backup to my external hard drive also, The main reason for ableton library being on a seperate partition is so I can keep any changes to my library if i need too do a fresh install of my operating system I will only format the partition that doesnt contain my ableton library

In regard to the likes of using large sample librarys like komplete unless you have lots of cash to throw at ssds what you should do is use a standard drive for storing your samples then collect all and save so that the samples your using are only saved to ssd for quick load times

cpyatak wrote:My understanding is that you don't want to be doing a lot of writing and moving around and removing of files to and from an SSD. I asked about this in an earlier thread in the lounge and that seemed to be the consensus there -- SSD for OS and Programs, regular "platter" drive for library.

this.


you want things that do not change on your SSD. the bright side is... at least you know when an SSD is about to shit on you... the real side is, that you want to do what you can to keep that process from running your life/music.

so, anything permanent(ish) is cool for your SSD. anything that has to be written to a temp folder/file/drive or be written before you want it to be permanent (like images from a web page) you want to be in the same old spot... somewhere that you can swap out (i.e. not on your SSD).