Ableton Forum

Chaps, is that a good idea and if not, why?

Are USB Flash drives (8GB would be enough for me) faster than a hard drive 7200rpm?

Let's just say backup/reliability isn't the issue here. Just on a performance level.

Basically, what if I bought a USB flash drive (say Sony Vault or Sandisk) and chucked:
1) my project on it
2) temporary (decoding) cache set to it (in Prefs)
3) Library set to it too (in Prefs)

?? Works or is it a crash & burn scenario ??

I've searched the forum but can't find anyone with crazy ideas like me....

* bump *

pls pls anyone?

Performance: try and get the transfer speeds for your flash drive and a hard drive and compare them.

or

just try it.

(i thought i had heard that you're not meant to run windows from flash devices, they're not designed to be written to and erased all that many times. i was thinking that would apply to any other use that needs to access the drive a lot.

it seems i heard wrong: you can, and loads of people are doing it.

perhaps this would be a good backup for people gigging with live in case windows went wrong, you run it off a flash drive. )

--andy

Krugger wrote:Chaps, is that a good idea and if not, why?

Are USB Flash drives (8GB would be enough for me) faster than a hard drive 7200rpm?

Let's just say backup/reliability isn't the issue here. Just on a performance level.

Basically, what if I bought a USB flash drive (say Sony Vault or Sandisk) and chucked:
1) my project on it
2) temporary (decoding) cache set to it (in Prefs)
3) Library set to it too (in Prefs)

?? Works or is it a crash & burn scenario ??

I've searched the forum but can't find anyone with crazy ideas like me....

I actually tried it with a Powerbook and a 4GB OZ Rally2 USB Thumbdrive on a project that had a combo of long audio tracks and short samples. The performance was actually worse then when I ran the project from my Powerbooks internal (5400) drive. The sound would break up a lot running the project from the thumbdrive.

Now, i have read that not all USB Thumbdrives are made equal. Some are better for short bursts of data, some are tweaked for larger media files. I am sure others mileage will vary.

thanks for your input

looks like a 7200rpm external drive is proving to be the way to go

interesting question and something worth trying. You would think such a drive would be faster but no doubt there will be some computery stuff preventing fast speeds. When they first came out I was thinking when they get big enough why couldnt your operating system be stored on a flash drive?

Krugger wrote:thanks for your input

looks like a 7200rpm external drive is proving to be the way to go

No problem, I think thats the way to go too. I have a 7200rpm Fw800 external and it's given me great results.

I keep reading that flash drives do lose on constant writes etc and have limited lifespan.

hmmm

i just bought a PNY 16gb drive and have recently loaded used it a my decoding cache. makes a HUGE difference.i am now able to run a dj set filled with long samples , several at a time, without any hiccups. now i just have to wait until i can buy a PNY solid state flash 2.5 sata for less than the price of a car.

I was considering getting a flash card to IDE adaptor to have the OS on.
I assumed that solid state would be fast for some reason but when looking in to it a regular drive is actually 5-6x faster.
And like Krugger said, they do have limited amount of writes before they die, so they are pretty bad for using as a decoding cache.

There is some 2.5" flash drives that is a bit faster than regular drives, and they come in sizes up to 160 GB as well as have a decent amount of writes before they die.
The technology they use is costly to say the least though...about $100 per GB.

EDIT:
@madcre8r
I'm surprised that you find the PNY fast...according to it's spec it's like most flash media < 10MBps, so if it's faster than your HD you must had a seriously slow HD.

Dis/similar idea, using Traktor quite a lot and decided to try running tracks from a usb stick> 2 tracks playing and copying data to the stick simultaneously, not a problem at all. So how sweet would it be to rock up to the gig where someone has a Traktor/FS/Serato kind of setup with just a usb stick in your hand? "I'm here!".
Not sure on the reliability and would want a backup but maybe a vision of things to come, and a DAMN sight lighter than my record box.

don tknow why but my flash drive is well slow

I wouldnt

if i'm not mistaken, the real issue here is seek time. not read/write speed. most regular drives have seek times that still fall into the are of 7-10 milliseconds. while ssd flash drives have seek times that are less than one millisecond. the sustained read write time is an issue more when it comes to live recording and file transfers. but i am using live for djing where i'll be launching clips on the fly. and my 5400 rpm 160gb drive would always hiccup and click and lag when i would start playing 6-7 tracks at a time or start skipping around on the fly very quickly. so, perhaps i am mistaken. i am still learning quite a bit about the way live uses drives and accesses files, but it seems like lower seek time isthe ultimate goal. like i said, i am still new to live so i could be wrong.