*@^#%&( sample hard drive went down!!

[Russell Landwehr]

first I was referring mostly to sample streaming. Which would mean very few write cycles, and mostly read cycles. and an SSD would have the edge, as most people load up the sample drive with different libraries, so the likelihood that all the samples you would stream for a particular project being side by side on the drive (contiguous) is just about 0%. Meaning the drive head on a mechanical drive is going to be skipping around like mad.

This makes sense and could be why Steve's sample drive failed... from banging the head around so much.

I was also unaware that samples were still streamed. I was assuming that since RAM space has become so huge, that Samplers didn't stream anymore.

you would agree the computing trend is always towards more. Buy whats cheap and works today might be a little less than what you would like in 6 months when the new version 12.92 version of whizbang library comes out.

Yes I agree, my mantra on computers is "buy the best you can afford."

This thread has me examining my DAW hardware and backup proceedures.

Russell

[cardell]

It is a sign from God I'm doing the right thing because my old system is gettin FUNKY!

Stuart

[Razor7Music]

Hey Razor what do you mean SSD has a semi finite # of writes? Do you mean after a while you can't write on it any longer? (have patience with me I'm from South Georgia)

It's the flash type of SSDs (and thumb drives) that have the maximum number of writes/erases. Not the DRAM type--I'm not sure which manufacturers make which kind. I spoke to one of our engineers one time and he said something to the effect of a finite number of electrons in the material and once their gone, their gone.

You'd get more reliable (and quotable) facts from doing an online search. My point was that although I was droning on about how much better SSDs are than HDDs, they are not magic--they do fail too. I actually had 3 fail when I replaced an HDDs in a laptop. Kind of like the myths that Macs never crash. SSDs crash too, but for different reasons than the head diving head first into the platter, etc.

[manninghollow]

Wow great discussion guys. I think I'm going with SSD,s one for operating system, and one for samples. I'll stick to a couple of mech HDs for recorded audio. I probably need to do raid 1? and record to both mech. HDs at the same time? I think Glyph makes duplicate HD setups.

[andygabrys]

SSDs crash too, but for different reasons than the head diving head first into the platter, etc.

which is why having backups of everything including your sample drive can save you time when things go down.

[andygabrys]

Wow great disscussion guys. I think I'm going with SSD,s one for operating system, and one for samples. I'll stick to a couple of mech HDs for recorded audio. I probally need to do raid 1? and record to both mech. HDs at the same time? I think Glyph makes duplicate HD setups.

yes Glyph does make Raid systems, that are well regarded and at the same time rather pricey but they have a good warranty thing going on.

i would examine those against the RAID enclosures from OWC www.macsales.com - they work on PC or mac as long as you have the right interface (i.e. eSATA, FW800, USB 3.0 etc.)

on my setup, I don't do a RAID system for my audio record drive, but I have a separate mechanical drive that I back up to every hour using an automated backup software. And the software will backup incrementally only which has changed, and stores the changes in a log based on date.

[manninghollow]

Great idea Andy on sample drive. It took me almost 2 days to get back up and running.

[CabDriver]

You might also want to consider a fusion drive as offered in the new Mac Mini. Basically you are using a SSD drive as a cache for frequently used data that is stored on a traditional HDD. This works extremely well with large virtual instruments that consist of 40-60GB sample libraries.

If you are technically inclined you can even retrofit an older Mac with a fusion drive by combining your existing HHD drive with a newly purchase SSD drive. Unfortunately you will have to fiddle around in the OSX terminal to make it work but it is possible:

http://jollyjinx.tumblr.com/post/346384 ... -apple-has

[andygabrys]

I was also unaware that samples were still streamed. I was assuming that since RAM space has become so huge, that Samplers didn't stream anymore.

well, sort of. as I understand it, a sample playback situation depends on a few different things:

amount and speed of RAM
CPU speed and probably # of cores / hyperthreads in today i5 and i7s that most people have
hard drive speed and style (mech, SSD etc) and related interface speeds.

yes most samplers give some kind of setting for the amount of the sample that gets preloaded into RAM, and then correspondingly the rest of the sample has to stream off the disk. But the total sample set size of most virtual instruments is in the GB, the bigger instruments loading many GB's but that is only the portion loaded into RAM.

Like the template that I am working on right now for some non-reality reality music loads up 7.5 GB or so. Just loading one patch in LASS loads 0.56 GB of a total sample size of 3.37 GB. So that's about 16% if every instrument I load is approximately the same. so I would need 7.5*3.37/.56 of RAM to load it all in memory = 45 GB. Plus memory to operate the system and Logic.


I have 20GB. So loading all into RAM isn't an option right now. But it makes me wonder if I could edge up the amount that happens by default in Kontakt, and would that work, or would my CPU just die under the extra strain.

Good question.....

[andygabrys]

so I increased the pre-load size to the max in Kontakt. it was 60kb per, and now its 240 per (voice / instrument / whatever it is).

Now my ram used in Kontakt is 13.25 GB instead of 7.5GB.

the HD meter is logic in invisible. not using it at atll.

CPU is still redlining which was my problem before.