Recording music on SSD
em411.com forums : Hardware recording, mastering : hardware based recording and mastering thread starter Hello good people at EM411,
I have decided to upgrade my recording harware and this includes a new laptop for recording. However, I am very unsure about what drive to choose. I have used 7200 rpm drives with no issues before, but now with the whole SSD frenzy going on I wonder if it is any good for recording music on. I would believe it would be good for triggering samples and such, but have any of you got any experience with recording music on SSD drives? I know they are pricey, but if they are good its worth it.
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not sure about recording but it will give you ultra fast boot time...
from what I hear the only drawback is weight and apparently there is a finite number of writes...can't verify though. I use a SSD for recording and it's awesome. They don't make any noise. None. Right there you should be sold on the idea.
I use a Dell Mini 1010 netbook with an Intel SSD in it and it works extremely well for recording, especially since the netbook is also completely silent (fanless design - there's no moving parts). link <- I blogged about my recording gear not too long ago. I used to use flash recorders, but I found the process to be too cumbersome. Instead, now I record directly into Reaper. I usually have my laptop placed under the microphone for easy access. The mic doesn't pick any noise up from the laptop. It may as well be a cinder block it's so quiet. As for drive failure, SSDs fail at a much lower rate than conventional spinning disks. I doubt you'll find any data suggesting the opposite. It's true that there are durability concerns, but the same can be said of conventional disks. As for ability to withstand impact - SSDs win that battle hands down, absolutely no contest. SSDs are faster, more durable and dead silent. Are they suitable for recording? YES! Hi dkarma! Thank you so much for your post dkarma and eyesnine. Yeah, I have pretty much decided to go for two ssds, so hopefully it will be a success. Although I am abit concerned about the durability issue, as you point out. You guys know of any sources about this issue? How long would a ssd last for instance, when recorded on 365 days a year? All google gave were just forums with nothing concrete.
Anandtech has the best information and reviews on SSDs.
Different brands wear down in different ways depending on the controller chip and type of NAND used. link <- here they estimate that by writing 7GB per day, the drive discussed is rated to last only 986 years. It really is a non issue. If your SSD arrives working - chances are it won't fail within 10 years. Obviously, SSDs haven't been around that long, so we don't know for sure, but they seem very durable. Sandforce controllers are highly rated... Also, if your computer has SATA III then the newest generation of SSDs will be fastest, if your computer only has SATA II it might be better to stick with the last generation of SSDs and save a few dollars. I'm wondering why you would want 2 SSDs, though. Unless you're planning on setting up a RAID array, most people would go with a larger single SSD or a smaller SSD and a 1TB+ conventional spinning disk. Thanks again for your excellent input. Yeah, basically I want one drive for OS and music software, and one for recording music and samples. I feel it is more organized and structured that way. I am abit excited about this, I am not only upgrading my drives but I am also moving from a PC system to Mac. Going to be a good summer I think
 another SSD user here. actually, before using an SSD in my computer, i stuck a small 8gb IDE one into my sampler because, as eyesnine said, it is _dead_ silent. now i i have a 160GB SATA II one in my laptop for a year and a half now. you know that disk check the OS does every now and then? well, i don't get to see it
also, regarding having separate drives, i used to do that too but now with the SSD i don't see the point. two partitions would serve just as well. i wouldn't expect the read / write process to be the bottleneck during any audio-related work, unless you want to record 200 channels at once. OT: the forum is back from the dead, yay!
Yes, I guess you are right delete, but I think it is easier to do formats, clean-ups and re-installing of software when I got seperate drives. However, this feeling might be just a habit of thinking from the era of rotating disks. SSD drives are totally new for me so I dont know if having the OS on the same disk as the live recordings would be benefitial. Would I have less drop-outs if I would?
Yeah, the forum is indeed revived hey eyes!
yes for recording the silence factor is huge and something i didn't consider. as far as I'm concerned the only thing that should keep you from getting the SSD is if you don't have the cash as they are pretty pricey stil (IIRC approx 200$ USD for an 80 gig) otherwise yeah get one they're sweet and the bennies def outweigh the drawbacks. dkarma said: " the bennies def outweigh the drawbacks." Yeah, I am getting to that conclution too. Per said: "SSD drives are totally new for me so I dont know if having the OS on the same disk as the live recordings would be benefitial. Would I have less drop-outs if I would?" it would definitely be beneficial for your pocket assuming that the SATA controller is decent at handling traffic, then generally the more disks the merrier. i don't know if there will be any discernible difference in speed though if you use separate SSDs instead of partitions.Signup to comment
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