DAW - On SSD

[gutturalpiss]

Well, partially. Since this way it's still a great deal expensive, let's talk about CompactFlash. Yes, we can have SSD for much less hurtz on walletz.

CF (semi-SSD) would be a good substitute when talking about disk-intensive tasks such as sampling (we see Cheez going on and on about this a lot). Say you have a few of them which you use frequently, and could squeeze them in about 4 to 8G.

2 x A-Data 4G CF
1 x CF-SATA Adapter (or IDE)
40M/s raw transfer
RAID 0 for 8GB
< 200SGD

Result? Seek time of ~0.3ms :mrgreen:

At 40M/s rated and ~25M/s real rates, read/write performance does not suffer much; most 2.5" SATA disks @ 5400RPM can barely even keep up w/ 20M/s. Seek time is near non-existent, since there is no spinner. Same goes for heat, maybe just a lil above room temperature. Currently experimenting on a way to implement this externally with a laptop, since there is only one SATA/IDE hardware channel which will be used by the internal primary HDD. PCI expansion can only be via PCMCIA, but so far there are only ExpressCard SSDs that cost more than a bomb.

 

[Cheez]

SSD and CF's problem is cost vs performance. The cost just doesn't justify the speed. Also at this stage, they are still much smaller in storage space compared to HDs.

There are much pros about them than just speed and heat. It's also silent as compared to HD.

But until much larger storage appears with lower cost, it's not an option at this stage. Samples uses a lot of storage space. My piano sample alone takes up one SSD. My entire library is about 120GB.

As for 2.5" drives, stay away from those as much as possible because of speed. Always get 3.5".

 

[blueprintstudios]

interesting, what about lifespan? actually I got CF cards failing on me (in simple usage in canon digicamera), and now I'm reading SSDs has quite a limited lifespan of 1million writes (normal consumers are already complaining, what about audio based ones like us!?) . however i'm sure technology advance and it'll last alot longer in future and with way lowered costs.

my stand is , instead of buying CF cards now, just make do with 2.5s and external 3.5s then until save all that money till SSD comes out worth/cost efficient. then grab a chunk and do a complete overhaul on your setup. ha ha ha.

anyway apparently SSD wins in the aspect of the heat, the extra battery life (for us laptop/mobilers), weight (mobile!) , except for Cost, Lifespan and capacity.

not sure one is the "Stability" (when SSD fails, does it give any warning like hard disks do?)

oh anyway, the release of SSD also means one more good news that I wouldn't buy SSD still... 2.5,3.5 HARD DISK PRICE DROPS! it was just a year+ ago when I bought 320gb harddisks for $180, now it's 500... soon it'll be 750gb..

heartpain man.

 

[Cheez]

Yes, price is indeed a factor here! And furthermore, we are seeing more 7200rpm 2.5" drives - their speed is increasing.

For standard HD, larger drives doesn't always mean the better choice. Good for storage, but dubious life-span when using for heavy-duty work that requires streaming frequently. Large drives = thinner plates.

Back to SSD. I think it will some way off before it becomes usable for audio apps. If the lifespan is indeed a factor, then we are in trouble since audio apps taxes the HD pretty much!

 

[blueprintstudios]

i just got back from buying a Asus EEE pc/laptop, and posting this post using it now.this thing is so damn cute but the keyboard is damn cramp that i'm typing with 4 fingers and 1 thumb , backspacing nonstop. it's running on a 4gb SSDrive,will be trying to run some audio based softwares and see how it works and feed back if there's any failure..

but this thing is really really cute hah.

 

[gutturalpiss]

Hah yeah, good examples are these sub-notebooks which appeared recently. Initially I got into it mainly for the heat/portability/battery life factor, but now that I'm reminded of the stability and lifetime it's time to reconsider the idea.

I already bought a SandDisk 10M/s one, currently running in my desktop with IDE adapter, not impressive - but alright for cache/swap basically those small but HDD-taxing activities. So for my laptop, in the end, I have to sacrifice battery life and live with scorching heat + flatbed cooler

 

[ac]

Your SSD will have a limit on the number of writes before it dies.

 

[gutturalpiss]

May not be something to worry about too much: SSD Write Limit [EeeUser Eee PC Wiki]

I'm using JFS as the filesystem, so that may further buffer the wear level.

 

[blueprintstudios]

i originally felt the same way about SSD on the lifespan and stability. as what "ac" (and the rest of the global forums) said about the limited number of writes , after a few days with it now, i had to be un-biased and also think, this SSD thing is quite new and ppl are "bashing" it without actually having hands on experience and proof of a dead SSD hard disk after hitting its "limit". there are costly well branded 3.5 hdds that break down within 2 years despite having a hdd cooler fan mounted on it. so what makes SSD so inferior in terms of stability until we have one to hands on abuse? even rolls royce,lamborghinis and ferraris can break down. i don't have the answer now, but i'm pretending this asus eee's 4gb SSD as if it was a real hard disk drive and continue abusing it using for DAW editing purposes + multiboot windowses. and till the day the hard disk limit hits within a year then yes I have something to support my theory.

otherwise the whole world (even the manufacturers) can diss SSD's stability based on theories and "specifications" saying it's meant to last so-and-so cycles but who knows when it does more than it was made for, it's a bonus, if it doesn't , i'm well prepared (not to store any important data on it) and by the time it breaks down they'll have released more stable versions of SSD and i'll just simply replace and upgrade. i bought a 16gbs of sd cards to use with it already.

anyone else got any opinions to chip in? this SSD thing is pretty interesting.

 

[Cheez]

In the end, it's still about cost-benefits. The cost just doesn't justify it for most everyday consumers - at least for now.

 

[ac]

Nobody is being biased, bps. That's the specs on SSD technology, and it's not a theory, even the manufacturers will tell you the same thing.

 

[blueprintstudios]

yeah yeah i know, i'm abusing this SSD 4gb now everyday.i'm saying it's a possibility that even if manufacturers said it'll last "3years" for example, there's a chance it will last more than that cos not every drive is exactly the same (even the usage and maintenance) unless they program it to explode on a fixed 3 year date. will get back to you guys after the so called limited lifespan reaches.

i think most of the answers out there in other forums are saying that by the time the SSDrive fails, there'll be something newer and better and cheaper in the market.or even that the normal 2.5 and 3.5 hard drive is just as "unstable" as this new SSD thing.

EeeUser ASUS Eee PC EeePC Forum / Yet another SSD write limit topic.

price tag is definitely not average consumer costefficiency ,but matter of time.heheh

 

[gutturalpiss]

Yes, blueprintstudios has been enlightened. That's the way

 

[blueprintstudios]

hahah besides, i'm storing important data on a seperate 3.5'' harddisk and i always got a 8gb sd card plugged in. so hdd space isn't really an issue yet. i still got another 4gb sd card with windows xp in it on standby, so when the ssd fails, I just need to plug it in and boot and i'll still be running, except slower than ssd of course.

computers were made to perform more than they were made,to make the most bang out of your buck.

cheers