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SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

Buying or building computers for Hauptwerk, recommendations, troubleshooting computer hardware issues.
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bourdon

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SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostFri Dec 18, 2015 1:04 pm

Is it worth while buying an SSD in order to gain time in loading the sample sets , which have a tendency to become bigger and bigger !...
And , in that case, should the SSd be internal , or is an external SSD with USB 3 sufficient ?
Thanks for any tips !
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student

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 1:45 am

I'd say that it's definitely worth to get an SSD - at least one!
If you can't afford a high capacity one (I don't know what capacity would be sufficient for you to go all the way with the SSD), then you should get one in the 256MB-512MB range and use it for the Hauptwerk cache only.
You can either set up Hauptwerk to use the drive for caching (I assume you are using Windows) or map the drive to be mounted in the cache directory.
I would not mess with external drives but if it's a good one, I don't see why you won't get a speed improvement.
My thinking against the external drive is that you can unplug it and then Hauptwerk will become non-working. I'd say go with an internal one and you'll have no worries.

Another setup with the internal drive, that could be even more advantageous, is to reinstall Windows and Hauptwerk to the SSD (and keep the cache location there also). You would use a classical hard drive for the sample set installation files and other large file storage. This way you speed up the loading of the OS and Hauptwerk and the cached sample-sets, but you need to be willing to re-install you OS. The first setup seems easier to do to me.
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bourdon

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 3:47 am

Thanks a lot, Student !
Very clear, precise and helpful explanations .
Best regards.
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Owen Jones

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 4:02 am

IMO, just keep the most used on the SSD, otherwise it will become clogged and any benefit will be lost.
Do a google search on this topic. I use one, a 128 gig just for my favourite samples.
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NickNelson

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 4:43 am

student wrote:Another setup with the internal drive, that could be even more advantageous, is to reinstall Windows and Hauptwerk to the SSD (and keep the cache location there also).


This is what I do, though with separate SSD's for Windows and the cache. The machine is only used for HW.

From a cold start to the full Hereford loaded takes about 1 1/2 minutes. Not exactly lightning fast maybe but good enough for me.

Nick
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mdyde

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 6:01 am

[Topic moved here.]

Owen Jones wrote:IMO, just keep the most used on the SSD, otherwise it will become clogged and any benefit will be lost.
Do a google search on this topic. I use one, a 128 gig just for my favourite samples.


Just to clarify: currently (Hauptwerk v4.2.1) there's no supported way to have only some, but not all, organs on an SSD. During Hauptwerk installation (or subsequently, by re-running the installer) you can choose to put all organ caches on an SSD, as others have covered above.

Personally, I'd recommend looking at SSDs of at least 512 MB in size in order to be able to use a reasonable number of current/recent sample sets (which tend to be larger than older ones).
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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RichardW

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 6:43 am

Some personal thoughts:

I have a "policy" of not upgrading a PC once I have built it. However, I went against that policy when I added a couple of SATA SSDs in Raid 0 format so that I could put my HW cache files in there. Loading times did improve but it was not lightning fast.

In the interests of keeping costs down my other components were not state of the art when I built the PC, either, so there is still room for improvement.

If I ever need more than 32GB of RAM I will need a new PC and I have pencilled in a PCIe SSD for that when it happens. The intention then would be to have no other hard drives at all. So Windows would also be installed there along with the rest of HW.
Richard
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magnaton

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 8:08 am

A couple of months ago I built a new dedicated HW computer. I went to Fry's Electronics which here in the US is a mega electronic store that carries all things electronics as well as some home appliances too. About half the store is dedicated to electronics at the base component level so you take a shopping cart, go down the isles, and add the ingredients to build your system!

During this excursion, I chose a Samsung 500GB SSD along with a 2TB standard disk drive both using the SATA3 protocol. The day before they just put out a display of 1TB SSD drives. They were an unknown brand name (at least to me) and of course much more expensive. I opted for an upgraded power supply with a large fan design that is whisper quiet. I loaded Windows 7 on the SSD and followed the HW instructions for a custom install so the executable and Internal working data would load on the SSD while the other components went to the standard drive.

The results are exemplary. From a cold boot to auto loading St. Anne's is 41 seconds or as I like to think of it as "zero to St. Anne's in 41 secs". The basic hardware specs are an ultra fast gaming motherboard, 16GB compatible DDR3 RAM (for now), and the latest i5 processor from Intel. I think it's worth noting that I bought an off the shelf Win7 package which is 'straight Windows'; no extra software, virus protection, or plethora of other limited edition packages included. Having a clean Windows Registry, as most of us know, is a key to good performance especially at boot time.

Moore's law is in came into play as two weeks later I read that a PCIe SSD is the new technology frontier to further eliminate any data throughput bottlenecks!

Danny B.
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johnstump_organist

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Dec 19, 2015 1:39 pm

I put a pcie ssd in my mac pro and cut sample set loads to around a quater to one-third of previous load times.
John
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Organorak

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostWed Jan 06, 2016 4:28 pm

If you really can't afford an SSD and don't mind the risks, you could try two traditional hard drives in RAID0 configuration. I did that for a while but found the RAID was a bit too unstable (as well as being a data loss risk as it doubles the risk of a hard disk failure. I subsequently ditched one hard drive, installed a 256GB SSD onto which I put Windows 7 plus the HW cache files, and I use the traditional disk for all other files including organ sets.

Elsewhere I have posted comparisons of organ load times for SSD, RAID0 and simple hard drive but if I recall the SSD was about half the load time of the hard drive and the RAID0 was midway between the two..
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abaymajr

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Re: SSD versus HDD -Gain of time for loading the setss

PostSat Jan 16, 2016 7:53 pm

The Samsung 850 Evo reaches 540MB/s read throughput, but the mobile i7-5500U CPU causes a bottleneck of 280MB/s with compressed samples and ~380MB/s uncompressed. So, people who are considering purchasing RAID0 M2 Ultrafast SSD solutions, which reach 2GB/s or more, should also consider a dual overclocked 6+ core CPU that would keep up with all that storage performance.

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