Current external SSD vs HD speeds for LPX assets

Hi,

 

I'm about to make the jump from my old Snow Leopard MacbookPro to a Mac Pro 6-core, 32 GB RAM with Sierra 10.12

 

I like to use CPU / data intensive sample libraries & soft synths like Kontakt, Steven Slate Drums, Slate bundle, Fab Filter, Sonnox, iZotope, Spire etc.

On my old machine I often maxed out power from sound-designing a single synth bass sound, or drum kit. (drum & bass music / EDM). I would often have to sound-design individual instruments in separate projects, then re-import them into the main session that handled arrangement. This may be smart use of resources, but I simply had no choice and would like to achieve more real-time power on this new machine.

 

So I've got the internal SSD for OS / Apps, and plan to use an external drive for sessions & samples (as is recommended for optimization).

 

My question is, will a 7200 rpm HD usb3.1 136 MB/s be plenty fast?

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive-mobile-usb-c

 

Or is there ANY benefit to using a 540 MB/s SSD via USB 3.1? http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive-slim-ssd-usb-c

Oddly with 540 MB/s this one lists "delivers super fast SSD performance and speedy 10 Gb/s USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2)" ...not sure how that math factors

 

SSD is around 3X the price and supposed to be multitudes faster but does that really take place in real application with LPX?

 

I'm spending a lot on the best CPU & RAM I can afford so would hate to bottleneck on transfer speed with my external session / sample data.

 

Thanks in advance.

SSDs are MUCH faster than HDD. How does it factor when using Logic? It depends. For example, if your sample libraries are fully loaded in RAM, then the difference will be seen only in the time it takes to open your project. Once open, no difference will be seen on the sample libraries front. If on the other hand your sample libraries load only your sample's attacks into RAM then streams the rest from the drive then a SSD may make a difference, should you run into the limits of your hard drive.

 

Still, if you're pro, and if you can afford it, I would recommend the SSD.

I would try to buy an SSD that says it supports SMART software utility - which can warn you when the drive is starting to have errors; I don't think all SSD's support SMART. My impression is that Logic is still happier with the OS one one drive and then media files on another drive (regardless of what kind of drive it is above a certain speed). Since the OS and applications have to do periodic read/writes to the boot partition, then a common configuration is to have the boot partition be on an SSD (or SSD cache in a hard drive); the Mac Pros already come this way. Then just hang RAID, NAS, etc. storage for audio/video work and/or backups (still often 7200 RPM hard drives) off the internal PCIe buss (or connect external drives via the Thunderbolt ports). It's still cheaper to get larger multi terabyte drives as hard disks and not as SSD's.

If on the other hand your sample libraries load only your sample's attacks into RAM then streams the rest from the drive then a SSD may make a difference, should you run into the limits of your hard drive.

 

Thanks for the quick reply David!

Could you give me an example of any sample library products that "load only your sample's attacks into RAM then streams the rest from the drive"?

 

I use sample libraries like Kontakt and Steven Slate drums. My guess would be Kontakt fully loads to RAM, whereas Slate Drums may be a case where only the attacks are loaded into RAM and stream from disk.