External SSD needed?

[jaykeel]

Hi everyone, I'm getting conflicting answers to this question. Do you still need to use external SSD's to store sample libraries? Right now I have an old 2010 iMac with a 2tb internal HDD that I use for storing my samples and virtual instrument files. With the new Mac Studio, some are saying that is no longer necessary? I'm ready to order one, but I need to know whether I should get the big (4tb) SSD, or a 1TB internal and use an external (Thunderbolt/USB 3) SSD? 

Thanks so much!

[David Nahmani]

Storing the Sound Library on an external drive was never necessary. 

You have to consider how the machine works: samples are mostly loaded in RAM when you load a project or instrument that needs them. So mostly, storing them on an external drive that may be faster or slower affects ho fast or slow the project (or instrument) opens, not how it performs during playback or while working in it.

I would recommend you consider storing the sound library on an external only if it makes sense for your organization, for example because your internal hard drive is too small to contain them and all the other stuff you need it to contain. But if you have ample room for them on your internal system drive then that's still the best place to store them. 

[jaykeel]

Wow, I'm so glad I asked. Thanks David! I was being told that the drive shouldn't read and write at the same time but that was probably referring to HDD's? The biggest SSD that I could get back then was 256g (2009). I didn't have the space to store all of the stuff from my virtual instrument, so I opted for the internal 2 tb HDD to store them. 12 years later and I'm in the same mindset I guess... So just to make sure, if I purchased the Mac studio with the 4TB drive, I can store everything on it and the sample libraries will load ok?

Thanks again man, I appreciate it!

[Atlas007]

SSD working differently than HDD. The former out perform the latter in every aspect, including the cost. However mechanical drives (HDD) are fading out technology…

Some sampler (ie NI Kontakt) will permit direct from drive sample streaming access which requires less RAM to perform. SSD are therefore highly recommended (ifnot mandatory in some situation). 

The bottleneck problem you describe is related to HDD. SSD don’t have same (or considerably less).

[MikeRobinson]

My latest MacBook Pro contained a surprisingly-small (at least to me ...) internal [SSD ...] hard drive, so I very quickly moved my sound library to an external source.  (At first, it was a USB-C "mechnical drive," but since then it's "SSD" and who cares.)

"Time marches on ..."

From this point forward, it's pretty obvious that the new reality is just going to be "vastly capacious solid-state storage," for which "mechanical latencies" and other former concerns simply no longer exist.  The "access time," for any requested block of external storage, will now and forevermore be "flat linear." "Zero latency."

Edited May 9, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[jaykeel]

Thanks guys!

[David Nahmani]

On 5/9/2022 at 9:23 PM, jaykeel said:

I was being told that the drive shouldn't read and write at the same time but that was probably referring to HDD's?

Yes that sounds like very old advice we used to hear 10+ years ago, and that no longer applies today.

On 5/9/2022 at 9:23 PM, jaykeel said:

So just to make sure, if I purchased the Mac studio with the 4TB drive, I can store everything on it and the sample libraries will load ok?

Yes, definitely. Nothing to worry about.

The only reason to store large sample libraries on an external hard drive is if you have many of them and they're very large and wouldn't fit all on your internal drive, or it's easier that way to create a backup of your entire sample library drive and swap it in case of drive failure, or you're experiencing issues trying to work with everything on the same drive and are trying to resolve those issues. But if it's not broken, don't fix it. 

[dnito]

So if someone were looking for an external SSD to use to store samples/sounds and to store projects on, what would you recommend?

 

Thanks!

[Atlas007]

Samsung has good reputation…

[David Nahmani]

15 hours ago, dsilvercoin said:

So if someone were looking for an external SSD to use to store samples/sounds and to store projects on, what would you recommend?

Here's a recent thread with some recommendations: 

 

[dnito]

 

42 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Here's a recent thread with some recommendations: 

 

Thank you!

Edited August 11, 2022 by dsilvercoin

[David Nahmani]

You're welcome!

[des99]

Shopping for external SSD drives is quite a confusing experience, generally, I've found...

Edited August 11, 2022 by des99

[dnito]

5 hours ago, des99 said:

Shopping for external SSD drives is quite a confusing experience, generally, I've found...

Yup. So many options.

[Atlas007]

7 hours ago, des99 said:

Shopping for external SSD drives is quite a confusing experience, generally, I've found...

How come?

[des99]

29 minutes ago, Atlas007 said:

How come?

SSD vs NVME, USB 3 versus USB 3.2 vs USB 3.2 Gen 2, actual read and write, and transfer speeds depending on the spec of drive you get, throttling due to temperature, whether you should get an SSD or NVME and put them in your own enclosure, lifespan and wear... it's all a bit of a minefield, with quite a mass of conflicting information if you read actual user experiences.

It seems that generally, we should ignore all the noise, and the way to go is either the Samsung T7 or T5 (depending on the specs you want, see the above list), or the Sandisk Extreme (there's two specs of this giving different transfer speeds), but even so, I've read conflicting and concerning reports about temperatures, throttling, and random unresponsiveness and even lifespan concerns.

I'll probably either get a T7 or Sandisk Extreme, but I'm undecided on which at this time...

Edited August 11, 2022 by des99

[Atlas007]

Thanx for the heads up! (That motivated me to update my knowledge). If thermal throttling is present in your SSD, wouldn’t be time to increase RAM?

I agree there is some homework to be done before committing… And when that imply recent technology such as SSD (or any computer stuff) that may represent a challenge.

Often resisting to the latest tech to opt for a more proofed one (even at the expense of less performance) may end up being a safer-wiser choice, as long as it fulfills one’s needs.

Complaints Internet forums about a given product’s problems are likely to be biased by nature, as they emphasize/focus on only that (problems)… (although, there isn’t smoke without fire). I guess that is what you mean by "all the noise"…

[des99]

1 hour ago, Atlas007 said:

If thermal throttling is present in your SSD, wouldn’t be time to increase RAM?

I'm not sure what you mean here? This issues don't involved RAM for an external drive you're using for space for sample libraries etc.

All SSDs and NVME use power to work, and thus, when powered on, they heat up. And the more reads and writes you do, the hotter they get. So say you are streaming a bunch of voices in your sample library from the drive - the drive can handle the throughput, but will heat up. And these external drives can get quite hot, by all accounts, even just when idle.

If/when the heat gets to a level where it's hits a threshold and the drive thinks "Oh, I'm too hot" it will start to throttle transfers to manage heat. So now, previously your 96-voice orchestra playback worked fine, but now the drive has dropped to 50% speed, and now your session will not play back at all.

That's just an example, but a drive is there to be read from, and written to, and heat issues can slow down these processes.

1 hour ago, Atlas007 said:

Complaints Internet forums about a given product’s problems are likely to be biased by nature, as they emphasize/focus on only that (problems)… (although, there isn’t smoke without fire). I guess that is what you mean by "all the noise"…

A skill that anyone who does research on the internet gains is to read around real world useage to try to get a picture of the real world reality. One person saying "the drive died, these things are unreliable" probably doesn't mean much. If everywhere you look, many people are saying their drives died, then that paints a different picture.

It's like reading IMDB movie reviews, or Amazon product reviews - you learn to read and rate the contents not based so much on individual reports, but on the aggregate.

However, with complex things, this can be difficult to determine, as reports are based on many factors, and if you also continuously come across really conflicting reports, it's difficult to determine your ultimate goal, which is to figure out which product to buy, and whether it will work for your needs.

As someone who considers himself fairly canny about working out what products are the right ones for me, I'm communicating that I haven't found choosing an external SSD particularly straightforward or obvious, and for me at this time, I'm very sensitive to heat (for historical reasons) so the various reports of heat issues give me pause. Some people seem to have no problems, other people say their drives get really hot, others have throttling problems, still more report they've never experienced throttling. The actual picture is often not that obvious, and is what I've found so far... hence... not as straightforward as one might like...

Edited August 11, 2022 by des99

[Atlas007]

I was referring to have more RAM to avoid / reduce streaming from SSD...

 

3 hours ago, des99 said:

96-voice orchestra playback

A little extreme, no?

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by Atlas007

[des99]

8 hours ago, Atlas007 said:

I was referring to have more RAM to avoid / reduce streaming from SSD...

These external SSDs are not system drive replacements though - they are bought generally for audio/samples use (to store and stream sample libraries from), or video use (to access video footage for editing and multiple streams of video for graphics etc).

The whole point is to access, and stream, fairly large amounts of data fast. When you load a project, and you have multiple instruments all loading gigabytes of samples from your sample library, you are pulling a lot of data at the maximum rate of these drives. You may be also having high track or sample counts, depending on the project, so you might also be streaming a good amount of data all the time during playback.

And given that these drives apparently can get quite hot even when idle, how you use them adds concerns about how hot they are getting, and I'm sensitive for this for historical reasons given previous heat-related issues.

Yes, of course you can, for instance, spec up a MBP laptop to have 8GB internal SSD and 64GB of RAM, rendering the need for external SSDs unnecessary, but the costs are astronomical. I have a 1TB MBP which I cannot put my sample libraries on (which are around 1.6TB). To add an external 2TB drive costs about £200. To store my sample library internally on the MBP, I would need to jump to a 4TB internal SSD, which adds *£1000* to the price - the convenience and speed of storing sample libraries internally is undeniable, but the cost is unjustifiable for me.

8 hours ago, Atlas007 said:

A little extreme, no?

An example use case to illustrate the point, which hopefully you got. Not particularly extreme for orchestral sample library use, no.

[Atlas007]

1 hour ago, des99 said:

An example use case to illustrate the point, which hopefully you got. Not particularly extreme for orchestral sample library use, no.

Sorry, I don't understand that statement?

[David Nahmani]

1 minute ago, Atlas007 said:

Sorry, I don't understand that statement?

I think what des99 is saying is that he's hoping you understood that it was an example of a use case - which isn't that extreme if you look at professional film composers Logic Pro templates. 

[des99]

Exactly. I used a simple example to clearly illustrate the point, which you seemed to question. I furthered that example with more detail, so hopefully you understand the issues and use cases that I'm referring to.

Edited August 12, 2022 by des99

[Atlas007]

@David Nahmani & @des99 thanx for your explanation, sorry for my slow understanding, after a couple of days of insomnia, I get mentally challenged...

[des99]

No worries!

[David Nahmani]

16 hours ago, des99 said:

I've read conflicting and concerning reports about temperatures, throttling

That part makes sense since most users disregard their ambient temperature, which is affected by where they're located in the world, the current season, other gear or A/C in the room creating heat or cold etc.

Just this second I saw someone troubleshooting a slowing down 2021 M1 MacBook Air and in the end the culprit was the thermal throttling on an external SSD (Transcend brand). 

[des99]

23 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

That part makes sense since most users disregard their ambient temperature, which is affected by where they're located in the world, the current season, other gear or A/C in the room creating heat or cold etc.

Yep, and obviously, temperature will fluctuate by usage too of course - not everyone has the same usage patterns.

It's sometimes difficult thought to really predict what performance will be like - likely, for my uses, it's probably going to be fine - I think really my point was that I've found this whole thing a lot more confusing than the old days of "Hard drive? 3.5 or 2.5? What size? What speed? What port?" which is just a matter of deciding what you want, and in many cases it's caused me to second-guess a purchase and hold off due to uncertainty.

23 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

Just this second I saw someone troubleshooting a slowing down 2021 M1 MacBook Air and in the end the culprit was the thermal throttling on an external SSD (Transcend brand). 

Yep - the heat seems to be a real issue on these things, hence it's wise (imo) to try to understand these factors, and get some real world reports of people using these devices, to try to figure out where to go...

Anyway, that's probably enough words from me on the matter! More useful perhaps, for people that do end up buying and using them, is reports on how well a particular device is working for people following this thread, or any issues you're having...

Edited August 12, 2022 by des99

[Dynamic_Notes]

Just to weigh in on my experience with External SSDs.

@des99 - I hear you on heat concerns. I also totally agree about trying to understand what devices to get etc. Heat and dust are two things Ive always hated. I'm in a fairly moderate climate but I still have a fan ready if things get a little warm but thats mainly for the iMac.

I did as much research as I could on SSDs when I upgraded my system. I was a little perplxed with the lack of info I could find on Trim & garbage collection for usb based external SSDs. Weighing up the pros and cons of my particular usage I was happy to shoot for the T5s and later the T7.  I personally found Apples internal SSDs prohibitatively expensive if you wanted more capacity. I went one step up from the base which is still waaay too small if you're looking at sizable 3rd party libraries. Thats why i got the T7.

At this point Im very happy with their performance. I havent noticed them getting toasty at all. Just slight;y warm to the touch on the odd occasion. Of course its early days to see how well they stand up over the course of time but you'd never buy anything if you always have to wait.

Im pleased i went for extra RAM - Some libraries are resource hogs and Ive never yet seen any swap file getting written to disk. That apparently is a good thing.

Another thing I like to do is look at the little blue lights on each drive to see what theyre doing on boot since I fresh boot every day. They dont just flash at boot only. Little episodes of momentary activity happens a minute or so after boot and before doing anything which makes me wonder if theres some clean up going on. Havent detailed a pattern as such, as it can differ from day to day.

Just some thoughts.

[dnito]

Is this what you got?

https://amzn.to/3AlGJl1

[David Nahmani]

1 hour ago, dsilvercoin said:

Is this what you got?

If you're asking me, then yes, that's the drive I got, except a different color (blue) and a different capacity. But that drive is kind of a no-brainer, and I do recommend it.