M3 users: internal or external storage for orch. sample libraries?

[FlowerPower]

I'm still on Intel, but will order a M3 MacBook Pro tomorrow. Internal storage is faster and more expensive than external storage – and orchestral eat terabytes. I wonder if there any truth the idea that there's nothing to gain (performance wise) by investing in, say, 4 or 8 terabyte of internal storage?  

I guess this is true for 'normal' sample libraries, but orchestral libraries often come with lots of mic options, at least 5 dynamic layers for the best one, several vibrato levels, many round robins and advanced legato functionality.

It's also relatively common to layer at least two libraries just for one instrument section, if this results in the best combination of a warm, rich sound and 'bite' and crispness that some of these instruments have.

They also use a lot of RAM (64 gb may not be enough), but for some scenarios, the storage thing is sometimes more important than RAM. 

I'm particularly interested in feedback from those who already have some experience with this, but all comments and any advice is welcome!

[markno999]

You have good options available for external storage if looking for cost savings over internal Apple storage.   Personally, I wouldn't go less than 1TB on a Mac for just random apps, files, photos, emails, etc...., but for Orchestral Libraries I went with external SSD and they perform quite nicely.    

Here is a link that may give you some ideas and basic information when looking at external storage options.   Many of the low-cost, high storage volume drives you can find online lack throughput and disk-speeds.   

[Scriabin rocks]

Given the per TB upgrade cost at apple, to me it makes sense going external. I picked up a Crucial x9Pro external 4TB SSD for 200 Euro, and host the entire East West Hollywood Orchestra Opus and more on it. The read speed is sufficient for my needs. 

[redgreenblue]

Plus there are now some docks that have a slot for SSD drives, I am using a Sonnet Tech Echo 20 unit, lots of ports and added a 2TB ssd to it for $110. (the dock itself is $300)

[FlowerPower]

On 12/19/2023 at 7:00 AM, markno999 said:

Personally, I wouldn't go less than 1TB on a Mac for just random apps, files, photos, emails, etc...., but for Orchestral Libraries I went with external SSD and they perform quite nicely.    

For the last 2-3 years I have used a 2tb external NVME drive – a WD BLACK  SN750 inside a relatively inexpensive enclosure from OWC called Envoy Express. The internal drive is only 500GB in the 2020 iMac I have been using until today, but will go for at least 2 tb internally in the MBP I order in a few hours. The internal read/write speeds in the MacBook Pro is quite impressive:

This is from a 8 terabyte version of the same Mac (also with 128 GB RAM), and I have read things which suggest that the performance won't be that good without a internal drive with lots of capacity. I've seen YT-videos which suggest that with a 2 tb internal drive, the read/write speeds will be reduced. I actually plan to not buy any more Macs than this one, so I want it to work well also with software, operating systems and sample libraries which are released  in 5 or 10 years from now. There are string libraries out there which use 500 gb+ only for the 1st violin, libraries are released with 5, 10 or more dynamic layers already, and I while I currently have 2-3 terabytes worth of orchestral libraries, this which will increase to at least 4-6 tb. 

This is why I wonder what the max read/write speeds with external drives (connected to a M3 MBP) are. Anyone here who knows this? I suspect that even with what's considered brilliant laptops today, I may need to freeze/unfreeze tracks in the future, since there's been a change in how these libraries are being made. For instance, Orchestral Tools' newest string library use sample 20-30 seconds of each of the long notes (with or without legato), in order to avoid loops – for all the instruments and all the dynamic layers. When freezing/unfreezing into the internal, fast drive, that process will mean less waiting. 

I'm considering storing all my non-Logic documents, images, movies etc on an external drive in order to keep as much of the internal storage (2 or 4 tb) for Logic files, freeze files when/if they are needed, and the libraries I use the most. And especially because many orchestral libraries contains loads of really short notes, legato transitions, attack variations etc, the amount of samples that needs to be dealt with in real time could also be a challenge – in addition to the amount of memory they need. And with many dynamic or velocity layers, many vibrato layers per layer, longer samples and use of a surprisingly high amount of mic options per sample, my current external read speed (1500 mb/sec) or even twice that could be a limitation in 3-4 years from now. That's why I'll plan for more than I need today. Reading samples at 2 or 3 gigabytes per second is good, but with dozens of tracks, all full of memory intensive orchestral libraries and a lot of automation, that may not be enough. 

Anyway, thanks a lot for the responses so far, and if any of you have more comments, please post them within 6 hours from now – I'll order the MBP in 7 hours! 🙂

[markno999]

On 12/20/2023 at 3:08 AM, FlowerPower said:

or the last 2-3 years I have used a 2tb external NVME drive – a WD BLACK  SN750 inside a relatively inexpensive enclosure from OWC called Envoy Express.

I believe the enclosure in the video link above is 3000 MB/s while the Envoy Express is around 1500 MB/s.     I  have a couple of those OWC enclosures but use them for quick backups or SSD drive replacement transfers on older Macs that still let you do that.   

Have not tested the  OWC with Orchestral samples so can't speak to the differences but I do use Orchestral samples in fairly large projects with a LaCie SSD with 2600 MB/s transfer and it works very well.  Have not seen that device become a bottleneck yet.    I did forget to reformat my LaCie SSD when I got it with ExFAT and the performance was horrible with sample libraries.   After formatting with APFS it was great.

Regards

[FlowerPower]

On 12/20/2023 at 5:26 PM, markno999 said:

I believe the enclosure in the video link above is 3000 MB/s while the Envoy Express is around 1500 MB/s.  

Yes, I've learned, earlier today, that there's a solution which offers circa 3100 read speed over USB 4:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/US4EXP1M2/

...and another one which seems to deliver 3800MB/s, also over USB4:

https://ziketech.com/products/zikedrive-worlds-first-and-fastest-usb4-ssd-drive?variant=42809341608097

I'm not sure all the info in the video above (in this thread) is totally reliable, eg. because bouncing to disk if the samples already are in RAM – especially if the bounce is written to the internal drive – is a different task than reading a lot of long samples in real time. Dealing with a lot of short samples is also a different kind of challenge than  dealing with long samples etc. But thanks to a good combination of fast NMVe drives, USB4 and better enclosures, the situation generally was less troublesome than I assumed it was.

[Angelface]

Hey, I am curious what specs did you go for in the end? And how is it working out for you?

[FlowerPower]

I already posted a reply (twice!), but it doesn't seen to have popped up yet. Anyway, here are the M3 Max results:

I'm not done transferring everything I need from the Intel Mac yet, but so far it looks very promising. Since both Macs are on Sonoma, I've started using, for now, the iMac as a wireless 27" sidecar (since the 16 inches I have on the MBP is way too little), and it's very well implemented, no noticeable lag and lots of different resolutions to choose from. 

Since this M3 reads at 5900 and writes at 7200, opening large projects, freezing/unfreezing etc of course is much faster. The iMac reads @2800 and writes @ 2300, but the speed has more than doubled – since I (on the iMac) had the samples on an external OWC m2 enclosure which reads/writes at 1500. 

The price for the MBP was massive, but If I'll have it for 10 years, I decided to think of it as what it would cost me to have it per year. If I need more than 4 tb, I'll keep the most important stuff internally, and use the drive I mentioned earlier (ZikeDrive Z666).

Edit: I just had a look at the Geekbench benchmarks, and the fastest Mac on that list had single core performance at 3128, and multi core performance at 21321. Some claim that the Cinebench benchmarks are more real life oriented, and I don't even know how relevant these numbers are for someone who mainly uses the Mac for composing music with sample libraries. Anyway, since the M3 MBP I have has  multi core performance at 21240 and single core at 3232, these numbers are to my surprise better than the best multi and single result on those Geekbench lists for Mac. It's still possible to overload single tracks of course, but this is the first time I've had the feeling that I'll just keep this Mac forever. If it gives me overload messages, I'll just spread things over more tracks (if that helps), or maybe even better: write something with fewer notes instead  🙂

[Angelface]

Well thanks for response and glad to hear that early signs sound promising!  I am about to pull the trigger myself and have had to rationalise it in the same way as you have, as I hope to keep this machine for at least 5 years minimum! What are the specs you ended up going for in the end?  I am almost 100% sure that I will go for the 64gb and 4TB option. 

[FlowerPower]

On 1/6/2024 at 2:42 AM, Angelface said:

Hey, I am curious what specs did you go for in the end? And how is it working out for you?

Hi, I ended up with M3 Max with 128 gb RAM and 4tb internally. For some reason, it isn't as fast (mainly for write) as the 8tb Geekbench-mark I shared earlier, but still absolutely good.

First, for comparison, here are the results from the 2020 i7 iMac (since I'm on that Mac right now):

Edit: this was the first post I wrote!

[Angelface]

Wow those are some beefy specs! That’s brilliant re. read and write speeds in comparison to iMac!  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to afford beyond 64GB, which is a significant upgrade from my 2015 MacBook Pro 15”.  I think I will finalise things over the weekend and make my final decision on Monday!  The initial outlay is hefty, but am believing it will pay dividends in the end and improve workflow and enhance creativity without constantly seeing the dreaded beachball and system overload messages! 

[FlowerPower]

On 1/6/2024 at 5:03 PM, Angelface said:

That’s brilliant re. read and write speeds in comparison to iMac!

Sure, and the two 2020 iMacs are the two Intel iMacs with highest single core performance (according to Geekbench) – but are now superseded by 40 Apple Silicon Macs. Btw, the 16-core M3 Max read speeds are also better than the results I posted for the 8tb model,  and when working with large orchestral sample libraries, read speed is more important than write speed. 

OTOH, if you mainly work with audio and/or a reasonable amount of synths, you'll probably be fine with 64 gb – and as mentioned, much faster freeze/unfreeze also makes life easier with computers with specs like these. 

The new Macs come in many different configurations, with various amount of memory bandwidth, cores etc., so make sure you order the model that's best for you.

Remember that performance cores is more important for music production than efficiency cores (which is why I went for the 16-core and not the 14-core). Also (when your Mac arrives): increasing buffer sizes don't work the same way on M-Macs as they do on Intel Macs. Using the default settings and a 128 or 256 buffer may give the best results (unless you can go even further down), and some say that in some situations, it may be a good idea to lower (!) the Process Buffer Range from Medium to Small – and/or forcing Logic to use only the Performance cores. 

[Angelface]

Thank you and you have made some really valid points, that I appreciate hearing. I did originally consider the M3 Max (14 core CPU and 30 core GPU) option as it allowed for 96GB and 4TB SSD which was only £100 price increase from the 64GB, 4TB max with (16 core CPU and 40 core GPU option). I realised that I would be losing two performance cores with the first option despite the increase in RAM.  I figured the 12 performance cores would be worthwhile over the 10 in the first option.   I have to say, the RAM configuration on these new M3 are quite baffling!  Just hoping that I make the right choice!  Will be mainly using for composing & Audio Production, but would like to dip my two in to the orchestral sound library arena, which I had held off from previously purchasing due to the limitations of my 2015 intel MacBook Pro.

[Angelface]

Oh and I hope you don’t mind me asking but which colour did you opt for. Space black or Silver?  

[FlowerPower]

46 minutes ago, Angelface said:

Oh and I hope you don’t mind me asking but which colour did you opt for. Space black or Silver?  

IMO the black one looks better, but I went for the silver version. From what I've heard there will be more fingerprint marks etc on the dark one (even after some improvements since earlier dark-ish models), and when traveling with it, I want it to look more like a regular MBP than one of the more expensive models in case there are someone who would be tempted to try to steal it.

If I would have been doing a lot of life stuff I would have ordered the darkest model, since it stick less out on stage, and maybe the dark one is easier to sell at some point than the silver, but I'll keep it. If I ever should buy something similar in the future, it would be an M3 (or M4, M5 etc) based iPad. 

Btw, there are many YouTube clips discussing which of the M3 models that are worth investing in – and I remember several of them suggests that the M3 Pro models may not be such a good investment. If ay of you are considering the M3 Pro MBP, maybe it's worth checking out some of these clips. This one, OTOH, seems to be a lot more than just promising, and I keep discovering brilliant improvements over earlier models – like not only better audio quality in the headphone outputs, but also that the headphone outs are loud enough to drive high impedance cans.

[Angelface]

Well your thoughts are very similar to mine re. colour. I really like the Space black and as my current 2015 MacBook Pro is silver, it would make a nice change. However, after over 8 years with my current one it still looks pristine! Therefore, it’s hard to move away from it and especially when from the outset I already know, that the space black will of course be more prone to scratches and marks.  And I can imagine it could end up looking quite unsightly over time and so I think after the my initial excitement, I would in fact regret purchasing that colour, so I will stick with the Silver also to be on the safe side. However, it I was buying a M3 Macbook Pro and spending considerably less then I intend to, I would have perhaps taken the chance, but for such a high price purchase I will air on the side of caution.  

It would be great to hear how things are progressing once you have transferred fully from intel and I will be sure to post when I pull the trigger and am in the receipt of my new shiny Mac:-).  I really appreciate all the help and advice you have provided, you have been very helpful so thank you. 

[FlowerPower]

On 1/7/2024 at 12:46 AM, Angelface said:

It would be great to hear how things are progressing once you have transferred fully from intel and I will be sure to post when I pull the trigger and am in the receipt of my new shiny Mac:-).  I really appreciate all the help and advice you have provided, you have been very helpful so thank you. 

You’re welcome!

Here’s a copy if something I wrote on another forum, in response to someone who wondered if these Macs could handle the 200+ tracks he’s working with:

I've done some experiments now. I made a test project which is different from having 200+ Kontakt instances, but which had 14 libraries/presets, but with a twist: most track had 5 voices of polyphony, all done with legato presets, and most of these tracks used two or three mic options. I used libraries like SSS, Berlin Strings etc, Modern Scoring Strings – most of them had 4 or five dynamic layers. On each track there was CC1 automation – five times, one for each instrument section (V1. V2 etc).

For Synchron Strings and SF Appassionata I had only one section.

While doing this I looked at both Logic's own Performance Meter and the Activity Monitor in Sonoma, and the results were quite interesting. First of all, Logic's Performance Meter for all the 12 cores showed that all these cores generally used 25% or less of their capacity. Logic was set to Automatic core distribution, and that resulted in a mode where it 'only' used the 12 performance cores, but the Activity Monitor showed activity in the 4 efficiency cores as well, and in general there was more activity in the e-cores than in the p-cores. Logic itself didn't use more than 15-20% of the CPU power, but "AUHostingService (Logic Pro)" used a little more than 200%, whatever that means.

In terms of memory, Logic used only 8-900 mb, but "AUHosting Service (Logic Pro)" used circa 72 gigabytes. There was no disk activity according to Logic's Performance Meter, but that's probably because all the needed 70 gigabytes was in RAM already.

I don't know how the performance and RAM these 50+ instruments used compare with your 200+ track projects, but for what I do, this is good news. Remember I didn't play back a real piece, there was activity on all track all the time, including CC automation and multi-mic setups. Normal music has lots of pauses, so all instruments never play all the time. My impression, so far, is that this Mac would be able to run a 200 track project too, especially if it was actual music on the tracks and not the nonsense I put on these tracks. The reason I think 200 tracks would work well is that with the 50+ Kontakt/Sine sections I had in test, the Mac used less than 25% of its power.

OTOH I didn’t have any fast runs or vibrato automation, so this isn’t fully documenting a real world scenario.

Btw, I did this while in normal power mode, plugged into the wall, but I can try a battery based experiment also, and Low Power Mode. Btw, I used a 4k iMac as a monitor, wirelessly, when I tried this – which eats some some performance as well. This test project ran well with both a 32 buffer and a 256 buffer, but with the 32 buffer, it had some hiccups during the first playthrough.

The only downside I can think of with this M3 Max MBP is that that the latency is higher than on the 2020 Intel iMac I came from. This is kind of important, because in real life we don’t just open test project’s of course – we experiment with many different sounds, layers etc, and we certainly don’t want hiccups while doing that. This means that using the 32 buffer may not be a good choice when recording stuff.

[Angelface]

Thanks so much for update and found it very interesting.  Either way that is some serious track count your machine can handle-very impressive.  I note that you selected automatic thread count, but did you experiment with the different thread count options at all?  The latency issues at the lower buffer size is also good to know about, 

I did opt for 64gb option and so think it would perhaps struggle with the track count you were able to successfully run. But it is extremely unlikely that I will ever need to run that many tracks. I will update with my thoughts soon when I am up and running. But by the sounds of things you seem to be very happy with your purchase, which is great!! 

[FlowerPower]

On 2/4/2024 at 3:16 PM, Angelface said:

I did opt for 64gb option and so think it would perhaps struggle with the track count you were able to successfully run.

I'm pretty sure that the hardware/software tries to deal with situations where users need to handle more samples/data than 64 gb og a 64gb Mac, but the main two reasons I went for 128 gb is that I don't plan to buy any more Macs (128 gb is more future proof than 64) – and that those I have been in touch with who have  a M3 Max recommended that much RAM. It costs a little more, but selling a Mac and buying a new one also costs money. 

Regarding using automatic core distribution mode: I tried a few things, but I'm convinced that the Apple coders and this Mac knows a lot more than I do about which core distribution config that's best for this kind of work. 

Here's my core distribution options in Logic:

For the kind of work I do, a Mac with as many Performance Cores as possible is the best solution. The first five options on that list allows me to not use as many P-cores as possible – but I don't need that now. Should need it in the future (eg. due to running other performance intensive apps in the background, like VEPro or Dorico), I'll still trust that automatic mode knows what to do – and if not, I'll try to instruct some of these apps to user more/fewer cores.

The 12/12 option in the list above says that Logic will user 12 P-cores, but no E-cores. The 14/12 option means that 12 of the 14 cores Logic is set to user are P-cores, meaning that the two last one are E-cores. So, both the two options at the bottom lets Logic grab 2 or 4 Efficiency Cores as well in addition to the 12 P-cores. But not only do I trust that the automatic mode takes care of this for me, I have seen in the Activity Monitor several times that there's more activity* in the E-cores than in the P-cores (used by the OS it seems, not Logic).

*related to how much power each of these cores have, P-cores are a lot more powerful than E-cores.

I don't want to interfere with that, because If I/Logic would force the system to use E-cores, especially if I'd go for Logic using all cores (12 High Performance Cores + 4 Efficiency Cores), the OS and all it's background tasks would (according to people I know who have more experience with M3 Macs than me) struggle. Or, if I understood this right, it would struggle if using 14/12, and more or less explode if I used 16-12.... kind of. Well, not really, but even when just writing some text right now, this is how the four first cores (the E-cores) look (when Logic is open in the background, but not playing anything:

Here's what it looks like after Logic has been in Play mode for a couple of minutes:

"But by the sounds of things you seem to be very happy with your purchase, which is great!! "
Sure! Just for fun I even tried running it with two external monitors in addition to the built in Retina display AND using a 5k iMac as a fourth monitor (wirelessly), and this also worked well – even on battery. It probably wouldn't last that long, but I'll never need to use that amount of monitors.

While I plan to not replace this Mac ever (hence my configuration), those who buy a new Mac every few years may be better off with a more modest configuration, if they don't not need all that power/memory etc in the foreseeable future. Good luck with your Mac!

[Angelface]

Thank you so much for your explanation re. Your reasons for using the automatic cores selection option within Logic.  I have learnt something new which I am pleased to say, which is Logic Pro does actually also use the efficiency cores as well as the performance cores, which is something I was led to believe was not the case (based on the YouTube videos I have seen).  This is good news!! 

Also,  I  totally understand your reason for the config. that you went for, if money was no object I would have done the same.  However, I went to the top of my budget which the 64gb! And also figured that it is a huge step up from my 2015 MacBook Pro which had 16GB!! 

I am loving the speaker quality of the new machine and screen improvement is noticeable too.  It’s early days for me and I still have the gruelling task of transferring data etc…ahead of me!!

[FlowerPower]

3 hours ago, Angelface said:

I have learnt something new which I am pleased to say, which is Logic Pro does actually also use the efficiency cores as well as the performance cores, which is something I was led to believe was not the case (based on the YouTube videos I have seen).

I don't actually know if it's Logic or the OS (and/or other apps and background activity) which uses the E-cores, but the advice I've received has been for this Mac is to start with using  either use automatic mode or to set Logic to use all the P-cores. Automatic mode in Logic has "Recommended" next to it, and so far, this has worked well. 

The info here is also useful: 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/101921

"Many factors influence how macOS distributes the workload to the cores on your Mac. The optimal value for the Processing Threads setting can vary depending on the apps you're using simultaneously, your hardware, and your Logic Pro projects. Selecting the highest number of processing threads may not always be the best choice. Experiment with different settings to determine the best balance of performance and reliability.

* Hyper-Threading is a feature of Intel-based Mac computers."

[Angelface]

Thanks for all your help so far and the links you supplied. Just to update I am pretty much set up and just doing the last of my transferring. Quick question…do you normally work within Logic just using battery? Or do you always plug into power? When on battery how many hours are you roughly able to work for within Logic?  Hope your machine is serving you well-is it?

[FlowerPower]

On 2/17/2024 at 7:45 PM, Angelface said:

Thanks for all your help so far and the links you supplied. Just to update I am pretty much set up and just doing the last of my transferring. Quick question…do you normally work within Logic just using battery? Or do you always plug into power? When on battery how many hours are you roughly able to work for within Logic?  

Hi. I rarely rely on battery power, but I haven't been traveling since I bought it. 

"Hope your machine is serving you well-is it?"

I've had some serious with noise bursts, but I don't know if  this has to do with the OS, the Mac itself, or the sample libraries I use. It could be compatibility issues, since I've used Kontakt 6 and 7 even if they aren't officially supporting Sonoma. Opening existing projects based on Kontakt 5 is also troublesome. 

 

I wish Logic had built in emergency solutions. In my kitchen there's warning if it's too hot around/above the stove, or to0 wet under the sink + the stove is disconnected from the power – and the water is automatically cut off if needed, but loud noises, feedback, unexpected noise bursts etc aren't automatically muted in any DAWs yet AFAIK. 

Other than the above (which may not be the MBPs fault at all), I'm still very impressed with what the M3 MBPs can do.

[Angelface]

Hello Again,

Thanks for the reply. I am not as far along in the testing stages as it sounds like you are, as I have only opened Kontakt 6 & 7 and Komplete Kontrol, but haven’t done much in the way of work. I have loaded older projects, which have all opened without issue apart from one, which had to do with loading samples within Komplete Kontrol, but that has now been remedied after trashing everything and reinstalling it, which was a bit of a pain.  

Also have you tried using the low power mode to see if that makes any difference? As I have seen that this was helpful regarding noise issues on the M3 Max.  So this is the setting I am currently using. I am impressed in its handling of old projects and it is in stark contrast to how the MacBook Pro 2015 handled it. No stuttering and massive spikes or cpu overload messages, which is a delight!:-), but as we delve further into things and live with it for a bit longer I am sure more things will be revealed along the way-good&bad, but hopefully not so much of the latter!! Always interested to hear how things are progressing your end and I will also update if I feel I have anything useful to add.