Worth The Wait

[johndunn]

I just installed a SSD as my main drive, and I love it. The speed is great, multiple times faster than a hard drive. But the reason I sprung for one is that I do a lot of sofware development, which means I crash a lot - and loosing the data on the HD can sometimes be a serious problem. I back up frequently of course, but in the heat of a programming marathon, I sometimes forget. Same deal with studio work - it's hard to remember to stop and back up when the muses are giving you a ride.

But with a SSD, a disk crash does not mean you've lost the data. It only means you can't write to it anymore. So to recover you just put in a different boot drive, and read off the SSD data. It's a whole new ball game.

There are issues, of course. A lot of the low priced SSDs use a sub par controller, which causes stuttering - disk write times of a half second or so. There is a general problem in that they all read and write in small (usually 4K) blocks, but to erase they have to do a 512k page. So writes slow down after a while in all of them. The Intel SSDs, and the later Samsung based SSDs like the Corsair P128 (the one I got) have an processor and lots of buffer and do smart "erase-defrag" which greatly minimizes the problem. So far my Corsair P128 is doing fine.

[dawman]

Coolness........does it use the Intellilink..?

Those are impressive reads. I have been told for live work I won't use more than 50-65 MB's per second, but I know when I start packing on VSTi sample playing instruments for seqeuncing and recording this will skyrocket. 280MB's per second seem like a dozen powerful romplers.

[valis]

Jimmy if you're only loading your sample data onto the drive and then using it for purely playback, I think there are several models that will handle that with aplomb. Intel, Corsair & OCZ's better stuff should do fine. OCZ is about to release updated Vertex models with the onboard mem cache 'overclocked' a tad:

OCZ Speeds Up Solid-State Drives by Overclocking Memory Buffer.

It's just for mixed read/write/multitasking solutions that the SSD's are still needing to mature--which is where I would use them. I can't afford to spend 10x the cost of an SATA drive (dollars per gigabyte) just for samples when I really don't have issues with my current ES.2's. But! TRIM in Win7 + larger on-SDD caches should improve matters a lot, after that I'm just waiting for the costs to come down a bit (they've risen again this month.)

[dawman]

We tried one for streaming and although the benches looked good there was little difference in polyphony which is what the extra MB's per second were suppose to be for, but it isn't a newer model like JD has shown above, it was from last year as he is always grabbing new tech. But he actually knew it would be fine for the O.S. if streaming didn't work.
I am in no hurry unless I start having to record large templates in one take.
But I am definately seeing these drives improve as time goes by, and the prices are fairly reasonable too.
I remember the SSD got really hot from the ridiculous amount of reads streamers need.
The ideal set up would be to span the content over 3 x SSD's. They would only need to be 150GB's each, but the MB's per second of these newer models is awesome compared to my WD's.
OCZ also has a RAID controller for really sick stuff on the biggest Vertex.
Overclocked RAM and RAID>..........Dayamn.

[valis]

Intel's new 34nm SSDs cut prices by 60 percent, boost speed

Intel Launches 34nm NAND SSDs, Claims 60% Price Cut Possible

80GB & 160GB models, double the read throughput & reduced read latency. No mention of write performance and those 60% price cuts are on the bulk pricing for retailers, hopefully the savings are passed along to us at the end.

[netguyjoel]

This trend was expected, in order to spur implementation in the mainstream marketplace.
I say we pool our money together, and place an order for 1,000, so when they fry...we can use them as coasters....

Besides...the article does mention that the primary slowdown, is not, the fault of the drive, but the system it is used in, and even at the OS level.
There are headways being made in the custom OS front, to create a VERY stripped down XP, specifically to be used in audio apps, and the work is continuing to be replicated in the Win7 arena as well...never mind the fluff...just a solid, thin OS, that doesn't need mp3, video, internet, email, business apps etc etc...man...the list gets pretty long, when you think about how much crap is shoved into an OS....imho...

[johndunn]

I say we go back to CP/M. That was an OS where you knew everything that was going on.

[netguyjoel]

That is beyond my skill set...all in all...Unix/Linux is as well, one that can be monitored, and know what processes are doing what too.....your chops squash mine like a grape...

My ATARI 1040, & Mega 4 had some of the most rock solid midi timing I have EVER used. Not for audio...but the most killer MIDI timing ever... I know you understand (mr dunn) probably better than most.....

[valis]

I had forgot to post it until now, but Intel Confirms SSD Data Corruption Issue, Suspends Shipments Pending Firmware Update for their latest X25-M "G2" (34nm) due to a corruption issue when a user sets a BIOS password. The drives do solve the Fragmentation Issues (before TRIM is even in Win7) and offer faster performance and reduced prices to the first Generation X-25M...

[netguyjoel]

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/569 ... /217033/0/

Intels Braidwood flash memory modules comming to market...

[dawman]

These Pro DAW builders seem to have a grip on the industry and some inside info.
Vision and ADK both advised me to stay away from SSD's until late Q'4.
It has been a little over a year now since I saw the first SSD getting hot streaming samples.
It showed zero difference but made an excellent OS + Apps. solution.
Bandwidth is not the problem with samplers, it's a combination of access time, and fast RAM.
DDR2-800 works fine when recording 2 or 3 tracks at a time, but DDR3-1333 Dual channel, not triple, is capable of multiplying tracks effortlessly for those who want to record an entire template in 1 take. Add the fast access times of an SSD and I think that's about as good as it gets.
SSD's are really starting to become attractive. By Springtime I can imagine the extra competitors will offer even better solutions, or at least make Intel drop it's prices.
AMD is becoming an expert at doing just that.

[valis]

Well Intel has had the firmware issues in the X25-M "G2" solved for a week or so now, they are back in the channels and cost the same as the G1 (80GB G1 = SSDSA2MH080G1, 80GB G2 = SDSA2MH080G2C1). Performance issues seem solved across the board (for MLC) and these seem to do well even before TRIM support is in Win7.

However at over $4/GB I'm still waiting for the cost drop...I'd like to have then under $2/GB personally. But I'm not really having issues with track counts here, I just look forward to having an OS drive and a second 'work' drive for a reasonable cost.

As for Braidwood, I'm not sure how much of a performance boost it will give to audio i/o tasks. I can't see them using this SLC flash for caching ALL iops, as that only makes sense for a typical office/home pc (where you do less than 5GB/day in writes). SLC doesn't age much better than MLC even though it's faster, so I'm not sure what Intel really has planned for Braidwood yet. From descriptions I've read it does seem like it's a on-volatile ring buffer which means that wear-levelling algorithms would buy some extra life at the expense of capacity, but for caching all i/o I can see it wearing out rather quickly (compared to the usable lifespan of a typical motherboard.) I know that I do 10-20GB/day minimum whether doing graphics or audio (including temporary files & swap as well as my data) which means that even an X-25M G2 will only last about 5 years.

However, from what I've read it could also be possibly used for targeting workloads where the caching only addresses common OS components, startup files and other "ReadyBoost" type caching activities. If that's the case then it would last longer, but yield performance benefits only for a few 'typical' things that it's optimized for.

There are some allegations that the reason for this was to increase the cost of the next generation of Intel motherboards a bit more, and there have also been rumors that Braidwood was cancelled from Intel's next chipset due to software issues.

[King of Snake]

cost is already closer to $3,- per gigabyte now. Lowest price of the Intel X25 M 80 GB is about 180 euro here now. A year ago this cost 600-700 Euro's!

[valis]

Well they're $349.99 here online from most vendors, and that's $4.375 per GB by my accounting, but yes that will vary by local currency & distribution.

And while 80GB is certainly enough storage space for a usable working drive, 80GB doesn't up the throughput enough though does it?

From previous drives though it seemed to me that 160GB was the sweet spot in terms of performance (ie, how well we can saturate the existing SATA bus) but with its sequential reads still yielding to the newer 256GB's showing up from other vendors. I haven't watched benchmarks in a 2-3 months now so I can't recall how the X-25m G2 changes internally between sizes re: throughput, but on other vendors the larger models seem to have double the access width (samsung/indilinx). Maybe I was mistaken?

[King of Snake]

strange, usually electronics and computer components are significantly cheaper in the USA compared over here in europe...

[valis]

A reflection on our economy over the last 12 months imo...

[valis]

Serious Competition: Intel X25-M and Five SSD from OCZ Technology

&

Solid-State Drives Will Not Replace Hard Disk Drives – Apple Co-Founder.

Steve Wozniak, the chief scientist of Fusion-io and a co-founder of Apple, said in an interview that although solid-state drives (SSDs) do offer a number of advantages over conventional hard disk drives (HDDs), they would not replace traditional storage based on the spinning media completely. In addition, Mr. Wozniak said that SSDs for PCI Express offered great benefits compared to SATA devices and thus would gain popularity.

“I don't see [SSD] kicking all spinning disks out. In computers we have so many tiers of storage for cost efficiency. Even when you have a hard disk drive it has its own cache built into it. Then we have caching systems in operating systems. Then we have different speeds of memory from your RAM to your L1, L2, L3 caches. […] It cost more money per bit to create NAND flash,”

...read more

[dawman]

I have been watching the 160GB X25-G2 kicking major booty.
It isn't noticable when streaming really until you over use the suatain pedal during a glissando or something. No note stealing is heard and no crackles.
The best thing I noticed is on my HDD Array I never use RAID but span my content so there are always 3 or more Heads searching and streaming.
A single 160GB is smoking my Raptor Array..
The SSD is filled to about 140GB's and there are no slow spots.
On my Raptor 150's I would only load 75-100GB's so I could have the content placed for fastest possible access.
No need for that anymore either.
The " revamped " G2's are the way to go IMHO.
I am not so much worried about write speeds where the OCZ's seem to shine, but the reads on the G2 are like greased lightning....

[valis]

When the G2 came out I figured it was the time for you (and other sample library users) to get into the game. Good to hear a report from in the field

Write speeds are improving but I am still going to hold out for reduced cost (larger size) and better write speeds for a real working drive (not just read-only). I actually want my OS/apps/swap drive(s) to go SSD first (or maybe one for games which is largely read-only), my audio & work project needs are still fine on spinning drives.

[King of Snake]

I might make the switch to SSD for OS/Apps when Windows 7 is released and I'll have to reinstall my system anyway...
It's a shame the prices seem to have stabilised for the moment after they were continiously falling for the past couple of months.