Modartt user forum - Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-14T21:36:47Z

Michael, I couldn't agree more. I'm just waiting for the prices to drop even further before I commit to buying a few.

Be sure to check out the following link:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Recommended-SSD.html

It's Mac-specific, obviously, but great information in general, regardless!

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-14T20:58:47Z

dhalfen,

Even though it's not going to help Pianoteq, for everything else it seems like a pretty good choice the more I find out.

Thanks for the info.

Michael

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-14T20:03:05Z

From what I've read, the current SSDs work _great_ if you use them as read-only volumes. They come highly-regarded as boot drives.

When you start writing to them on a regular basis, the performance degrades (which requires some additional time-consuming tomfoolery to fix).

Create a RAID0 with SSDs and you'll have a _great_ sample station.

The use of SSDs would have absolutely _no_ impact on Pianoteq, because all the "magic" happens in the processor(s). (I.e., the sound is all "computational." ;^)

:-)

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-13T15:29:37Z

EvilDragon,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I should have asked you the question differently. My main concern is whether or not one SSD with both the OS and samples on it would work reliably for playback and performance, and I'm not concerned about recording.

In an ideal situation I realize that separate drives would be better, but I'm trying to simplify a performance rig. As far as I know, the main concern people have with partitioning one HD, is that the heads go crazy looking for things and it affects performance drastically.

So, I need to find out if that would be an issue with one SSD. It may be that I'll have to try it out to see for myself.

Michael

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-13T00:02:42Z

Michael H wrote:

Well, sometimes I've seen a bump in CPU usage in Pianoteq from a comlplete idle too, on my laptops, so what you mentioned may be relevant to that as well.

This sounds like it's probably a different issue - probably not related to the hard drive idle behaviour. If the CPU speed has been throttled down, that might explain a higher CPU usage.....

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-12T22:08:55Z

Michael H wrote:

EvilDragon,
Do you think it would work ok to put a heavy duty library like Ivory, along with the OS, on one SSD, or is it still more reliable to use two drives for something like that?
Another benefit of SSD, or so I've heard, is that it's less likely to be damaged than a regular HD if you use your computer as a frisbee.
Michael

Always separate drive for samples, separate for OS. The best performance, SSD or not.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-12T20:08:16Z

Greg,

Well, sometimes I've seen a bump in CPU usage in Pianoteq from a comlplete idle too, on my laptops, so what you mentioned may be relevant to that as well.

Michael

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-12T19:22:22Z

Btw, I do have a problem with my laptop drive which I am quite sure is due to mild power saving. It doesn't spin down (that is disabled), however it has other mild power savings features. This causes the drive's response, from idle, to be a bit slower than it would be otherwise, and it was enough to break one of my sample playback engines. The workaround is to generate a tiny bit of background disk activity. (yes, that's right - I do not have ENOUGH disk activity!) I am waiting for the power savings specs from the manufacturer, just so I can be absolutely sure, but I have done enough testing to be quite convinced. I've also asked them whether there is any way this functionality can be completely disabled. I don't think SSDs would suffer from this type of problem.

Again - not terribly relevant for Pianoteq per se.

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-12T00:54:47Z

Btw, if I seem to be contradicting myself, by saying one the one hand that an SSD would be a lot better than a hard disk, but on the other hand saying that a single hard disk is ok, it is because I am referring to two different things: an SSD should yield an appreciably higher voice count for sample libraries than a hard disk, so if you will be using a lot of voices, an SSD is to be preferred. However, if the hard disk has enough peformance for the voice count that you need, then I think a single hard disk can be made to work, at least for a simple live playback situation. (if you for some reason needed to start or stop a program during a performance, though, or something else that caused a flurry of disk activity, then all bets are off!)
This is starting to be a long way off the topic of Pianoteq though, I think.

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T21:39:28Z

I think a single SSD for everything would work fine. As I say, IMHO, even a single hard disk can work fine, despite the fact that this is contrary to common advice.

Regarding sequential write performance of todays SSDs, from specs I've seen it's actually very good. (this isn't relevant for you, though, Michael)

If I were getting an SSD for my system drive, I'd try my best to get TRIM, even if I weren't going to do any recording. I agree that it's not critical, but without it, general performance slows down over time more than it does with the TRIM functionality.

For recording, I think I'd use a RAM disk, regardless of whether I was using an SSD or a hard disk. I'd be slightly less inclined to do this on a desktop machine with no power backup.

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T21:14:27Z

feeble wrote:

One non performance benefit for an SSD in any audio application is silence. Also, because they don't have any moving parts and run cooler, the overall heat load on the system is reduced meaning you might be able to get by with fewer fans, quieting the system even more.

Good point, but I read somewhere that write throughput for sequential data is much lower on SSDs. However, I did not verify that, and maybe it's important for multitrack recordings only.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T21:13:36Z

Hi Greg,

I think that using one SSD for both OS and samples MIGHT work because there are no read heads moving back and forth.

I had to look up 'TRIM' to see what you were talking about And I wonder how necessary that function is if I'm primarily using the computer for music performance, but not recording. Any opinion on that?

Thanks,
Michael

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T20:52:47Z

Btw, whenever you use an SSD for the system drive, it would be best to get one that supports the TRIM function. If the SSD will ONLY be used for sample storage, I do not think TRIM is important.

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T18:57:56Z

Michael H wrote:

Do you think it would work ok to put a heavy duty library like Ivory, along with the OS, on one SSD, or is it still more reliable to use two drives for something like that?

That's a very interesting question. I would guess that it would still be ok, assuming that there was no heavy disk activity from system activities. Not quite as good has having a seperate drive, but still much, much better than having a single rotating disk drive. One recommendation for using SSDs as the main system drive is to configure things such that a RAM disk is used for some system related functions, rather than the SSD - especially things that WRITE to the disk. This technique could be used for a normal hard disk, too, I suppose. Btw, I'm using a single drive in my laptop, and it works fine for samples. I have virtually no background disk activity, even though it's my system drive as well. It's not producing fantastic performance, but that's because it's not a very fast drive - not because I only have a single drive.

I'm amazed at how quiet my laptop drive is. However, I understand that this is partly due to a special way the heads move, to reduce noise, and this reduces performance. I am trying to find out if I can disable this feature, to improve the performance of my sample libraries. (I have no idea how much it will help, yet, if any) I found a DOS utility that is supposed to do this, for my specific drive, but I can't get it to work yet. But, the quietness at the moment is superb!

Greg.

Re: Would an SSD Solid State Drive improve the performance of Pianoteq?

2010-01-11T18:25:10Z

EvilDragon,

Do you think it would work ok to put a heavy duty library like Ivory, along with the OS, on one SSD, or is it still more reliable to use two drives for something like that?

Another benefit of SSD, or so I've heard, is that it's less likely to be damaged than a regular HD if you use your computer as a frisbee.

Michael