• Registered: 2017-01-28
  • Posts: 20

Topic: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

Hi to all. This is my 2nd post. New HSDPe AIO owner here. Building my PC this week with a 5820K CPU, an ASUS X99-A II motherboard, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, 2 Samsungs SSD 2TB and 1 TB and of course the HDSPe AIO.

I will probably add another SSD 1TB in my setup and I was wondering if anyone has any experience about Samsung 850 series (SATA) and Samsung 960 (M.2) for use as a VST Sample libraries disc.

The difference in benchmarks is colossal. It's like 550MB/s vs 3200MB/s.
Although most people are using the 960 as a boot drive, I think it is more efficient to use it for loading Large VST samples.
Most people that use the 960 as a boot disc AFIK didn't noticed a significant difference in loading programs or boot time.
It would make a difference to use a 960 instead of a "standard" 850 for samples in the "Real World"?

2 Reply by vinark (edited by vinark 2017-01-28 10:16:02)

  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,778

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

You can sort of test this without owning it yet.
Load a 1 or 2gb (not larger) library with lots of samples that takes some time loading and time the first load time, preferably from a fresh windows start. Unload and then load again and time it. The second load will be from the windows disk cache in ram. If that is much faster then the first loading from a normal 500mb/s ssd, then a m2 ssd will be faster too. If it is about the same, it means loading times are not limited by disk speed only, but also by Kontakt needing to process during loading.
For example, loading times with spectrasonics keyscape didn't improve as much as I expected going from HD to SSD (but I didn't time it).
Hope this makes sense!

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

What could be interesting is, that Samsung Disk magician supports RAPID mode, something that sounds like a Ram Disk.
But not all drives are supported and you can activate it only for one drive.

For this reason I got i.e. a larger SSD.
Before a 830 with 256 GB which was not supported for this driver feature, now a 850 Pro with 512 GB.

As a larger SSD is beneficial for more I/O bandwidth this fits nicely together, just a thought.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2017-01-28
  • Posts: 20

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

Hi again!

What could be interesting is, that Samsung Disk magician supports RAPID mode, something that sounds like a Ram Disk.

I know that the latest version of Magician (5) doesn't support RAPID mode. In a laptop that I had an 850 evo, I'm still using the 4.9 version which has more features.

Load a 1 or 2gb (not larger) library with lots of samples that takes some time loading and time the first load time, preferably from a fresh windows start. Unload and then load again and time it. The second load will be from the windows disk cache in ram. If that is much faster then the first loading from a normal 500mb/s ssd, then a m2 ssd will be faster too. If it is about the same, it means loading times are not limited by disk speed only, but also by Kontakt needing to process during loading.

Good suggestion but unfortunately I will build my DAW (hopefully) in a week or so, so I can't test it like that. I was wondering though if it make sense to add, now with my initial build, a 960 or it is a waste of money since I already bought 3TB of 850.

That is my question actually. Is the processing time of Kontakt a bottleneck for the 960?
As I'm reading from non-musician some of their large applications might take 10s to load either with a regular sata SSD or the x6 faster 960, so the slowdown is else where.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

Magician 5.0 supports Rapid mode, but not the EVO models. And as I mentioned, only 1 SSD can be configured for Rapid mode.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • tzzsmk
  • tzzsmk
  • AES/EBU artist
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2016-03-14
  • Posts: 139

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

Hello, nice to see you're building fairly similar rig like me smile
if you really want fast SSD, you need to look for PCIexpress ones, but as far as I know there aren't any new,
M.2 using PCIex 3.0 x4 link is limited to about 4GB/s, which makes 960 PRO limit of about 3.5GB/s,
I can only guess fastest solution available nowadays is max out your RAM, and use RAMdisks (I use ImDisk Toolkit, as it allows creation of dynamically-allocated RAMdisks) which provides speeds beyond 10GB/s read/writes - basically you create images of the whole libraries, stored on your SSDs (no need to buy 960 imo), load them up into RAMdisk and use them from here

HDSPe AIO, ADI-2 DAC, Fireface UFX, Octamic D, Octamic II
Reaper, Windows 11, M2 Studio

7 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2017-02-03 16:32:16)

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

No I am not building something like this, I don't have these high demands on read performance.

I simply have
- 1 x 512GB SSD 850 Pro for OS, Programs, VST instruments (Superior Drummer, Trillian, B4, ...)
- 1 x 256GB SSD 830 Pro for Cubase Projects, Video editing
- 1 x 2TB HD (user data)
- 1 x 3TB HD (monthly backup)
- 1 x 4TB HD (daily backup)

RAM Disks are good for "read-only data", but need to be filled with DATA on each startup.
There are clever RAM disks which also allow storing of data between reboot cycles.
You need a reliable RAM disk software not to compromise the stability of your system.

A very good commercial RAM disk solution, which I used in the past is from this company here:
http://www.superspeed.com/servers/ramdisk.php

Although its nice that the contents of the RAMdisk can be stored, keep in mind,
- You need to provide enough disk-space that the RAM disk can be stored on disk.
- that an immediate power outage still means data loss

So best practise is to combine such a RAM disk with an UPS that should be powerful enough
to at least survive as long as its required to shut the system down and update the RAMdisk image on disk.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2017-02-06
  • Posts: 3

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

Fastest SSD's are not SATA but M.2, by a huge margin. The problem is they are more expensive and you probably only have 1 M.2 slot in your motherboard, so making a RAID in this case is not an option.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,183

Re: Fastest SSD for loading large VST sample libraries.

If your mainboard has several PCIe 3.0 x4 sockets you might be able to use i.e. 2 x M.2 based SSD.
For my mainboard i.e. this would be the case, 2 x PCIe 3.0 x4, 1 x PCIe 3.0 x8
https://www.supermicro.nl/products/moth … 0SRi-F.cfm

I think this adapter could i.e. be used for
https://www.alternate.de/html/product/1297095

What a price wink  Formfactor: M.2 2280
https://www.alternate.de/html/product/1305252

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14