Should I go m.2 SSD array for my libs?

[bapu]

My recent system upgrade included an m.2 SSD for project files (4tb with only 1tb used). I have a 16tb (win reports 14tb total) with 11 tb used.

I’m considering going to m.2 ssd array of up to 4x4tb sticks on a card.

But that cost is max $1200 and I’m not in need of speed demon lib loading as I don’t have customers looking over my shoulder.

If I understand it correctly, some libs are “streaming” and some are not. If so, which of these major vendors that I have are streaming libs?

KONTAKT Ultimate Composers Collection
East West Opus
Spitfire
8dio
Addictive Drums
Toontrack
Steven Slate SSD 5
SampleTank
Jamstix
Native Instruments
Spectrasonics

suggestions of others that I may not have listed

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

[EusebioRZ]

It should depend on how the libraries are used by the software.

If sounds are loaded when they are needed (e.g., if you load the wav’s in your daw), load speed is probably not that important and you’ll be better off getting a very large HDD (or more, if you have many libraries it’s probably a good idea keeping a backup copy in a different disk so that you don’t need to spend days downloading libraries if/when a disk fails)

If sounds are preloaded (e.g., a sampler that loads a sample set into memory when switching between instruments) and loading takes noticeable time then it may be worth putting those libraries in a SSD/nvme

In my machine I put most libraries in HDD and Kontakt libraries in SSD (I haven’t really benchmarked Kontakt to be able to back up a claim scientifically with numbers, but in my older machine when I had the libs in HDD, this was a particular application where loading new instruments did feel sluggish)

Is Gear Addiction Syndrome a form of insanity? Here is my vst collection.

What is Gremlins' Music? watch or listen at Odysee

1

[bapu]

On EusebioRZ said

It should depend on how the libraries are used by the software.

If sounds are loaded when they are needed (e.g., if you load the wav’s in your daw), load speed is probably not that important and you’ll be better off getting a very large HDD (or more, if you have many libraries it’s probably a good idea keeping a backup copy in a different disk so that you don’t need to spend days downloading libraries if/when a disk fails)

If sounds are preloaded (e.g., a sampler that loads a sample set into memory when switching between instruments) and loading takes noticeable time then it may be worth putting those libraries in a SSD/nvme

In my machine I put most libraries in HDD and Kontakt libraries in SSD (I haven’t really benchmarked Kontakt to be able to back up a claim scientifically with numbers, but in my older machine when I had the libs in HDD, this was a particular application where loading new instruments did feel sluggish)

Is Gear Addiction Syndrome a form of insanity? Here is my vst collection.

What is Gremlins’ Music? watch or listen at Odysee

all my libs are currently on a 16tb sata HDD. I did order a third m.2 4tb stick to move any specific libs for performance. I’ll test some various KONTAKT libs from the HDD and them move them to the m.2 for an A/B test.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

[superabbit]

Let us know what kind of results you see.

What interests me is the amount of time between selecting an instrument and being able to play the first note.

Past a certain point, disk read speed stops being a bottleneck.

As someone with 48G RAM in my DAW computer, I’d be quite happy for my sample players to use RAM for caching/pre-loading.

I sometimes suspect that programs designed when RAM was a lot more expensive don’t expect to have so much to play with.

-Erik
___________
superabbit.bandcamp.com

[bapu]

On superabbit said

Let us know what kind of results you see.

What interests me is the amount of time between selecting an instrument and being able to play the first note.

Past a certain point, disk read speed stops being a bottleneck.

As someone with 48G RAM in my DAW computer, I’d be quite happy for my sample players to use RAM for caching/pre-loading.

I sometimes suspect that programs designed when RAM was a lot more expensive don’t expect to have so much to play with.

-Erik
___________
superabbit.bandcamp.com

I have 128GB of RAM.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

[Anonymous]

On October 15, 2024 bapu said

My recent system upgrade included an m.2 SSD for project files (4tb with only 1tb used). I have a 16tb (win reports 14tb total) with 11 tb used.

I’m considering going to m.2 ssd array of up to 4x4tb sticks on a card.

But that cost is max $1200 and I’m not in need of speed demon lib loading as I don’t have customers looking over my shoulder.

If I understand it correctly, some libs are “streaming” and some are not. If so, which of these major vendors that I have are streaming libs?

KONTAKT Ultimate Composers Collection
East West Opus
Spitfire
8dio
Addictive Drums
Toontrack
Steven Slate SSD 5
SampleTank
Jamstix
Native Instruments
Spectrasonics

suggestions of others that I may not have listed

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though.

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

Enthusiastic subscriber of Composer Cloud, Slate/SSL/Harrison, Kush, Plugin Alliance & Waves WUP.

Kontakt – most Kontakt libraries are usually streamed

East West – probably streams, but not certain, never used it

Spitfire – all streaming, as far as I know

8dio – I think some stream and some don’t

Addictive Drums – not sure

Toontrack – not sure about EZdrummer, but Superior streams

Steven Slate – probably streams

SampleTank – past version no, but version 4 yes

Jamstix – no clue

Native Instruments – streaming

Spectrasonics – streaming

[bapu]

Update: I did it. Highpoint 7105 4 slot m.2 Raid 1 contrroller.
I put four 4tb WD Black SN850X on this controller and set it as Raid 0 (stripe).
Works a treat.

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

[Author]

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