SampleTank 3 sounds... which drive should I use?

[itamar.c]

I have everything ready to install SampleTank 3.

I have all the SampleTank 3 sounds and their respective installers downloaded/extrated on a internal Western Digital Black 1TB 7200 rpm 64MB cache HD which I use exclusively for samples storage and on which I was until now decided to use to install the SampleTank sounds.

But I also have an external Kingston SSD 240 GB USB 3 drive available which I never used for anything and I started thinking if it wouldn't be a good idea to copy the SampleTank 3 sounds and sounds installers to this SSD drive and use it instead.

My doubt is: could I use an external SSD USB 3.0 drive to install the SampleTank 3 sounds.

And if yes, choosing the SSD over the internal WD HD would make any significant difference? Which one do you recommend?

Thanks in advance and please forgive me for my poor English.

[garfy]

Hi there.

Well, the age old question isn't it. And I guess the answer depends on a couple of things 1) the throughput of both drives via their respective protocol and 2) how much data you intend to pull off the drive at any one time.

My doubt is: could I use an external SSD USB 3.0 drive to install the SampleTank 3 sounds.

Yes you can. SampleTank will just treat it the same as if it was an internal drive, although see the caveat at point 1 above as to whether it will be better.

And if yes, choosing the SSD over the internal WD HD would make any significant difference? Which one do you recommend?

It's tricky to recommend one over the other. If it was me with your conundrum, I would install to the internal 7200rpm sample drive and see how I got on. You can try to do the maths to work out which would be best, but a real world test is always a bit more conclusive. Run it on the internal until you get a bottleneck somewhere and (if it happens at all) try the SSD.

The good thing about the installation of the content is that, unlike some software, it's simple to relocate the files. Basically, you would take the 'master' SampleTank 3 folder which contains the instruments, sample data etc. straight off the HDD and dump it onto your SSD. Tell SampleTank the new location, it rebuilds the database and you're good to go.

TBH, if you had the time or the inclination, you could install it in both locations and set up some tests to see which one (if any) was better.

Let us know what you decide and how you get on. It's an interesting one for other users considering the amount of data is involved in sample content and one that will be asked a lot more in the coming months, with the release of the behemoth-sized SampleTank 4MAX.

[itamar.c]

Hi, garfy. Thanks a million for your continuing help.

I was thinking about using the SSD exclusively for the SampleTank 3 sounds so it's capacity would be more than suficient.

I haven't yet decided if I'm gonna do the SampleTank 4 Max upgrade. It's really tempting but I work basically on my own songs, I mean, I'm not a pro producer or something like that, so I'm not sure I'll end up using everything it can offer, although I think it would be a pleasure to have around 250 GB of sounds available to play with.

If I decide to do the upgrade to ST 4 Max the only HD I'll be able to use will be my internal WD because I don't think my Kingston SSD will have enough space for all the sounds, and higher capacity SSDs - and even the 250 GB ones like mine - are still very expensive in my country.

I'll probably follow your advice and install the sounds on my WD internal HD. If it works fine for me - as I said I'm not a very demanding user - perhaps a better use for my external SSD would be to create a new updated image of my system HDD, which is also an 250 GB 250.

But if despite of that if I decide to try the installation on both HDs I'll do some practical performance tests and I'll post the results here.

Let me say thank you again for all your suggestions and advices.

[itamar.c]

I finally installed SampleTank 3 and all the sounds on my computer. I installed the sounds on my internal dedicated Western Digital Black 1TB 7200 rpm 64MB cache HD exclusively used for sounds, samples, etc - it's not my system HD. Everything is working fine.

As I said in na previous post I had the option to install the sounds on an external Kingston SSD 240 GB USB 3 drive so I followed garfy advice and copy all the files to this optional drive and made some simple tests to try to find out which one would be fast, I mean, from which SampleTank would load the sounds faster and I really couldn't notice any noticeable difference, I mean, both drives seems to provide the same result - at least related to how fast SampleTank load the sounds from them.

I screen captured one of these tests as a video and if someone is interested I can post it on YouTube or anywhere. For now I'll continue to use my internal HD but I'll keep the option of using the external SSD in the future.

Thanks once again garfy for helping me out on this subject and please forgive me for my poor English.

[garfy]

Hi there.

Thanks for coming back to the forum and sharing your personal findings.

It really is a tricky thing to try and quantify when it comes to the trinity of processor/disc/RAM when people want to know how to get the best from software, as every machine and person's workflow is going to be different. Testing is the only way to know what your results may be.

As a follow-up, let us know if the HD ever exhibits any problems if you have a large project that stresses your machine. I'm always interested in stuff like this - I'm probably the only one

Thanks again

[itamar.c]

Thanks, garfy. As I said I'll be using the internal HD samples for now and I'll keep the external SSD as a backup for the sounds so I won't have to download them again in the future if I have some problem with my internal HD. I'll also make another comparisons between both drives in the future when working with bigger projects and if I think there's any relevant information I'll post it here. Thanks again.