External Hard Drive for BIAB should be USB 3.0 and SSD (solid state drive)

PG Music Home

I was pretty disappointed in the performance of the BIAB external drive I received. So I got a cheap ($15) USB 3.0 enclosure and a relatively cheap ($70) solid state drive and put BIAB on that. It it way way faster. Realtracks/soloists used to take up to 30 seconds to get going, and now it's just a couple of seconds.

All computers now have USB 3.0, and solid state drives are fast enough to make use of that bandwidth, so I suggest that BIAB should come on a solid state drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure.

- Prices are low enough that you could buy 90GB-100GB drives in bulk for not much more than what is currently used.

- USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0.

- You will save time installing/copying files to the disk before sending to a customer, because SSDs are so much faster than traditional 5400rpm 2.5" drives.

- You could just have the USB 3.0 / SSD as an option for an extra amount of money, for those who so choose.

If I had known about the severe speed handicap, I would not have purchased BIAB on disk (even as cheap as it was, only paying for shipping). I would have just downloaded it and put it on a USB 3.0 SSD to begin with...

thanks!

Good points and it sounds very tempting but what about some reports that say SSD's are not as long lasting as regular HD's, when they fail there's no warning at all and when they're dead, they're dead.

I just did a quick Google search about this and quite a few people say use an SSD for your system boot drive but use a regular HD for data storage because it's safer. If that's the case then considering PG's HD is about 95% Real Track data then there's little advantage from that point of view. But others say these drives are improving all the time, the prices have come way down as you say and reliability is now as good as anything else.

I have no experinece with SSD's just throwing this out there for discussion because I'm interested in this as well.

Bob

Thanks. Good suggestions, and those are exciting results that you've found, both in the price and the performance of SSD .
We are looking into it, and as hopefully will move to that when the price is right.

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I was pretty disappointed in the performance of the BIAB external drive I received. So I got a cheap ($15) USB 3.0 enclosure and a relatively cheap ($70) solid state drive and put BIAB on that. It it way way faster. Realtracks/soloists used to take up to 30 seconds to get going, and now it's just a couple of seconds.

First world problems. Not fast enough. Geeze. Maybe PGMusic should throw in iPads with every purchase as well? I think the whole selling it on a Hard Drive is because it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to load Band in a Box from DVD, and downloading it and then keeping a backup copy is a pain as well. And since hard drives are real cheap.....makes sense that PGMusic gets some hard drives, offers them in lieu of DVDs and the added bonus is that you can, if you want, run the program from it.

But it is a laptop drive.....so what do you expect?

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All computers now have USB 3.0, and solid state drives are fast enough to make use of that bandwidth, so I suggest that BIAB should come on a solid state drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure.

And iPads. We want iPads with it too. But serious, not every computer has USB 3 (I'm using one right now that is 3 years old that does not have USB3). And musicians are more likely to have OLD gear rather than new fangled stuff. I know a few guys still running Windows XP and one that runs Windows 95!

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- Prices are low enough that you could buy 90GB-100GB drives in bulk for not much more than what is currently used.

Nope. It is still a lot more expensive per megabyte for SSD than standard.

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- USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0.

Ok....

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- You will save time installing/copying files to the disk before sending to a customer, because SSDs are so much faster than traditional 5400rpm 2.5" drives.

They probably clone the disks......and it's not like they are selling 50,000 units a week (though they should be damn it!)

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- You could just have the USB 3.0 / SSD as an option for an extra amount of money, for those who so choose.

I guess, but then again you'd have people complaining that the SSD is this or that or doesn't have leveling or garbage collection or......the list goes on.

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If I had known about the severe speed handicap, I would not have purchased BIAB on disk (even as cheap as it was, only paying for shipping). I would have just downloaded it and put it on a USB 3.0 SSD to begin with...

Thank God you didn't chose the DVD option. You'd probably have gone on and wanted everything on BluRay or Holographic crystals.........

I think the hard drive is just fine. It's cheap, it works, and if someone wants to go faster than what the laptop drive can handle, they can use the drive as a backup and copy the files to where ever they want......just.....like.........you.......did.

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Good points and it sounds very tempting but what about some reports that say SSD's are not as long lasting as regular HD's, when they fail there's no warning at all and when they're dead, they're dead.

Well, they have a limited number of times they can be accessed. The technology is still rapidly moving forward, so todays SSDs are not going to be in the same league as ones next year.

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I just did a quick Google search about this and quite a few people say use an SSD for your system boot drive but use a regular HD for data storage because it's safer. If that's the case then considering PG's HD is about 95% Real Track data then there's little advantage from that point of view. But others say these drives are improving all the time, the prices have come way down as you say and reliability is now as good as anything else.

Safer? Not really. The 5400+ RPM spinning platter and the head that is hovering like 1/20th the size of a piece of hair above said platter.....the potential is there for failure. Regular hard drives have been around for a LONG TIME and the tech is pretty reliable. Years usually. SSDs........not so much.

For what it is worth, my webserver has been running on an SSD for almost 2 years now. Not a single glitch.......yet.