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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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He can follow any path he chooses, as you can also.
Its your drive and you can do whatever with it you want that makes ya happy.
Just pointing out the caveat that is, indeed, there.
The Ferrari is a wonderful sports car.
Those trying to use a Ferrari for everyday commute through wind and snow, though, might think about a second car.
The man who can afford another Ferrari without breaking the bank may view that differently. He can drive it like he stole the doggone thing this morning...
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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For those interested, here is a webpublished ongoing durability test project of SSDs going thru torture-test Write Cycles that supports what Matt is doingand advocating: http://ssdendurancetest.com/ Pitting the Samsung 640 Evo, Intel SSD 520. SanDisk Ultra Plus and Kingston SSDNow V300 against one another. So far, the Kingston has failed, at only 444.9 Write Cycles. Kingston has stated that they are going to replace under warranty. Of the other three, the Samsung and Intel have just crossed the 3,000 cycle upper end recommendation point, the Sandisk has doubled that and is just over 6,000 at the moment.
Is this really normal?
No. The tests preformed here must not be confused with normal use. They are designed to stress SSDs and simulate a really busy environment.
Normal workstation use would be more like 10-20GB written daily.
they also state:
Please note that this unit is heavily stressed and in steady state most of the time.
Which begs the question, how would normal heatup/cooldown cycles, typical of normal use powerup/powerdown, along with the Writes, stress the drives? Likely not in a good way, expansion and contraction testing of other electronics bears that out. Nothing is a single-input problem in my field. I would add the caveat that true testing should not involve a single example from each source. I would like to have multiple examples from each source, side by side under same environment and conditions, enough multiple examples to provide some modicum of statistical substantiation. As any practicing test engineer should. As usual for the intertubes, not. a. real. test. --Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2013
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I don't think we really know yet about BIAB specifically. The number of files that BIAB updates then closes in the main /BB folder is very small, like 8, but there could be many in other folders if we researched it.
Wally, I have followed the precise advice you received, to put the OS and applications on the SSD, but no data. I have everything amply backed up, so I am willing to chance a drive failure. I run the Trim and diagnostic utility faithfully each week that tells me the SSD is still fine. The speed gain is too much to give up on my aging PC. I am not concerned because I have been building PCs for thirty years and teaching computer science for longer. In that time many hard drives have failed, and none of my new SSDs yet. I am careful where I save files...
I just got off the phone with a design engineer at a major hard drive manufacturer that also produces SSDs. I worked with him for many years designing in our power electronics (Spindle and Voice Coil motor drivers)for hard drives. He agreed that it's best to put your applications (and obviously the OS) on the SSD (faster) as long as files (i.e. music files) that are being written to are on the hard drive. Wally G
Yamaha Montage 6 Roland J80, D50, Integra 7, BK-7m, FR-8X, 1967 Fender Jaguar, Fender Strat, Fender 1965 Twin Reverb reissue, Selmer Trumpet, Akai EWI, Studio One 4 My WEB Site: www.gontowski.com/music
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Sep, yes, that would be easy to do in the future. Glad everything worked out.
An hour ago, I got my new 2014 drive! With the audiophile version, there are so many great files I'm considering doing what you did and running the RealTracks from the new drive from PG Music.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Wally, thanks for the info from your friend. Mac, thanks for confirming there is info supporting both views.
I treat every drive as if it will fail soon. When it does, I'm ready. So far, three SSDs are running well and two hard drives of the same vintage have failed (that's on three computers, in case you thought I had a monster machine). I realize this small sample is contrary to what is predicted, but I'm happy with what I have. When the SSD drives do fail, and they will, I will replace them with newer larger ones.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2013
Posts: 58
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For those interested, here is a webpublished ongoing durability test project of SSDs going thru torture-test Write Cycles that supports what Matt is doingand advocating: http://ssdendurancetest.com/ Pitting the Samsung 640 Evo, Intel SSD 520. SanDisk Ultra Plus and Kingston SSDNow V300 against one another. So far, the Kingston has failed, at only 444.9 Write Cycles. Kingston has stated that they are going to replace under warranty. Of the other three, the Samsung and Intel have just crossed the 3,000 cycle upper end recommendation point, the Sandisk has doubled that and is just over 6,000 at the moment.
Is this really normal?
No. The tests preformed here must not be confused with normal use. They are designed to stress SSDs and simulate a really busy environment.
Normal workstation use would be more like 10-20GB written daily.
they also state:
Please note that this unit is heavily stressed and in steady state most of the time.
Which begs the question, how would normal heatup/cooldown cycles, typical of normal use powerup/powerdown, along with the Writes, stress the drives? Likely not in a good way, expansion and contraction testing of other electronics bears that out. Nothing is a single-input problem in my field. I would add the caveat that true testing should not involve a single example from each source. I would like to have multiple examples from each source, side by side under same environment and conditions, enough multiple examples to provide some modicum of statistical substantiation. As any practicing test engineer should. As usual for the intertubes, not. a. real. test. --Mac Mac, That's it! You've put the fear of Silicon in me! I'm going to remove my SSD and replace it with a Rotating Hard Drive, and put my operating system there and everything else in my other hard drives.:-) Seriously, if you think about it, if you just put the BiaB application on the SSD, there isn't much writing going on just reading. I'm not a software engineer by profession, but I have written several C programs with about 11K lines of code for GPIB control of my electronic lab test equipment. I need to look at what's in the BiaB hard drive, but I'm assuming the BiaB application program is a .exe file. As far as I know that means it executes commands. You can't write to the .exe file and modify it. I will store samples, music files, etc. on the hard drive. I just got off the phone with another drive designer with one of the largest drive maker on the east coast that I worked with for 18 years. He confirmed that the SSD should contain the OS and your applications for fastest throughput. Just my 2 cents. Wally G
Yamaha Montage 6 Roland J80, D50, Integra 7, BK-7m, FR-8X, 1967 Fender Jaguar, Fender Strat, Fender 1965 Twin Reverb reissue, Selmer Trumpet, Akai EWI, Studio One 4 My WEB Site: www.gontowski.com/music
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I don't think that leaving in the SSD and even running BiaB from it will likely "kill" the drive outright, its just that you should possibly expect a shortened Mean Lifetime Before Failure due to the extra Write Cycles above what System, etc. would put on a drive in what the computer and OS manufactures consider "normal" or "average" use.
What we crazies that make multitrack music files do with PCs is not considered normal or average by them.
Over the long run, I bet we still make up a fractional percentage out of the total of PC users. The mfrs just aren't likely to cater to that mall of a user group, wouldn't make good business sense.
I'm probably going to install it one day to my shiny new puter with SSD in it, too.
But the caveat is backup, backup, and backup -- mirror to another disk routinely, etc. -- and there are just so many folks who don't seem to keep that going for long like a few of us pro geeks do - and then they will be back to blame one of us for tellin' them it was okay to run that way.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Of course, backup thoroughly.
It has been advertised that an SSD is not degraded by reading, only writing. On my PC, eight files in C:/bb were updated during my session today, in addition of course to the song files on another drive. I rather think the mean time before failure of my SSD at that rate could be longer than the mean time before my failure. I still expect the drive to fail and keep my backups.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Check out this forum post for "One Stop Shopping" of our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Videos!
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
Update to Build 10 of RealBand® 2026 for Windows®!
If you're already using RealBand 2026 for Windows, download build 10 to get all the latest additions and enhancements.
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® users: Build 904 now available!
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