I ran out of disk space as well as SATA ports and need more

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Astralv

Astralv

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May 6, 2013
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Hey there

My 2013 build ran out of all space on C drive which is 240Gb Intel SSD. It has 2 HDDs (2 TB each)and 2 other SSDs about 250 Gb each. I keep samples libraries and software synths on SSDs (helps to load samples fast when switching from sound to sound). I would like to buy the Omnesphere 2 software synth and sampler, which has over 50 Gb library. I like to install it on SSD but I have no 50 Gb of space on SSDs.

My motherboard is Asus z77V-Pro and I have no more available SATA ports. It has

2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), navy blue

Hmmmm... I should have ports left.

3 SSDs and 1 HDD are on 6 Gb/s ports
1 HDD and DVD burner are on 3 Gb/s ports...
So I should have 2 more 3 Gb/sec ports

But it makes no sense to put SSD on 3 Gb port, right? So should I add another HDD drive on a 3 Gb/s port and hope that it will be tolerable?

Anything else I can do? There is no such thing as SATA hub, is it?

I keep reading about other (not SATA) SSD connection options, such as mSATA but my motherboard wont support it. It has

2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) *3
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 *4
2 x PCI
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PRO/specifications/

Do you see anything that can be used for another SSD? Thank you.
 
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You won't notice any issue with having a hard drive on a 3GB/s sata port.

Also, there's absolutely something called a SATA hub - look for a RAID card (if you want to research raid and use your hard drives in raid, it might be an option for you) or a PCIe to SATA add-on card. You can buy a card with 4 internal SATA III connections for about $50.
 
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The HDD 1 on 3 Gb/s port has stored all software synths and samples as they get downloaded before they installed. I download a product there and then install on SSD. I know I don't need it inside of the computer, but I occasionally reinstall things, and store updates to those programs in dedicated folders, so I like to see all versions easily available when I need them and not on some disconnected external drive that I can not find. The software storage takes about 1 TB of space.

2nd HDD drive is almost empty, intended for recording audio. It can not contain any software synth or samples as it can not write audio on a disk and read samples that produce that audio at the same time.

Audio samples are very large. One sample can be from 5 Mb to 50 Mb. When you go "Next, Next, Next..." it makes big difference for fast it loads. Some sound patches have multiple samples, so one patch can be over 50 Mb and need to load several samples at a time. And then you dont like it so you move on and click "Next" and you want it there right away. To open occasional file, you likely would not "feel" difference between SSD at 6 Gb/sec and HDD at 3 Gb/sec but when you load 50 Mb samples at a speed of a click and need to move on quickly or need a playback to start on time and not wait for a sample to load when it already played part of a song, you want it to be on a SSD and at the highest speed possible. You dont want to watch "Load bar" on a screen.

DarkSable, I can not RAID the drives as they already have software installed. But I will research the PCIe to SATA add-on card. What is PCIe? Is it where my graphics card plugged? There may be an issue as graphic card covers some slots... What port is Asus AMD 7580 graphic- the large one, right? I think I have it in the 1st )top) slot and it covers both PCIe slots, and I would have to move it which can cause instability. http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PRO/gallery/

Ubrales, thanks for the link. I can't tell what I need. Why would I need external port? It has to be internal, right? Oh, I see little SATA ports. So which one would I need? Thanks everybody.
 
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Why do I look at system restore settings? I believe I looked at paging and virtual memory and it was not significant. I do run out of space on C. I have like 40 Gb left- not sure how long it will last for the Windows updates, and I was hoping to install Windows 10 one day... My plan was to wait until Windows 10 released and attempt to clone C drive to 1 TB SSD. Also I am not very confident about cloning. When I started, I did not plan well and installed couple of samplers which are about 30 Gb each... I already brought this issue on different forums- I did have some mysterious space disapearence where the sum of the folder sizes was not equal to the space it showed occupied on a drive as a whole. So, I believe, I ran one of those disk space utilitie trees and it explained what is what and I accepted that there is no space black holes and all space is accounted for. I can uninstall some samplers, but I heard that with SSDs once the space is used, it does not free easily, because other data wont move and even if you delete 30 Gb, it will not write anything there. Don't know if it is truth.

Yep, my 1st PCIe is taken by add on Fire Wore card, and 2nd is covered by the graphics card. So I need PCI to SATA, unless I move the graphics card and disturb the dust. lol. The balance is very sensitive. I have so many plugins installed (my count is over 350 software synths and effects) that I can not afford things to become unstable and begin to crash. Most of libraries (such as Native Instruments Kontact) can not be moved without special 3rd party software, and so on... It would be easier to add on some card than to free space on C.
 
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There is function in Windows 8 that called "Free space on this drive". It shows everything you can free. I believe I looked at system restore settings and it was something like 2 Gb. Yeah, at first if I look, it says, 200 Gb used, 40 free, then I go to folders and I write down how much each folder takes and it comes to like 70 Gb. But then when I run one of those disk tree utilities, it shows everything down to individual files and it makes sense. If I could defragment SSD, I would uninstall samplers and hope that space becomes available, but I dont know if uninstalling will give space back.

My another SSD (Toshiba) took 1 month to fill up- has 5 Gb left. It just the way it is with samplers. The one I want to install is 50 Gb...

Can you, please, remind me where I can find system restore settings? I would look, but I am pretty sure it was not large. May be something else I was looking at.
 
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Find your System Restore settings, and see what that is set to.
Control Panel
System
System Protection
System Protection
Click on the relevant drive, and select Configure

It will show you current usage and Max use %
 
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USAFRet, I am glad you insisted on me checking this setting as both of my builds (music computer and everything else computer) are set "System Protection- Off", so it was not making any restore points and not using any disk space. This is odd- I would think- it was ON by default. Do you know what I should set it to when turning on? Thank you.
 
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Are you sure you selected the proper drive? Normally, it is ON by default on the boot drive.
 
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No- I did not set the right drive. lol. Thank you for pointing it out. It was set to 2% 3.79 Gb. I remember checking this setting at some point. So- no, this is not where the disk space is hiding. Also freeing space on C will not solve the issue as I have several programs I would like to buy with time and each of them is 30- 60 Gb. It just the way music production works- a lot of it is about collecting latest sound/ samples libraries. They keep releasing them, we keep buying and installing them... SSDs better get bigger soon. This way by the time Windows 10 will be released, may be I can replace all SSDs (and actually rebuild the entire system with newer motherboard that would have more SATA ports? Do they have more than 4 SATA 6 gb/ sec ports now days? I spent near $2000 on this build and now I am thinking about rebuilding it... The problem with future rebuilds is that all 350 titles of software I have on it installed all over 5 drives (I am doing my best to keep track of what installs on what drive but many programs still install where they think they should install, which is C/Users folder- this is where all the space on C goes).
 
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Does anybody know what is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=16-124-056&utm_medium=BehEmail&nm_mc=EMCPB-042015&cm_mmc=EMCPB-042015-_-PB-_-Item-_-16-124-060&et_cid=17429&et_rid=2147731&et_p1= PCI-Express 2.0 x4 ? I can not get to my PCIe x16 port (small port) because it covered by graphics card, so I want to use other PCI slots, but all I can find are PCIe x16 cards. This is the only one that looks like it has large connector. Can you tell me if it would work with the ports I have on my motherboard http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PRO/gallery/
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
2 x PCI
Thank you.
 
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The SATA ports I have left are 3Gb/s. Isn't it cut SSD's read and write time almost at half? I have to ask the music lovers how Omnesphere behaves on HDD. I have feeling it will not be so great on HDD and 3 Gb/sec port...
 
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3 Gigabits per second is 375 MB/s.

A WD VelociRaptor 1TB has a read burst speed (i.e. retrieving from the HDD's DRAM cache) of 401 MB/s but its average sustained read speed is 165 MB/s.

You need to specify whether it's sustained or burst speed because they are definitely different performance-wise.
 
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An SSD on a SATA II port is still much faster than an HDD.
Slower than that same SSD on a SATA III port, but still not too shabby.

You could always just try it and see what happens.
 
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