Recommended settings for SSD - music production

[my sobriquet]

Hello,

How to configure SSD in my sistem?
1. Intel rapid storage with acceleration on SSD
or
2. windows on SSD?

I recently bought an 250 gb samsung evo to increase speed of my system.
The main reason for this is music production - lot of huge virtual instruments. When starting musical applications, some take minutes to load, filling up to 7 gb of RAM memory.

I have following system: win7, Asus H87 mb., core i5 Intel proc., 2 640 GB WD caviar black's from 2009 in RAID 0, 2 TB caviar green, samsung EVO 840 (250 Gb), 16 GB Ram DDR3 1666 MHz

Currently, my system is on RAID 0 (I know the danger - I am backing up often)

How should I configure SSD?
Firstly, I configured Intel Rapid Storage Technology acceleration to accelerate my RAID 0 field. However, Intel RST can use only maximum of 64 GB SSD space. However, I can use the rest of SSD space (250 GB - 64 GB or maybe less, if I should left some space free for overprovisioning?). Furthermore, Samsung tools which came with the drive do not work when SSD is configured in RAID. I do not know if overprovisioning works, and should I enable or disable windows superfetch and prefetch and other things wearing SSD drive.

The other option is not to use SSD caching with Intel RST. However, it seems that Samsung tools for SSD fully recognize only AHCI mode, while SSD on my system is currently on RAID controler. Although a separate volume if I turn off acceleration. In that case, I would migrate windows to SSD, and set the most frequently accessed files (incl. virtual music instruments) to SSD, leaving other data on HDD drives.

Any clues?

 

[randomhkkid]

Intel RST will only accelerate the most used tasks such as starting up and shutting down of the OS and commonly used programs. If you wanted to fully speed up music production installing the OS on the SSD along with the programs you use would most likely be the best idea. You could keep your HDDs in Raid 0 on the raid card for storage of the larger files. I don't see any advantage of keeping the SSD on the raid card as the throughput would most likely be the same if it was plugged into a Sata 6Gbps on your motherboard. When it comes to wearing down the NAND on your Evo it should last ~70 years if you're writing 10GB per day, even if you're doing 10x as much per day I would think it would be less than 7 years if you were to upgrade again anyway. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

 

[my sobriquet]

Thanks for quick answer. I am only not sure if I can put SSD as separate AHCI device, since I am using motherboard RAID (intel).

Intel RST will only accelerate the most used tasks such as starting up and shutting down of the OS and commonly used programs. If you wanted to fully speed up music production installing the OS on the SSD along with the programs you use would most likely be the best idea. You could keep your HDDs in Raid 0 on the raid card for storage of the larger files. I don't see any advantage of keeping the SSD on the raid card as the throughput would most likely be the same if it was plugged into a Sata 6Gbps on your motherboard. When it comes to wearing down the NAND on your Evo it should last ~70 years if you're writing 10GB per day, even if you're doing 10x as much per day I would think it would be less than 7 years if you were to upgrade again anyway. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

 

[randomhkkid]

Thanks for quick answer. I am only not sure if I can put SSD as separate AHCI device, since I am using motherboard RAID (intel).

Intel RST will only accelerate the most used tasks such as starting up and shutting down of the OS and commonly used programs. If you wanted to fully speed up music production installing the OS on the SSD along with the programs you use would most likely be the best idea. You could keep your HDDs in Raid 0 on the raid card for storage of the larger files. I don't see any advantage of keeping the SSD on the raid card as the throughput would most likely be the same if it was plugged into a Sata 6Gbps on your motherboard. When it comes to wearing down the NAND on your Evo it should last ~70 years if you're writing 10GB per day, even if you're doing 10x as much per day I would think it would be less than 7 years if you were to upgrade again anyway. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

Try this thread, I'm no expert on storage and Raid so this may be out of my depth.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

It's been a while since someone has asked about Intel Smart Response technology. It is an old technology from a few years ago. Here is my standard answer about using an ssd as a cache:

Intel's SRT caching technology was designed for buyers who could not justify or afford the cost of a larger capacity solid-state drive. According to Intel, the original idea was that for about $100.00 a user could purchase a small capacity ssd of about 10 to 20GB and use it as a cache to improve hard disk drive performance. The Operating system and programs were actually stored on a hard disk drive. The actual improvement could not compare to a stand alone ssd. Intel also looked at different capacities all the way up to 512GB and concluded 64GB was the point of diminishing return. It made more sense to use a 64GB ssd as a boot drive that also contained software programs. Intel was hoping that if business clients saw an increase in performance, then they would be induced to purchase larger capacity ssd's that promised an even greater boost in performance.

A lot has changed sinced then, especially prices. Might as well take full advantage of ssd performance.

Every once in a while someone asks if it is possible to use an ssd cache to speed up another ssd or hard disks in a RAID array. The short answer is no. It will not improve performance.

There is another alternative. Have you experimented with using a portion of your motherboard's memory as a ramdisk? My motherboard is populated with 32GB of memory. I use a ramdisk application to allocate 12GB to Windows and configure 20GB as a virtual ramdisk. It is very old school but it works quite well. The downside is having to wait a few extra seconds for the ramdisk application to set things up and another few seconds waiting for everything to be saved.

AMD has partnered with another company that specializes in ramdisk technology. Newegg has a video clip explaining how a ramdisk works. Here is a link to the video clip:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820103036

Just scroll down to the video clip. Change the settings to 1080p HD and full screen mode.

There's also a fairly decent web site that explains it:

http://www.radeonmemory.com/software_4.0.php

There are other companies that offer ramdisk applications. Some of them are free.

 

[popatim]

I would leave it as is. ie - using RST to cache the raid0
You dont need to worry about overprovisioning, just don't fully use whats left on the drive. You should have about 190 left on the drive so create a partition about 165gb in size and use that to store your instruments & effects on. (yes thats all overprovisioning does)

When its time to reformat & reinstall then thats a good time to consider changing your setup imo.

and yes follow the ssd guides and disable superfetch & such on the SSD.

 

[my sobriquet]

Thanks, totally different opinion of other two users. I wish someone would cite an article on that, so I could be more sure what is better.
I think I will try your sollution first.
best, L.