7200 RPM HDD vs SSD

[Kognizant-Kog]

Hi, guys. If this has been discussed elsewhere please point me in that direction. If not, which is better for audio recording? I know that SSDs are really fast for booting software, do you get similar advantages when recording? Also, I see people using 5400 RPM drives with 32GB SSD drives as a cache on laptops, would have be a good idea for recording?

[Mr. Data]

I wouldn't use an SSD to record audio, because due to technical reasons they allow only a limited number of writings (but an unlimited number of readings) per memory cell.

IMO it doesn't make sense to use an SSD for every day recording, unless you record a really huge amount of tracks simultaneously.

Assuming a normal recording situation, I'd prefer a 7200 RPM HD for this purpose, but I'd record preferably into a multichannel file to avoid fragmentation which would eventually make the heads jump back and forth hence forcing the computer to wait until the heads are positioned to write the data to disk (assuming the cache is full). If using a multichannel file, it will be written continuously to the drive (assuming it has enough continuous space to write to, of course).

Using an SSD as cache is also a way I wouldn't prefer, due to the above mentioned reasons. I suspect these drives won't last long.

I'd use an SSD for purposes that don't use too much writing onto the disk e.g. system drive or sound libraries.

Also keep in mind that fast bootup time is not the only advantage of SSDs, it's only the most obvious.


-Data

[Kognizant-Kog]

Right. Perfect. This makes sense. Yes, the speedy boot time is the most obvious. I'm not aware of many other benefits other than that some claim they have superior longevity, not to mention solid state would be quiet and I assume very cool (temp wise). Thanks for your reply. That actually helps clear up some false assumptions I had made. I was thinking that if the benefit for games like Rage using MegaTextures was the fact that SSDs allowed for very fast streaming of data, then audio recording should benefit similarly, as data is data. I didn't make the logical step from that to: Oh yeah, but games are all about output; SSDs just need to excel at reading data. Thanks again for the help!

[Artbay]

Originally Posted by Mr. Data

I wouldn't use an SSD to record audio, because due to technical reasons they allow only a limited number of writings (but an unlimited number of readings) per memory cell. ...

Using an SSD as cache is also a way I wouldn't prefer, due to the above mentioned reasons. I suspect these drives won't last long.

I'd use an SSD for purposes that don't use too much writing onto the disk e.g. system drive or sound libraries.

exactly