Optimizing hard drives and upgrading to NVMe

[@c.augustin]

Well explained! A good tip about the ASM2464PD chipset and those new, fast enclosures (and the fan).

[@pablodelgado_music]

Thank you for the video, David. I’m eagerly awaiting your new video on organizing Kontakt libraries.

[@royvelasquez8300]

Thanks David for doing this.

[@pjny123]

David, such a wonderful and informative video - thank you for sharing all of this critical research with us! You've saved me so much time and energy and it's really appreciated! One question: You mentioned that you glued a heat shield to the Lexar drive before sealing it inside the enclosure. Does the shield come with the drive or did you buy it elsewhere? I'm asking becauseI at about 5:55 minutes into your discussion, the Amazon page of the Lexar drive does show an option to purchase the M790 with a Heatsink, but it looks like you selected the one without it. So I was wondering whether the Maiwo enclosure might not be large enough for the heatsink that Lexar makes -- or the Lexar heatsink might perhaps be inferior to one you found elsewhere. Many thanks in advance for the clarification!

[@goreybeydagi]

I switched to a M2 Max Macbook Pro last year, and I've done the same research. I went with Acasis for the enclosure and portable hub -which also has an m.2 slot in it-. Frankly, if I would buy a brand-new Macbook, rather than buying an enclosure and put a 4 or even 8TB m.2 in it: I would max out the internal storage of the Macbook itself. With 8 TB internal storage, I could store most of my sample libraries in it, and still will have enough space for DAW projects and other stuff. I could have an external SSD for some more sample libraries that not used that usual. That way, I have less cable, and less device to carry with me if I have to travel.

[@daviddas]

Internal MacBook storage costs a LOT more...but yes, it's nice to have it all-in-one.

[@goreybeydagi]

@@daviddas totally agree with you :). Appl tax is insane!

[@plurye1]

Great video! Only concern is fan noise-if you have three NVME drives, must add up a bit. Do you know if the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure is quieter or the same as the one you're using?

[@subramaniamchandrasekar1397]

I think data transfer rate of TB3 and TB4 are the same.

[@braunhausmedia]

When I tried testing my Internal M1 drive with Black Magic it told me it was a read only drive and can't be tested. ??

[@daviddas]

Same, but I did eventually get it to run (by pointing it to a user folder), but with inconsistent results, so I don't 100% trust those stats.

[@braunhausmedia]

@@daviddas Thanks, I tried this, and while the results are inconsistent it's obvious the drive is blazing fast. I have four SSD drives that are extremely slow in comparison, so am seriously thinking of switching to NVMe drives. Thanks for this video.

[@daviddas]

@@braunhausmedia That's exactly the conclusion I came to.

[@danwool]

A concise and useful video as usual! Does having the Kontakt libraries on the NVMe only help with load times, or does it help with performance as well? My system is nearly identical to yours - down to the Thunder Bay enclosure and Backblaze account. When I first got my M1 Max MBP I rarely heard the fans kick in, but on projects I've done in the last several months they come on more and more, presumably bc newer libraries and plugins need more power than they once did. I'm wondering if having sample libraries on NVMe drives would help in this department. I'm also curious what drive you put video on when you're working to picture. Thanks!

[@daviddas]

I can't tell if it helps with performance. My hunch is probably a little, but that's anecdotal. What drive to put the video on: it can really be any. The only concern is whether you've got a bottleneck anywhere. On a slower spinning SATA drive, depending on how many tracks/samples are being played off them, you might reach a theoretical bottleneck. I kind of doubt you would on a SSD or NVMe.

[@danwool]

@@daviddas That makes sense. I was hoping a NVMe might help keep my fans quiet (they can be quite distracting when working in quiet passages), but probably not. My load times are tolerable, so that alone doesn’t justify me buying a NVMe and enclosure yet. Thanks!

[@daviddas]

@@danwool I will say that this NVMe isn't absolutely silent. There's just a tiny bit of fan noise. (Easily worked around by using a longer cable and putting it in a cabinet or under other stuff. Just letting you know.)

[@danwool]

@@daviddas Right. A drive with a small fan is easy enough to move out of earshot. I use the MBP as a 4th display so that's harder to deal with. Since it can mirror one more display I'm considering moving it further away from my work area and using clamshell mode. Thanks again!