New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Digital Perfomer in the context of television/film scoring and post-production.

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Stuartfox
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New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by Stuartfox »

Hello,

Looking at one of these:

Promise Pegasus2 R4 8TB 4-Bay 4x 2TB Thunderbolt 2 Desktop RAID Array http://www.jigsaw24.com/promise-pegasus ... wwod0lQA2Q

Trying to work out if this, setup with Raid 5, would be good enough to stream all my virtual instruments and keep my projects / scratch disk on when I upgrade to the new mac pro.

Currently my projects are on Velocoraptor 10,000RPM 1TB drives and most of my sample libraries are on a samsung 1TB SSD.

Trying to work out the speeds, wondering if it would be a cross grade or a downgrade. Does anyone have any insight into this.

Hope you're all doing well in 2014. Its been very quiet for me (and a lot of other people I know) but things look like they are picking up towards the spring.
Stuart Fox
See a preview of my new website and showreel:
http://www.goodsounds.co.uk/preview

Amiga 1200, 80MB HDD, Midimaster MIDI interface, Octamed 6,Bars & Pipes Pro + Korg M1R + Roland XV3080 <Just added!!!.
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BKK-OZ
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Re: New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by BKK-OZ »

I've been going through the same decision-making process (check out one of my topics here at the nation). ATM, AFAIK (love those abbreviations!) the R4 is the only viable TB2 box out there. I have decided to hold off for the time being for two reasons. The first is cash-flow, the second is that I am not convinced on the R4 just yet. The first production run appears to have had some problems (see that other thread for a link) and to my mind the market for TB2 RAID isn't mature enough just yet.

In terms of your question though, the best source on performance (apart from Mike Halloran!) I have found is here: http://macperformanceguide.com/topic-thunderbolt.html
Cheers,
BK

…string theory says that all subatomic particles of the universe are nothing but musical notes. A, B-flat, C-sharp, correspond to electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and what have you. Therefore, physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these strings. Chemistry is nothing but the melodies we can play on these strings. The universe is a symphony of strings and the mind of God… it is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
- M Kaku
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Stuartfox
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Re: New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by Stuartfox »

Perhaps the 1TB SSD TB2 External drive from Lacie could hold my sample libraries - then project files on a different FW / TB disk… seems messy though - and expensive if I wanted 4.
Stuart Fox
See a preview of my new website and showreel:
http://www.goodsounds.co.uk/preview

Amiga 1200, 80MB HDD, Midimaster MIDI interface, Octamed 6,Bars & Pipes Pro + Korg M1R + Roland XV3080 <Just added!!!.
frankf
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Re: New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by frankf »

Here's a question I have: can we really put all our heavy streaming libraries on a single SSD without running into bandwidth issues, even with Thunderbolt and 6G SATA?


Frank Ferrucci
Frank Ferrucci
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Mac Pro 6,1 64gb RAM DP9.52 OSX 10.12.6 MIO 2882d & ULN2d Firewire Audio Interfaces, MOTU MTP-AV USB
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profdraper
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Re: New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by profdraper »

FWIW, have been using Crucial SSDs for a while now, sample lib issues seem to be invisible with all on a 960GB M500 (Mac Pro SATA bay). The other related factor is system drive, i.e., where the DAW boots from and accesses as required in its operations. (Ram too, of course, as much as possible).

On a 2012 mac pro have been using an OWC 480GB Accelsior PCIe /SSD as the primary system drive (and on the mac pro before this one). More or less the same tech as on the 6.1 mac pro trashcan - made me realise just how much the apps themselves benefit & that boot drive /ram cache /app disk access etc is also part of the overall equation. The sonnet Tempo is similar, SSD + PCIe 'direct inject' = performance well above SSD-SATA only (which on up to 5.1 mac pro is still limited to 3GB). TB *theoretically* approaches the same speeds, but in the real world I haven't really found this to be the case (but yes, an improvement on FW).

App, System, VIs & SSD lib all work together in tandem in my experience, so don't underestimate where the app is booting from. DP8, PTHD11, LogicProX, Ableton Suite 9.1 + NI, MF3, which ever. All seem to benefit from this combo.

If you have the available PCIe slots, many of our colleagues in film land RAID these same PCIe-SSD combos for very high performance video rendering /editing throughput. e.g. see the Sonnet Tempo Pro w/ 4 x SSD slots.
frankf
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Re: New Mac Pro - Where To Put My Sample Libraries

Post by frankf »

Thanks!


Frank Ferrucci
Frank Ferrucci
http://www.ferruccimusic.com
Mac Pro 6,1 64gb RAM DP9.52 OSX 10.12.6 MIO 2882d & ULN2d Firewire Audio Interfaces, MOTU MTP-AV USB
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