Hi, 

"Streaming samples" means that a certain part of the sample is loaded into RAM, and after this small part has been played, the rest is streamed from your harddrive. 

As SSD drives have a much faster access time, you can minimze this Pre-Load value accordingly, and load a shorter part of the sample into RAM. This works great with VI PRO. 

For VSL samples, this means that you can also load up to 10 times MORE samples with SSD drives, in comparison with "normal" fast drives. 

You can find this "Preload Size" setting in the Directory Manager, once you have installed VI PRO. 

Best, 
Paul

Hi

I'm having a bit of trouble finding an SSD drive (external/Thunderbolt) that would hold my entire library. It seems I need something slightly more than a TB. 

Any recommendations as to which one and where it could be purchased?

Hi, 

You don´t have to fit every last little bit on the harddrive... but 2 GB drives are already available anywhere as well. 

Simply purchase the harddrive and place it in a case of your choice. There are also many tests out there, for sample streaming, the reading performance is important. 

Best, 
Paul

@daerp said:

I'm having a bit of trouble finding an SSD drive (external/Thunderbolt) that would hold my entire library. It seems I need something slightly more than a TB. 

You could split your libraries into halves on two smaller SSDs. Like that, they could use different SATA channels. This would increase the performance even further.

HTH,

Thanks, Paul

Of course you are right. I'm just getting used to having such a large collection. In the past I had my whole library on one drive.

@Paul said:

Hi, 

You don´t have to fit every last little bit on the harddrive... but 2 GB drives are already available anywhere as well. 

Simply purchase the harddrive and place it in a case of your choice. There are also many tests out there, for sample streaming, the reading performance is important. 

Best, 
Paul

Sounds like a great idea. Thanks for your help.

@daerp said:

I'm having a bit of trouble finding an SSD drive (external/Thunderbolt) that would hold my entire library. It seems I need something slightly more than a TB. 

You could split your libraries into halves on two smaller SSDs. Like that, they could use different SATA channels. This would increase the performance even further.

HTH,

Hi Paul - would an external SSD with FireWire 800 of my mid 2010 iMac i7 yield a strong improvement in regards to the loading speed of the Dimension String samples?

Hi positivemu, 

I don´t know what your current situation is, but if you are simply NOT working with SSD drives yet, then: YES, in combination with VI PRO 😊

Best, 
Paul

@postivemu said:

Hi Paul - would an external SSD with FireWire 800 of my iMac i7 yield a strong improvement in regards to the loading speed of the Dimension String samples?

Putting a SSD on a FW 800 interface is a non sense, the FW800 interface is too slow to handle a SSD at full speed.

How old is your Imac I7 ? reference ?

Best

Cyril

My iMac is mid 2010. Unfortunately the USB is only 2.0 and the Firewire 800 is the fastest external connection I have. I assume that an external SSD through the FireWire 800 though limited is still notably faster than my internal hard drive?

@postivemu said:

I assume that an external SSD through the FireWire 800 though limited is still notably faster than my internal hard drive?

Sata II is 3 GB/s

FW 800 is 0,8 GB/s

SSD are in Sata III and are 6 GB/s

I'm sorry but I do not understand your reply, Cyril.

My mid 2010 iMac's internal HD is: APPLE HDD HUA722010CLA330 Media, 7200 rpm.

So my question is - will Firewire 800 with an SSD external HD containing VSL Dimension Strings load these VSL samples any more quickly than my current HD?

Paul - I would love to hear your response.

Thanks.

Hi positivemu, 

Cyril told you the data-throughput with different formats. Of course it is MUCH more clever to add the SSD harddrive internally in your computer (should be Sata II), this way you get a 5 times quicker performance than with FW800. 

Best, 
Paul

@Paul said:

Hi positivemu, 

Cyril told you the data-throughput with different formats. Of course it is MUCH more clever to add the SSD harddrive internally in your computer (should be Sata II), this way you get a 5 times quicker performance than with FW800. 

Best, 
Paul

Paul is right, but SATA II is only 3 GB/s, a SATA III SSD can go up to 6 GB/s

You can put your system on the FW800 disk

@postivemu said:

Thank you very much for your quick reply, Paul and Cyril.

Yes, replacing the internal hard drive with an SSD would be much better but a much more complicated process with an iMac. Though my mid 2010 iMac is older, the processor is a quad core i7 and so it is fast and powerful. I have also filled the 32 GB ram so I am invested in this computer for my studio. By the way I am using VSL Pro with Digital Performer 8.07.

1. My plan is to load all of my VSL samples (approximately 300 GBs) into the 500 GB FireWire SSD. How should I tell VSL Pro to look for the samples on the SSD instead of my internal HD where the samples currently reside?

2. Also - my understanding of how the VSL samples load is that only part of the samples load initially and that the remainder of the samples load from the hard drive via streaming. Is that correct? If so, can I assume that the new FireWire SSD will accomplish that somewhat more quickly for me?

3. Finally - as I read more about SSD drives and their advantages, I am learning about their fast seek times and how that can be more important than the overall speed of the SSD vs an rpm drive. What are your thoughts regarding the importance of seek times as it affects loading and streaming the vsl samples?

The samples will load less fast if you put them on the FW800 drive

Put you system on the FW disk and put a SSD in your IMAC and put the samples on the SSD

OK - here's the update on what happened when I installed my VSL samples (approximately 300 gigs) on an external SSD (Oyen Digital's Minipro 512 GB) via Firewire 800 on my mid 2010 iMac (27 inch screen with i7 quad core processor and 32 GB ram with USB 2.0 and Firewire 800).

A little background - using my internal 7200 rpm HD, it took an average of 20 -25 minutes to load a DP file which contained an orchestra of virtual instruments including Dimension Strings. In addition, it took 5-10 more minutes of playing the piece through for all of the samples to finish loading via streaming. So a total of close to 30 minutes before I could really begin working on an orchestral piece like this. By the way - The Dimension Strings are what really added significant loading time in my opinion.

After moving the VSL samples over to the new external SSD and telling VSL's Directory Manager to look for them there, I opened the DP file. In 5 minutes, it was loaded.  Furthermore, in less than a minute of playing the piece, the remainder of the samples had finished streaming.  A huge improvement.

In addition, Paul at VSL advised me that once I had the Firewire 800 SSD installed, I should reduce the Default Preload on the  VSL Instruments Pro Player from 32768 to 16384. Upon doing that, the VSL samples loaded even faster, taking only about 2 minutes to load and only a minute or so of playing the piece for the remainder of the samples to load.

So now that I have added the SSD via Firewire 800, I have gone from a 30 minute loading process to a mere 3 minutes. So for anyone else in the VSL family who has an old iMac and does not want to figure out how to break open their iMac and replace the internal HD with an internal SSD, this is the solution until you upgrade your Mac. It is working beautifully for me.

I just got a 500 GB SSD drive. I've put all my Dimensions instruments and Appassionata instruments on that drive. I've updated the location of the files in the Directory Manager. What setting is recommended in "Preload Size"? Some of my instruments are on a fast (7500 RPM) hard drive and some are on the SSD. Does this affect the way I set things in the Directory Manager Preload?

Thanks

Paul R

@Paul said:

Hi, 

"Streaming samples" means that a certain part of the sample is loaded into RAM, and after this small part has been played, the rest is streamed from your harddrive. 

As SSD drives have a much faster access time, you can minimze this Pre-Load value accordingly, and load a shorter part of the sample into RAM. This works great with VI PRO. 

For VSL samples, this means that you can also load up to 10 times MORE samples with SSD drives, in comparison with "normal" fast drives. 

You can find this "Preload Size" setting in the Directory Manager, once you have installed VI PRO. 

Best, 
Paul

Sounds like you have things working nicely.

I still have problems with load times and slow response in VEP 6 to the point where I think the software has crashed. In any event it stalls.

Some of my libraries reside on one RAID hard drive ( 4TB, 7500 RPM).

The rest (Dimension libraries and Appassionata libraries) are on a 500 GB external SSD. Both are connected to a MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM, and with a 2.2 GHz Intel core i7 processor.

My test case is to load up Jay Bacal's rendering of Alan Silvestrie's music from Cast Away. There are a couple of woodwinds and a full DImension string section. When I open the Server Project (.vesp) provided by Jay, VEP 6 software bogs down around 37% of the load and there appears to a problem with memory. My cursor becomes very slow to respond, and I eventually force VEP to quit as it stops responding.

I've lowered the Preload Settings in te Directory manager for the SSD drive instruments. No difference.

I should also mention that when I restart the Directory Manager, the preload settings are sometimes back to Default and I have to load the new preset (lower preload settings). On other occasions the Directory Manager opens and I see the preload settings in the right hand column where I expect to see them.

So that's my story. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Maybe the problem is my computer, and not the drives.

Hi Paul,

I´d try loading a big preset like the Violin Solo Preset Level 2, with different Preload Settings, and then see how low you can go with your setup (play a few notes). 

The Directory Manager shouldn´t lose the Preload Settings, though. Can you find out in which cases this happens?

Best,
Paul