SSD and 4GB with Mac - any audible benefits?

Hi Bryan - Yes, I've upgraded from HDD to SSD and notices a difference. I also demonstrated this to two groups of audiophiles at the CA Symposium and the results were the same as mine. I like SSD much better.

If you are going to use Amarra you'll want 4GB of RAM. If a standard install you can get away with 2GB but it doesn't leave you any room to spare.

Chris, did your symposium discuss why SSDs make an audible difference and was there a consensus or reasonable theories why its better? I just can't fathom why a SSD makes any difference in audio playback on a music server for the OS and player software. I think of it this way. Once audio and OS data has been read from the disk it's processed by the OS and player software in memory. And as far as I know SSD's only quality over magnetic disk is speed. And audio file processing isn't dependent on I/O speed. The OS is yes, but... I just don't why it would make a difference. Maybe it's related to disks spinning and vibration, or maybe noise.

Bryan

Hi Bryan - No we didn't cover the technical aspects of why an SSD sounds different from HDD. There are far more possible reasons for the differences than I could ever imagine. I think most people oversimplify what happens during audio playback and what influence every single piece of a computer has on this playback. For example, I'm researching audio cards and latency right now. There are many different latency settings for audio cards and every part of a computer.

Here is some information from IBM. There is no free lunch when setting latency timers. There are pros and cons to each. Sure this doesn't directly address SSD v HDD, but it does give you an idea of how many "little" things go into this and the effect they can have.

"The PCI bus latency timer can range from zero to 248. If a device has a setting of zero, then it will immediately give up the bus if another device needs to transmit. If a device has a setting of 248, it will continue to use the bus for a longer period of time before stopping, while the other device waits for its turn.

If all of your devices have relatively high PCI bus latency timer settings and a lot of data is being sent over the bus, then your PCI cards are generally going to have to wait longer before they gain control of the bus and can begin sending data. However, once they gain control of the bus they will be able to burst a lot of data across it before giving up the bus to another device. This is why high PCI bus latency timer settings increase latency (the delay in sending data across the bus), but also increase effective bandwidth. Because each device gets to burst large amounts of data across the bus without interruption, the PCI bus is used more efficiently and your PCI devices can transmit more data.

On the other hand, if all your PCI devices have low PCI bus latency settings, then they're going to gladly give up the bus if another card needs to transmit data. This results in a much lower data transmit latency, since no device is going to hold on to the bus for an extended period of time, causing other devices to wait. The dark side to all this is that low PCI bus latency timer settings reduce the effective PCI bus bandwidth when two or more PCI devices are operating simultaneously. This happens because large data bursts become much less frequent and control of the bus changes rapidly, increasing overhead.
Most Linux distributions include a suite of tools called pci-utils that allow you to view and change the latency timer settings for your PCI devices."

Source IBM

"Yes, I've upgraded from HDD to SSD and notices a difference."
Chris, is it posible for you to give an indication of how big the difference between HDD and SSD is? Are we talking the same magnitude as switching amplifiers? Or more like the subtle differences often associated--in my experience!--with changing speaker cables?

The reason this is important to me is that I'm about to purchase a new laptop. I'm contemplating buying a MacBook Pro, and start using it to play music (with my HiFace, which should arrive soon) and then later compare it with a Linn Sneaky. However, choosing an SSD may limit my use of the Mac later, should I decide to go with the Linn instead, partly because of the lower capacity, but mainly because a program like PhotoShop won't install on a flash-based drive AFAIK.

SSD i think bought noticeable improvements. I put a 64GB SLC SSD (rather than MLC SSD) in my Macbook. Firstly it was quite an easy thing to do.

The sound seems more cohesive and musical, just more right and less 'digital' than before. The SSD cost £250 which i think was money very well spent.

I did the RAM upgrade second, 4GB from 2GB. Here the improvements were less marked. Maybe a bit better but maybe the same.

This could be because I did the SSD first. That not withstanding I would recommend SSD upgrades. At the very least my Macbook runs much quicker and is quieter all round.

OK. I assume that the preconfigured SSD's that Apple offer with their MacBooks are not the SLC type? In other words, if I want a good SSD, I should buy and install one myself ...?

If that's the case, I think I'll go for a HDD for testing and then see how close the MacBook and the Linn are. If they are close, I know that something can be gained from buying a good SSD, and then I'll probably chose whichever offers more convenience, and, if the Mac wins, at some point make the change to a good SSD.

Bryan,

SSD works so well I only have one computer with out one at this time. I say 4G minimum for high end audio... remember all these apps use tons of virtual memory and the more real memory you have the less it will be swapping to disk.

Thanks
Gordon

Bryan

I bought my MAC second hand so I had to fit the SSD rather have an option when buying new.

That said my 'memory guru' is not impressed by the 'standard spec' SSD that MAC use. I am pretty sure it is not SLC which is much more expensive that MLC.

As you know this stuff is developing all the time, so I would prefer to buy Hard Disk and swap it out for my specific choice of SSD, as and when.

"I put a 64GB SLC SSD (rather than MLC SSD) in my Macbook. "
I've been reading a little up on the two types. It seems that the main advantages of SLC are read/write speeds and durability. Has anybody compared the two types sonically?

As for durability, as far as I could find out, even an MLC SSD will outlive the computer, so this issue seems less relevant ...

Looks like I'm going to get a new Mini with stock memory and drive. I'll upgrade to SSD later when prices come down even more. I'll add the memory upgrade on my own since its cheaper that way.

Now I have to figure out if I want to go with a NAS off an Extream router or just host attached storage.

Bryan

"As for durability, as far as I could find out, even an MLC SSD will outlive the computer, so this issue seems less relevant ..."

Hi Encore - At first blush it may seem like this is true, but I think it may be a bit of an overgeneralization. The drive itself may outlive the computer but all cells within the drive certainly will not. (note: you can always remove the drive and place it in a new computer as well.) It's kind of hidden from the consumer that parts of the drive wear out and can't be written to throughout the life of the drive. How this translates from MLC to SLC I'm not entirely sure. Also there are some new MLC drives that are far better than older MLC drives. For example I use the OCZ Vertex Turbo on one machine and it seems pretty similar to some of the early SLC drives. Also the marketing specs are not always the most important. Just like how computers are marketed by processor speed, hard drive size, and amount of memory.

I guess what I'm saying is there are tons of variables at work. Good discussion to have as it hasn't really been delved into as much as some of the other topics on the site. It would be great if an SSD expert could chime in here.

"For example I use the OCZ Vertex Turbo on one machine and it seems pretty similar to some of the early SLC drives."
Similar in terms of sound?