A way to overcome slow disk read/write

smallinson · Post by **smallinson** » Thu Dec 30, 2010 11:46 am

Just seen this tip when using Ableton:
http://www.harmonycentral.com/docs/DOC- ... &tiid=5779

Looks like a good and simple idea, and should work with Mixcraft, right?

Bill Melater · Post by **Bill Melater** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 9:22 pm

In theory. I've put a project on a USB and edited it from there; slow. Very slow. A usb stick is not going to be as fast as even a slow hard drive except in the limited circumstances of Ready Boost, where you're more concerned with access time than transfer rate.
Wiki: "...a flash drive has a much faster seek time (less than 1 ms), allowing it to satisfy requests faster than reading files from a hard disk. It also leverages the inherent advantage of two parallel sources from which to read data. Unfortunately, USB 2.0 flash drives are slower for sequential reads and writes, compared to modern desktop hard drives. Desktop hard drives can sustain anywhere from 2 to 10 times the transfer speed of USB 2.0 flash drives but are equal to or slower than USB 3.0 and Firewire (IEEE 1394) for sequential data. So, all USB 2.0 and newer flash drives hold an advantage in random access times: typically around 1 ms, compared to 8 ms and upwards for desktop hard drives. In addition, USB 3.0 and Firewire may also hold a slight advantage on sequential data." So if it's usb 3, maybe, otherwise perhaps a USB hard drive.
Personal note: why would you spend 24.99 or more for 8-16 GB on a usb stick when you can get 500 GB for $50.00 on a portable HD?

Post by **Acoustica Eric** » Sun Jan 02, 2011 10:47 am

Just a bit of unresearched opinion here: I have found that usb drives are slower than internal drives at just about everything.
The usb drive may not have mechanical spinning parts which would make it quicker to access, but the usb-buss itself is not as fast as ide or sata, making the internal drive a faster choice.
This is particularly true of a usb mechanical drive, since you now have both slower aspects in one drive.
sata 3.0 is the faster solution IMO. It is what I have used in every studio computer I have built and have never seen an issue with it.