1TB internal SATA III SSD vs. 1TB FireWire 800 HDD for music playback

[wwaldmanfan]

My music library (~1200 albums) is stored and played from a 1TB bus-powered FireWire HDD connected to my MacBook Pro with a .5 meter FW 800/800 cable. Now that 1TB SSD drives are available for under $500, would it be advantageous to swap out my internal 120gb SSD SATA III drive for a larger 1TB SSD drive, and have everything on the internal drive, eliminating the FW drive and its cable entirely?

[wwaldmanfan]

Bump. Nearly 200 views, but not one comment?

 

My music library (~1200 albums) is stored and played from a 1TB bus-powered FireWire HDD connected to my MacBook Pro with a .5 meter FW 800/800 cable. Now that 1TB SSD drives are available for under $500, would it be advantageous to swap out my internal 120gb SSD SATA III drive for a larger 1TB SSD drive, and have everything on the internal drive, eliminating the FW drive and its cable entirely?

[jtm]

Hmm, my subjective opinion is ... Don't do it, save the 500 bucks and invest them somewhere else in your chain.

 

Reason for this personal position:

I use a MBP with SSD and two FW WD external drives as "master discs" daisy chained to the Mac as my library keeps growing and growing.

Actual playback is through Audirvana and memory play.

 

I have been using the provided FW cables from WD and exchanged them with some quality cables from same manufacturer and line-up I use for the MBP-DAC connection.

 

Result: everyone's happy here with SQ !

 

I don't know how long a 1TB SSD would last but if you are an active listener your library might overcome this storage capacity anyway rather sooner than later ...

[wdw]

Bump. Nearly 200 views, but not one comment?

 

Agree...are there any benefits to using an internal SSD for a music library or is the environment too noisy? Is it a benefit to have the library removed from the computer?

Would it be preferred that the SSD be housed in the external drive?

Any thoughts to share would be appreciated.

WDW

[wdw]

.....

I have been using the provided FW cables from WD and exchanged them with some quality cables from same manufacturer and line-up I use for the MBP-DAC..

 

OT but ....is the AQ diamond FireWire an audible improvement over stock?

Cheers,

WRW

[jtm]

OT - yes, in my system it delivered more subtle nuances and tonal balance, we especially like it with acoustic guitars, vocals and strings, but also felt an overall improvement which is best described by a better musical flow. Whether this is worth the investment is another story but the shortest length (0.5m) was fine.

[pooger]

In my system I get a solid improvement booting from an sd card and turning off my internal drive (dismounting it in disc utility). Also, there are lengthy threads about running separate power to your internal drive. The idea being that the internal drive injects a lot of noise into the power supply (and SS drives are not better in this regard).

 

Have you you tried setting up the external as your boot drive? (And un mounting your internal, at least for music listening, if you use the computer for other things.) you'd also need to move any software you use to the external drive. I think this would be worth a try.

 

i just noticed that you're bus powering your external drive. First thing to try is to use an external supply for it. Then, that makes me wonder if there will still be dc running though your cable, or for that matter if you may still need it for handshake. It would be worth sacrificing a stock fw cable by cutting the +dc wire at the computer end.

[alsterfan]

My music library (~1200 albums) is stored and played from a 1TB bus-powered FireWire HDD connected to my MacBook Pro with a .5 meter FW 800/800 cable. Now that 1TB SSD drives are available for under $500, would it be advantageous to swap out my internal 120gb SSD SATA III drive for a larger 1TB SSD drive, and have everything on the internal drive, eliminating the FW drive and its cable entirely?

It might be useful for you to have a look here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/uh-oh-i-beat-my-sd-card-trick;-bypass-your-ethernet-switch-and-make-your-external-drives-sound-close-ram-disk-using-apple-thunderbolt-ethernet-adaptor-and-second-network-connection-18475/

and here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/computer-audio-design-osx-audio-optimization-script-18128/

A lot of what you are looking for has been discussed here.

Uwe