Best SSD for music

[Hellvis73]

Sorry if this is posted elsewhere and I missed it, but is there a ssd that ya'll would recommend specifically for music playback?

[tenthousandyears]

SSD block storage is not going to have a noticeable effect on the music.  The application is going to read the same bits via the file handle unless there is something seriously wrong with your OS.

 

Instead of hunting for a specific SSD for audio playback, I would focus on a filesystem which has strong checksum features to make sure you don't have silent corruption of your data, and make sure you have a backup copy to restore from.

 

[Ralf11]

It isn't even clear that SSDs are better than HDDs, based on several comments from engineers here.

 

I would work on isolation of the computer/server from the DAC.  There are several threads on this, tho a summary thread would be a good idea.

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

I wouldn't worry about it, just get a high quality SSD and call it a day.

[davide256]

In  prioritizing importance in audio performance, 1-10... I'd rank that choice at about a 3, with power supply quality a 9 and system architecture a 10. It's a 3 because

you need enough storage to grow but as long as your using SATA3, the drive choice won't  affect audio... the hardware solution it resides in (architecture) will

[Screwdriver]

I use to worry about SSD's and their lifespan etc. I do IT and have deployed a butt load of them and I am not seeing any more of a failure rate then HD's.  My main system has a 512TB OS drive and with swap, caching etc. going on 4 years and SMART shows 85%+ life.

 

Just back your stuff up. ?

[rando]

Standard empty plastic box shaped like a 2.5" HDD, solid state drives?

 

Broadly speaking, the benefits of them are not always related to music playback.  They show a considerably better capacity for data storage when powered down and safely stored than spinning hard drives.  The latter tends to forget over time if it doesn't revisit what was stored and where.  SSD also excel at constant writes, think months straight of being fed a maxed out SATA III data connection, in excess of an order of magnitude above their stated rating.  The get any good SSD with a good controller recommendation, broad as it was, stands true.

 

As to your question of recommending a specific drive.  You might want to check out this thread and see if it interests you.  If nothing else it highlights putting the OS on a small fast drive with only your programs.  M.2 do put off enough heat to require noisy fans if you don't take a lot of care crafting a passive cooling solution.  

 

How you power it and using a reasonably short high quality cable are probably the biggest factors dealing solely with SSD.

[AnotherSpin]

I have several years old mac mini with SSD and play my music through desktop HQ player. To get certain increase in SQ I put a music file(s) into virtual RAM disk before dragging to HQP. Files stored on external HD drives normally.

[Uselessoldman]

forget using SSD for storage complete waste of money just buy a new standard hard drive. Only use SSD for intensive access, boot drive or running virtual machines databases etc NEVER for general storage. A samsung 860 SSD 500Gb costs about £80 and for that you can get  a 4 Tb drive, no brainer especially if you need more than just one. Hard drives rarely go faulty if ever unless you abuse them and stay away from energy efficient ones just stick to good old performance.

[mjb]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:26 PM, Uselessoldman said:

forget using SSD for storage complete waste of money just buy a new standard hard drive.

Unless you're after totally silent operation, eg in conjunction with a fanless case. 

[sfseay]

I swapped out the internal 1TB HDD in my Sony HAP-Z1 with a Micron 2TB SSD and other than more storage space I hear no difference in sound quality.

[alfe]

On 8/2/2018 at 5:32 PM, Hellvis73 said:

Sorry if this is posted elsewhere and I missed it, but is there a ssd that ya'll would recommend specifically for music playback?

 

If you want to go for an SSD  choose an SLC .

An HDD can do the job even better.

 

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, alfe said:

 

If you want to go for an SSD  choose an SLC .

An HDD can do the job even better.

 

 

An SSD will almost certainly have noise injected into the main PSU with a waveform having shorter rise and fall times than that of the HDD in the attachment, (i.e. noise over a wider bandwidth) but I would expect that powering the SSD via a +5V regulator from the main +12V supply would overcome this problem of noise injection into the supply , as well as reducing any radiated RF/EMI  (?)

[alfe]

Alex,

Garbage collection is the answer.

[foodfiend]

Buffalo have a patent on controlling current draw from the SSD. This is used DELA, as well as some high-end Japanese music servers/players.

 

Patent on SSD

[davide256]

On 8/2/2018 at 9:44 PM, davide256 said:

In  prioritizing importance in audio performance, 1-10... I'd rank that choice at about a 3, with power supply quality a 9 and system architecture a 10. It's a 3 because

you need enough storage to grow but as long as your using SATA3, the drive choice won't  affect audio... the hardware solution it resides in (architecture) will

Amending this comment made  before discovering how good Audio Linux is as source solution OS.  SSD's tend to be bright and irritating for sound when using Audio Linux, a  hard drive sounds more natural but does lose some high frequency sparkle. I find myself preferring  class 10 SDXC storage media as the best compromise

between the two and in all cases external USB3 attached to allow independent power supply for the drive sounded better than internal SATA attached

[Doak]

I like/prefer big (3.5") fat spinning drives such as WD  Black.

 

[Ralf11]

I use the optical tape drives at a large facility recently built in Utah...

[jaynyc]

On 5/20/2019 at 8:57 AM, davide256 said:

Amending this comment made  before discovering how good Audio Linux is as source solution OS.  SSD's tend to be bright and irritating for sound when using Audio Linux, a  hard drive sounds more natural but does lose some high frequency sparkle. I find myself preferring  class 10 SDXC storage media as the best compromise

between the two and in all cases external USB3 attached to allow independent power supply for the drive sounded better than internal SATA attached

 

@davide256 following your post from May, specifically in regards to SSDs under Linux sounding ‘bright’...  have you explored any other remedies/solutions/ideas outside of SDXC?  For example, does a JCAT or Patchenko SATA cable help tame brightness?  Eager to hear any of your findings.    Am also curious more generally if Linux+SSD is actually bright in reality or if everything else is actually/historically just ‘dull’ in comparison.

[davide256]

24 minutes ago, jaynyc said:

 

@davide256 following your post from May, specifically in regards to SSDs under Linux sounding ‘bright’...  have you explored any other remedies/solutions/ideas outside of SDXC?  For example, does a JCAT or Patchenko SATA cable help tame brightness?  Eager to hear any of your findings.    Am also curious more generally if Linux+SSD is actually bright in reality or if everything else is actually/historically just ‘dull’ in comparison.

I haven't played around with internal SATA cables but given that the symptoms showed with both internal and USB3 connected HD appliance used with AL,

I don't believe SATA cables to be a causal factor. Switching to Euphony OS has helped with digital irritants, I will need to go back and retest to see

if that "tames" SSD as  a media drive or improves HD for transients. Won't be doing that for a few weeks until  the HDPLEX comes back from repair.

[bobbmd]

recently replaced my WD 2TB HD with Samsung 4TB SSD HD suggested by the tech at my 'authorized' Apple repair shop-- comments good or bad?

[newton]

do you think an adapter like this could improve SQ if supplied with a good external PS instead of the usb 5v coming from the server? 

I'm wondering if it must be always powered and how it chooses what feed to be used...(usb or PS)

 

[sandyk]

The best SSDs for Audio will be those shielded from the rest of the PC/Server . This may be able to be achieved by mounting them on a metal adaptor and installing them inside a metal drive bay. They should use the shortest possible SATA3 6GB/s cables which have 2 internal screened cables instead of the generic 7 wires side by side. Their power supply cable should also be screened if possible (a DIY solution) and they should be powered from a low noise +5V supply derived from the +12V rail using a separate voltage regulator to reduce interaction with other components via the power supply, as they have a much higher square wave noise level injected back into the PSU than a HDD.  (see also  https://thessdguy.com/solving-ssd-power-spike-issues/#more-1312)

 They can also radiate a lot of RF/EMI which can affect other components including WiFi.

See attached .pdf.

14A2-B4.pdf

[debt_collector]

Do the M.2 NVMe SSD drives also introduce noise into the system or are they better than standard SSD drives? Would an HDD still be a better choice in a NAS drive for Music?

[One and a half]

4 hours ago, debt_collector said:

Do the M.2 NVMe SSD drives also introduce noise into the system or are they better than standard SSD drives? Would an HDD still be a better choice in a NAS drive for Music?

I'm looking at the M.2 as well for a new server. There's no metal enclosure and the dedicated connector doesn't really allow modification. 

The only M.2 Ive seen is like half RAM stick, maybe a metal case is available, havent looked as yet. 

 

The upside is the M.2 leaves a footprint like RAM, avoids the inertia of a traditional SSD, although would house the OS, which carries traffic, kinda stuck with that in any case.