|
Post by Mister Chase on Feb 6, 2022 18:08:27 GMT -6
I'm right at 500gb of my 1tb internal drive on my M1 mini when it comes to essential software and a handful of video projects. It all depends on how "robust" your studio life is, for personal or wide array of clients etc. If there is really any truth to the possibility of Pro/Max Mini's I would personally wait(I will upgrade if that becomes the case). The VSTi's Ive used hosted on the internal drive load crazy fast. Fast load times are always nice, but VI latency is the most important to me. How are you liking the latency performance of VI sample libraries hosted on the internal SSD? A 1tb internal SSD would definitely provide enough space for the OS and sample libraries. 512gb would provide enough space for all of this too, but with a lot less remaining space leftover. Audio files were always going to be hosted on external drives anyway, so that's not really of any consideration for me, as far as internal storage is concerned. I go back and forth on the M1 Max/Pro thing. I debate about waiting, but I don't know that I will need that kind of processing power and I don't know that I would want to spend that much either. If I end up needing that much power, I still have my PC around for slave duties. I don't know this for a fact, but I was under the impression that VI's get loaded into the RAM at least to some degree. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me. Meaning aside from loading into the ram, I am not sure of performance differences. Latency seems ok but seems to factor in many other things like size of session/buffer capabilities etc. It works for me mostly. I ran on a PC since 2008 and the latest build from 2017 also had a dedicated SATA SSD for samples. Performance seems the same to me.
|
|
|
Post by plinker on Feb 6, 2022 18:57:15 GMT -6
Quint : I'm sorry, but I don't use VI samples so I just don't know how much back/forth there is with them. However, when you start a saved session, if you need to load 20-30 samples at start, then hosting them on the external SSD will be extremely fast. It all happens very quickly. However, if you need to do a bunch of ad-hoc load/save/load/save with them (or anything else) then putting them on the internal drive is the best course. Internal storage is for things that get loaded/reloaded often: OS files, Applications, temp storage (most apps use a bunch of temporary files which is another reason why you need to keep you apps on the internal). After that, most things are load-and-occasionally-write files. Cost-wise, the best value for those is on fast external storage like the one I referenced previously.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 9:43:23 GMT -6
Fast load times are always nice, but VI latency is the most important to me. How are you liking the latency performance of VI sample libraries hosted on the internal SSD? A 1tb internal SSD would definitely provide enough space for the OS and sample libraries. 512gb would provide enough space for all of this too, but with a lot less remaining space leftover. Audio files were always going to be hosted on external drives anyway, so that's not really of any consideration for me, as far as internal storage is concerned. I go back and forth on the M1 Max/Pro thing. I debate about waiting, but I don't know that I will need that kind of processing power and I don't know that I would want to spend that much either. If I end up needing that much power, I still have my PC around for slave duties. I don't know this for a fact, but I was under the impression that VI's get loaded into the RAM at least to some degree. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me. Meaning aside from loading into the ram, I am not sure of performance differences. Latency seems ok but seems to factor in many other things like size of session/buffer capabilities etc. It works for me mostly. I ran on a PC since 2008 and the latest build from 2017 also had a dedicated SATA SSD for samples. Performance seems the same to me.
The samples do load into the ram but, once the ram is full, they have to stream from disk, which is why an external drive worries me. With the relatively smaller amount of max available ram in these M1 Macs, I've been worried that the 16gb would get filled up quickly, and then bottlenecks with external drives might come into play. Maybe if it's a TB drive, it wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure. I've only ever hosted samples internally to not have to worry about it. Are you saying that your new M1 Mac has similar latency performance with VIs as your 2017 PC with samples loaded on an internal SATA drive? I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 9:50:21 GMT -6
Quint : I'm sorry, but I don't use VI samples so I just don't know how much back/forth there is with them. However, when you start a saved session, if you need to load 20-30 samples at start, then hosting them on the external SSD will be extremely fast. It all happens very quickly. However, if you need to do a bunch of ad-hoc load/save/load/save with them (or anything else) then putting them on the internal drive is the best course. Internal storage is for things that get loaded/reloaded often: OS files, Applications, temp storage (most apps use a bunch of temporary files which is another reason why you need to keep you apps on the internal). After that, most things are load-and-occasionally-write files. Cost-wise, the best value for those is on fast external storage like the one I referenced previously. I think I'm leaning towards just paying the extra for the 1tb Mini at this point, rather than have to worry about any of this down the road. So the 1tb SSD in the Mini will host the OS, Apps, Luna, and my sample libraries. My intention is to use external drives for session audio, so I don't know that I need those to be THAT fast, but I could be wrong about that. I'm basing a lot of what I'm assuming on how things are or have been recommended to do with PC. Maybe there's a good reason to use faster external drives for audio in a M1 Mac scenario? If so, how fast is fast enough? Do I really need a full TB level connection, or is USB 3 sufficient? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on super fast external SSDs just for audio if there's no real reason to do so.
|
|
|
Post by RealNoob on Feb 7, 2022 10:08:19 GMT -6
So some of you are presently working on M1 machines with ProTools or Studio One? Everything going ok?
|
|
|
Post by Mister Chase on Feb 7, 2022 10:13:37 GMT -6
I don't know this for a fact, but I was under the impression that VI's get loaded into the RAM at least to some degree. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me. Meaning aside from loading into the ram, I am not sure of performance differences. Latency seems ok but seems to factor in many other things like size of session/buffer capabilities etc. It works for me mostly. I ran on a PC since 2008 and the latest build from 2017 also had a dedicated SATA SSD for samples. Performance seems the same to me.
The samples do load into the ram but, once the ram is full, they have to stream from disk, which is why an external drive worries me. With the relatively smaller amount of max available ram in these M1 Macs, I've been worried that the 16gb would get filled up quickly, and then bottlenecks with external drives might come into play. Maybe if it's a TB drive, it wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure. I've only ever hosted samples internally to not have to worry about it. Are you saying that your new M1 Mac has similar latency performance with VIs as your 2017 PC with samples loaded on an internal SATA drive? I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. Gotcha. Yea, 16gb goes fast with todays VI's.
And yes, as far as my experience with VI's, I can't remember when I used any other drive but the internal one or a secondary SSD internal drive, so my 2017 pc with SSD performs about the same as the M1 with internal VIs on system drive, but the m1 loads them faster. Playing them feels the same to me, which is to say its only a problem when the project is so full that the buffer can't get low enough.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 10:17:22 GMT -6
The samples do load into the ram but, once the ram is full, they have to stream from disk, which is why an external drive worries me. With the relatively smaller amount of max available ram in these M1 Macs, I've been worried that the 16gb would get filled up quickly, and then bottlenecks with external drives might come into play. Maybe if it's a TB drive, it wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure. I've only ever hosted samples internally to not have to worry about it. Are you saying that your new M1 Mac has similar latency performance with VIs as your 2017 PC with samples loaded on an internal SATA drive? I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. Gotcha. Yea, 16gb goes fast with todays VI's.
And yes, as far as my experience with VI's, I can't remember when I used any other drive but the internal one or a secondary SSD internal drive, so my 2017 pc with SSD performs about the same as the M1 with internal VIs on system drive, but the m1 loads them faster. Playing them feels the same to me, which is to say its only a problem when the project is so full that the buffer can't get low enough.
Ok. Good to know. Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 10:38:16 GMT -6
I have my ssd library on an external usb3 drive, zero problems with my M1 mini running my sessions.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 11:30:40 GMT -6
I have my ssd library on an external usb3 drive, zero problems with my M1 mini running my sessions. That external USB3 drive is for audio, sample libraries, or both?
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 12:17:27 GMT -6
I store back up sessions there but run my sessions on my internal drive.
Yes, for libraries but I don’t have a lot . SsD5 is not huge around 15g I think, but I thought you would want to know zero problems over usb3 and the rest of audio is tb3.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 12:42:17 GMT -6
I store back up sessions there but run my sessions on my internal drive. Yes, for libraries but I don’t have a lot . SsD5 is not huge around 15g I think, but I thought you would want to know zero problems over usb3 and the rest of audio is tb3. My preference would be to have samples internal and audio external, as audio write to the drive is less demanding than samples, but that's good to know that samples are working for you over USB3 external. I guess a question I should be asking is if there is a good reason NOT to host the samples internally and host them externally instead? The Mac internal storage is more expensive than external storage, so cost is one reason, but is there any other good reason (if cost isn't a consideration) to NOT host samples internally and host them externally instead?
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 13:12:26 GMT -6
Well, I am doing it to better manage my 256 drive and as I notice no problems keeping library on external drive.
I do have some libraries on my internal drive too, Arturia, uvi, don’t notice any difference between loading using them and slate drums on external.
Basically, it just works. I have 16g of ram but the m1 never seems to break a sweat, never hear my fans etc..
|
|
|
Post by plinker on Feb 7, 2022 13:13:43 GMT -6
I think I'm leaning towards just paying the extra for the 1tb Mini at this point, rather than have to worry about any of this down the road. So the 1tb SSD in the Mini will host the OS, Apps, Luna, and my sample libraries. My intention is to use external drives for session audio, so I don't know that I need those to be THAT fast, but I could be wrong about that. I'm basing a lot of what I'm assuming on how things are or have been recommended to do with PC. Maybe there's a good reason to use faster external drives for audio in a M1 Mac scenario? If so, how fast is fast enough? Do I really need a full TB level connection, or is USB 3 sufficient? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on super fast external SSDs just for audio if there's no real reason to do so. The Mini M1 supports USB 3.2 (speed = 10 Gb/s) and TB 3&4. Unfortunately, they did include support for USB 3.2 x2 (speed = 20 Gb/s). I'm little disappointed about that because USB 3.2 x2 is the sweet spot cost-wise/value for external storage these days. TB 3&4 is still terribly expensive.
However, that drive I linked previously, that I use, is USB 3.2 and I can certainly say that 10 Gb/s is really fast for an external drive -- and it USB powered too, so cabling is minimal. The only thing I keep on my internal drive are OS, Apps, and swap. Everything else (time machine, mass data, etc) is on the USB 3.2 and it's so fast that I don't even think about whether its internal or external. Now, caveat: I don't do huge audio projects, so it might be different in that case.
So, I think USB 3.2 is quite sufficient for my needs.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 13:29:38 GMT -6
I think I'm leaning towards just paying the extra for the 1tb Mini at this point, rather than have to worry about any of this down the road. So the 1tb SSD in the Mini will host the OS, Apps, Luna, and my sample libraries. My intention is to use external drives for session audio, so I don't know that I need those to be THAT fast, but I could be wrong about that. I'm basing a lot of what I'm assuming on how things are or have been recommended to do with PC. Maybe there's a good reason to use faster external drives for audio in a M1 Mac scenario? If so, how fast is fast enough? Do I really need a full TB level connection, or is USB 3 sufficient? I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on super fast external SSDs just for audio if there's no real reason to do so. The Mini M1 supports USB 3.2 (speed = 10 Gb/s) and TB 3&4. Unfortunately, they did include support for USB 3.2 x2 (speed = 20 Gb/s). I'm little disappointed about that because USB 3.2 x2 is the sweet spot cost-wise/value for external storage these days. TB 3&4 is still terribly expensive.
However, that drive I linked previously, that I use, is USB 3.2 and I can certainly say that 10 Gb/s is really fast for an external drive -- and it USB powered too, so cabling is minimal. The only thing I keep on my internal drive are OS, Apps, and swap. Everything else (time machine, mass data, etc) is on the USB 3.2 and it's so fast that I don't even think about whether its internal or external. Now, caveat: I don't do huge audio projects, so it might be different in that case.
So, I think USB 3.2 is quite sufficient for my needs.
Swap? I'm not sure what you mean there? I mean, I think I might know what you mean, but I'll just ask to make sure.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 13:34:07 GMT -6
Well, I am doing it to better manage my 256 drive and as I notice no problems keeping library on external drive. I do have some libraries on my internal drive too, Arturia, uvi, don’t notice any difference between loading using them and slate drums on external. Basically, it just works. I have 16g of ram but the m1 never seems to break a sweat, never hear my fans etc.. To be clear, it's not how fast the library initially loads up into ram that I'm concerned about. It's the latency associated with using an external drive. Sooner or later, a VI is going to need to stream samples directly off disk, and that's the latency that worries me. I think I'm still inclined to just get the 1tb drive and host samples internally so I don't have to worry about it. That is, unless someone gives me a good reason not to do it, other than just the additional cost.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 13:41:39 GMT -6
I understand. I was just saying I notice no difference between libraries on my internal drive which must be faster and my external drive triggering samples in my session.
If you can put everything you want vin the internal drive and it’s like 50-70% full , and you leave sone space headroom on the drive , I ‘m sure you’d be fine.
Just wanted you to know I am not having problems with my external usb3 drive which was cheap and big.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 13:53:40 GMT -6
I understand. I was just saying I notice no difference between libraries on my internal drive which must be faster and my external drive triggering samples in my session. If you can put everything you want vin the internal drive and it’s like 50-70% full , and you leave sone space headroom on the drive , I ‘m sure you’d be fine. Just wanted you to know I am not having problems with my external usb3 drive which was cheap and big. Got it. As for the headroom you speak of, I assume that's for the swap files that Plinker mentioned above? The whole swap thing is still a bit of a mystery to me and I don't quite understand how it works or what considerations that means I need to take when considering drive space, etc.
|
|
|
Post by mike on Feb 7, 2022 14:11:14 GMT -6
The Mini M1 supports USB 3.2 (speed = 10 Gb/s) and TB 3&4. Unfortunately, they did include support for USB 3.2 x2 (speed = 20 Gb/s). I'm little disappointed about that because USB 3.2 x2 is the sweet spot cost-wise/value for external storage these days. TB 3&4 is still terribly expensive. Did not know that. Thanks for the info and hope the mini updates this spring will support USB 3.2 x2, because I think you're right, it is the current sweet spot between price and performance.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 14:22:29 GMT -6
I read about swap being a problem but the only detailed analysis I saw by that British guy who knows what he is doing indicated it’s blown way out of proportion. I started running rosetta2 but now run non rosetta again haven’t noticed any difference.
|
|
|
Post by brenta on Feb 7, 2022 15:26:49 GMT -6
Apple loves Thunderbolt. I don’t see them adding support for any other protocols but who knows.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 15:38:13 GMT -6
I read about swap being a problem but the only detailed analysis I saw by that British guy who knows what he is doing indicated it’s blown way out of proportion. I started running rosetta2 but now run non rosetta again haven’t noticed any difference. Well, between the OS, Keyscape, Kontakt, and a few other odds and ends, my total use would be under 300gb, with plenty of room to spare for those swap files, plus room to grow sample libraries, as desired. So, in any case, the 1tb would provide me plenty of room. I think I'm still leaning in that direction. But I'll definitely be going external for audio drive(s) and a backup drive. I still need to figure out what I want to get for that. TB seems unnecessary for the audio and backup, so USB3 should be fine there. I might go with a 1tb audio SSD, like the one Plinker suggested, and get a 2tb or maybe 4tb HDD for the backup. I'll also need to figure out if I need a TB dock like the $179 one that OWC sells. I'm hoping to avoid the expense. If I end up needing one, I think I can get away with a little USB3 dock for a lot cheaper, since it would really just be for keyboard controllers, iLok, backup drive, etc that I need a USB connection for. The Apollo and the audio drive would each get their own dedicated TB port. Anybody know a good USB3 (USB-C and USB-A, preferably) dock that won't cause issues with keyboard controllers running though it? Say with at least four USB 3 slots? Six or eight might be even better though.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2022 16:06:25 GMT -6
All good, remember the current m1 mini is two full bandwidth t tb3 ports not 1 halved and your Apollo has two tb3 ports so you can daisy chain off of it or satellite chassis.
You will need to get good tb3 cables for the bandwidth.
|
|
|
Post by Quint on Feb 7, 2022 16:30:14 GMT -6
All good, remember the current m1 mini is two full bandwidth t tb3 ports not 1 halved and your Apollo has two tb3 ports so you can daisy chain off of it or satellite chassis. You will need to get good tb3 cables for the bandwidth. Yep. That is one of the ways I'm thinking I can get away without having to purchase a dock.
|
|
|
Post by sirthought on Feb 7, 2022 17:54:18 GMT -6
Quint, remember Apple has pretty good sales support that can explain the Apple are difference. I think they have different products such as a three year option, or a monthly price where support just continues indefinitely.
Regarding the SSD. You might fit the majority of what you do in a 500gb capacity, but it's good to remember that if storage exceeds 400gb and gets closer to the max, performance drops overall. It's a quirk of this tech, that means it's always safer to get larger to ensure good speed.
External drives work fine usually.
|
|
|
Post by brenta on Feb 7, 2022 17:55:11 GMT -6
I can’t figure out why that OWC dock is so expensive. I just bought an $80 thunderbolt dock that has 3 USB-A ports, Ethernet, HDMI and SD card slots. It’s plug and play so no driver was needed. I’ve successfully hooked up a display and a keyboard controller and mouse and keyboard all at the same time with no issues.
You should be able to spend $50-$80 on a dock.
|
|