My SSD install

[PeterSt]

Hey all,

I finally got around to install my SSD (Solid State Disk) which I had been laying around for several months now. The OS (still Vista SP0) is on there, as well as the Galleries.

After only a few hours of listening I 'd swear the highs are more delicate, but I sure would put some money on the bass having more authority. So, not knowing of another vocabulary of superlatives, I plainly say this is just another improvement.
Please note this is in the environment of not using a pre-amp, where everything is, say, 10 times more profound and more difficult regarding the highs. It already wasn't fatigueing (at all), but the highs tell me this is another leap in being able to play loud without a sense of disturbance.

My main Gallery (comprising of some 11,000 albums by now) loads in 10 seconds doing that the first time after a boot (avoiding cache interfearance), which - to my estimation - was twice as long before.

On a side note, the SSD is IDE (ATA) connected through an IDE-SATA converter (note the decent SSDs are all SATAI) giving no inherit performance degradation, while giving me the space to have mounted 9 DATAII disks (8 internal -, 1 eSata connected) plus the 1 SATAI (64GB) disk where the OS resides.
Awaitening 2GB HDDs, the next step would be a SATAII multiplexor (4 disks to one SATAII channel), knowing that I wouldn't loose on bandwidth since no two SATAII disks would be used at any same time, unless for backup reasons.

To my surprise (or maybe not) the SSD gets fairly hot when intensively used as it was at restoring the OS to it, but is completely cold now it is just "standing by", *knowing* the OS never leaves it alone for more that 4-6 minutes. This, where the normal HDD would keep on spinning forever, hence consuming the power forever, the SSD just proving by her being cold it just matters (for PSU interfearance !).

What's next ?

[joerg]

Hi Peter,

Congratulations on that move, as soon as the first SSD drives were installed I was also thinking that with increasing capacities and falling prices they would be perfect for dedicated music PCs.

It is not just the power consumption. I have the HTPC case in my audio rack and when the disk are spinning it causes vibrations that can be felt even on the lower shelves of the rack. That is on a finite elemente master ref, which I would consider to be excellent with handling vibrations. I have the PC now sitting on a SAP Relaxa magnetic levitation base, which helps damping hard disk vibrations a lot. But still, I am sure things would improve with a SSD disk immediately. Less heat would mean less cooling, also less noise...way to go I would say 

I hope to make the same move sometime soon, but I guess I won't get round to do it before 2009...

Best Regards,

Joerg

[PeterSt]

Before I get accused of wrong advises ... do not replace your OS disk with a SSD right now. IOW :

After a sufficient number of hours using the SSD for the OS, the one thing I can *really* say is that I don't recognize my albums anymore, hence the sound is so much different that I (and the family) have problems with determining the differences. This fact alone, so far, makes me want to move back to the normal spinning disk ...

I have many reasons to believe the playback is actually more accurate, but I have as many reaons to believe it just doesn't work out. Not for my system as a whole. Two main arguments for the latter :

1.
All tracks, no matter from which albums, seem to receive a signature, the best described as a "flair";
All cymbals start to sound the same over (tracks and) albums, and generally one could say that the color has gone, they are more hissing, but also more metal (which latter by itself would be something I was seeking for) .

2.
The bass output is so much more that the xover must be tweaked to that, which I feel is wrong (but didn't try anyway). Without this tweaking it really is too much of it, and the sound gets colored because of it.
The phenomenon by itself makes me believe the base now is wrong, knowing that lately (for 6 months at least) tweaking the xover to the bass side did not add coloration, and just more bass only. So, theories say that this is not just more bass, but more wrong bass.

At listening closely - which is very hard because all sounds so different - and listening to the elements of "sound" at my best, I can only say it is better. There is more detail, and to give one example of how one should come to the conclusion things just must have changed for the better : I get crazy of all those guys using a tamborine. Hmm ... they suddenly al do. This is related to the now so profound audible individual "bells" of that instrument, and one of the reasons to believe that things are more accurate. However :

The warmth has disapeared all over, and e.g. a trumpet has become an instrument with a flair, or even sibilance.

Knowing I am crazy anyway, I now imagine the SSD to interact with the PSU (somehow) at a high frequency base, and this is audible and what I perceive. Something like each individual memory element constantly telling its status to the cpu, and already knowing that the influence on the PSU is one of the most important things anyway, this just would be wrong if so indeed.

Added to this, I am fairly sure it is not the OS disk not spinning what I hear. It is too much of it, and besides that, the OS disk isn't always spinning although that would be a coincidence (depending on the coincidence of the (IIRC) in between 6 - 12 minutes no disk access by the OS is required, while the disk spins down after 5 minutes of no access. In other words, if it would be the "no spinning hdd" I perceive, this would have been be the most obvious in between tracks. And I never heard that.
And so it must be the other way around : the SSD just adds things. "Add" is literal, and for audio this means : no good at all.

Now what ?

I know perceived better accuracy can emerge by means of adding noise. Of course it is fake, but for certain frequencies it may enhance them, and make them more profound. However, looking at the squariness of a trumpett, it will work counterproductive, and the squares will receive side products (harmonics), just not belonging there.

I say it again : the sole fact of the sound having changed so much that I can't relate it in a relative manner to how it was, and what actually has changed, is reason enough for me to go back. It would be impossible for me to develop any further, which always comes down to relative changes, and hearing elements which changed for the better or for the worse. Now, this would imply a start all over, which is from theories already not good. It just can't be so this differs so much for the better (which I generally don't perceive either), while at the same time it just *can* be so that all differs so mucg because it changed for the worse. And I already tried to explain it : the SSD adds.

Now, I can imagine that I'm the only one on the globe coming to this conclusion (never investigated it really, but also never heard any negatives about the SSD), but let me be the first then.
Did anyone read about negatives on this somewhere ?

Dave, I know you are using an SSD. Are you able to go back ? Even if it takes you some efforts, please try it. You know you changed your whole system in one go, including using the SSD, and are satisfied. However, you could be way more satisfied without the SSD. Please try it for your own sake.


When I can find some time, I will try to prove what's happening by means of connecting the scope to the PSU or something like that. I think what I hear can be made visible.

Bweh,
Peter

[SeVeReD]

Hmmm

Could this be a W change?  You know I've got V7 still running just because I've been busy and only wanted to listen to music for a while here.  My whole system is new and far superior to the laptop I was using ,,, new system as you know has a SSD for the gallery/Vista only, music files are on external spinning HDDs... that's what you have going on right?  I would have thought, faster access for Vista was the good thing about SSD and possible  better SQ.  Anyway, I'm closer to the music than ever before as far as I'm concerned here.  I'll try to get to W3 this weekend, but I've been busy and digging what I have going on with V to be to concerned about new versions... sorry.  But, make sure you're not hearing version differences?  Try going back to V7? for a bit.

hehe sorry again Peter, Seems like when I make changes here it's almost a whole system overhaul at a time... but I think I've been lucky so far.

[SeVeReD]

Dave, I know you are using an SSD. Are you able to go back ? Even if it takes you some efforts, please try it. You know you changed your whole system in one go, including using the SSD, and are satisfied. However, you could be way more satisfied without the SSD. Please try it for your own sake.

ack
I have the means Peter, but I don't know about the time.  Would have to be this weekend.  Would have to install Vista 64 prem on a Western digital VelociRaptor HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296 I have sitting here to go into a machine I'm building for my daughter.  Mainly the tweaking of Vista for a music transport .... takes me a long time.  Let me give it some thought and maybe I can do it this weekend.  It sounds important to you, so I'll work on it... Gordon of Wavelength Audio is swearing by these SSD as being very much superior to spinning drives for the OS... but I know, you need to know for yourself, so I'll try to help.  I think too, I'm pretty biased in my mind right now that it, SSD, should be the best way to go, but... k, I'm curious now too.  I'll stick with XXHE V7 for compare sake ...yes?

Aren't you saying in your posts that you're happy, that it is a better SQ... or you're not sure because it has changed the SQ so much.... something about everything sounding the same...ok.

It's funny you've mentioned trumpet, I've been listening to lots of jazz trumpet lately, today was a marathon of Miles davis, and I told you about that other guy I was listening to.... I like it.  So much detail yes.  On the new system Q1 changes are very evident.... I've gone from -2 to 0 to 2 to 4 and back all over... -2 very detailed/clear...too much? is that possible... but 4 bringing back the warmth/color..dunno.. sooo hmmm.  My friend, who is just barely familiar with the new system is very excited, and thinks it's heads and tails above the laptop, (not a hard feat since Andy's core2duo laptop beat it handily too), but even he could hear changes easily on Q1 settings.... not so easy to hear on the laptop.

[SeVeReD]

This is probably unrelated... read above posts first Peter.
But just curious, a lot of people have had problems with their slightly older PCs and SSD using MLC mem as opposed to the SLC.  My OCZ SSD is MLC but I have had no problems at all ... blazingly fast install of Vista.  People have suggested that this:

"One thing I remember, if you don't have the right controller on the motherboard it may not work well for you... look for this chipset:
South Bridge Intel ICH10R"

Does your MB use this chipset?  just curious.... Sounds like you haven't had any real problems with your SSD, so like I said, unrelated curiosity.

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your extensive replies Dave.

First thing, and not to forget : When you'd try the normal spinning disk there is really no way you would do that for my sake, helping, confirmation or anything of the kind. You would do it for YOU and only you. So, if it is too much trouble, and you are confident you just don't want anything else/better, spend you time in a useful way, like listening to music with a couple of glasses with good contents, and a cigar for a change.

I survived yesterday again (and you know I actually won't go for less than a week of listening to the same after a change, just to form the right opinion), but this time I last with the situation in order to "hear" what could be going on. And the funny thing is, when I went to bed yesterday I came to a rather similar thinking as you just wrote :

"One thing I remember, if you don't have the right controller on the motherboard it may not work well for you... look for this chipset:
South Bridge Intel ICH10R"

But different ...
What slipped through my mind is that I am using this small IDE-SATA converter, because I don't want to loose a SATAII connection for the large music disks. And, this converter even needs power ...
So now I think (and by now supported to what you came up with) that it might be this thingy doing it to me, and different from the actually passive SSD disk, this thingy indeed could be sending interrupts all over, even to the sense of "I have nothing to do !".

Ok, writing about this now takes longer than trying a different setup, and this just needs to connect the SSD disk to a normal SATAII connection. The difference will be audible within 2 seconds anyway. Will let you know tomorrow.


Anothing thing : As I said elsewhere, indeed there is a difference in SQ between 0.9v and 0.9w, but you have to limit the used memory first. The difference is fragile, but IMO more lean and IMO for sure better.
My current SSD setup just destroys it all.

Btw, let's keep in mind what I said earlier : I can hear the SSD is better fo a few reasons, but net it doesn't work out. Such a thing usually indicates that 2 things changed in one time, and with my above explanation this would be true indeed (changing the "controller" and changing the disk type).

This reminds me of the 0.9d period, where each of two versions showed better behaviour but in different areas and how to combine the goodies of each into one version. Nice challenges.

[PeterSt]

Just in brief :

Didn't investigate the South Bridge yet, but removed the little "controller" and attached the SSD to a normal SATAII line : no difference.
Then reinstalled the spinning disk : all OK.

There is something seriously wrong with the SSD, and since it won't be skipping bits or anything of the kind, it is the most seriously influencing jitter or whatever it is.

I tend to investigate the reasons, but think it is a waste of time to ever go back.
It is the most influencing phenomenon I ever experienced, and I don't like that for a fact. At all.

If this is so (so so so so much) influencing, what other things do we have ?

[SeVeReD]

I'll set up my spinning disc as soon as possible... well, with the hope of even better SQ.  Exactly what SSD do you have? (Wasn't it the exact same as mine OCZ 128 GB sata II?).  Could it be possible it is a "radiating bad stuff" thing?; have you tried moving it away from "sensitive" stuff? (mine is pretty far removed from the MB)  Do check on your MB controller type just to see Peter, thanks.

[PeterSt]

I have an OCZ 64GB (and btw, I don't think SSDs exist in SATAII, only SATAI).

My chipset is the ICH8, but I must be careful, because there's also a JMicron part in there, and the lot can be controlled by 3 "drivers". Since I'm not using RAID this is beyond the user (me anyway) what you're actually using.

Actually I don't care that it doesn't work out, but I *DO* want to know what the heck this is about. It sure cannot be about not reading (and presenting) the data properly.

and I told you about that other guy I was listening to.... I like it.

Yea, and I told you that listening to Ritchie Vitale couldn't surive the first track at Mondays. Tried again Tuesdays with the 2nd and 3rd track, and after the 3rd my wife told me it was quite boring and I agreed and switched it off. Yesterday (Wednesday) after the restoration of the spinning OS disk, I didn't realize I ran 2 tracks the day before, so put on the 2nd track while actually wanting something new (I can't "A-B" with the same tracks hahaha). What I immediately sensed was romance, a man blowing a horn with feeling. It was interesting all over, never mind the slow song. Then I realized it was the same track from the day before which was so boring ...
This time the whole album was listened out, and I came to the conlcusion it had nothing to do with not being in the mood for this kind of music (which I thought at first), the other days. It was a lousy SSD.

It is so strange to experience it : Not in all music the bad behaviour of the SSD can be heard. But last night, when all was right again, all music showed the happiness again ("happiness" is really a phenomenon I recognize lately; when all is good, music is a party). Everybody starts swinging automatically. It didn't happen with the SSD.
Now why ...

[Telstar]

I have an OCZ 64GB (and btw, I don't think SSDs exist in SATAII, only SATAI).

My chipset is the ICH8, but I must be careful, because there's also a JMicron part in there, and the lot can be controlled by 3 "drivers". Since I'm not using RAID this is beyond the user (me anyway) what you're actually using.

IIRC the IDE port is NOT part of intel ICH from ich7.

BTW there ARE serious problems with MLC SSD units (all but Intel) with intel controllers, so serious that you may have 1-3s pauses of everything, including music. You dont have such because you minimized services and cpu/disk usage.
So, you have a problem. The solution is not cheap, either way. Get a MLC disk, get an Intel MLC disk, or get an Areca sata raid card.

SeVeRed, do you have the same type of SSD?
I do THINK to agree with Gordon that SSD SHOULD be better for a music pc...

Besides, Windows7 will improve SSD speed and functionalities and may be good for sound too. A Beta2 or perhaps RC0 will be worth to try.

[PeterSt]

Hey, thanks for the info Telstar.
Can you point me to a thread about this ? I want to understand what's actually wrong, or maybe contribute to that thread. Depending on how the situation is, get my money back maybe.

In the very end I want to taste the benefits, where one of them is speed (it really matters).

[Telstar]

Hey, thanks for the info Telstar.
Can you point me to a thread about this ? I want to understand what's actually wrong, or maybe contribute to that thread. Depending on how the situation is, get my money back maybe.

In the very end I want to taste the benefits, where one of them is speed (it really matters).

Read all this article:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=7

There is some discussion on various hw forums, my favourite is xtreme systems. No thread that i know talks about audio performance.
But the latency issue IS an issue, due to intel ich and the jmicron controller of the majority of MLC SSD drives.
I dont think you can get a refund, but I hope u try soon a different SSD drive and post an update.

[SeVeReD]

Here is my SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227345
dunno, says sata II... but who cares... since it has seemed to work well in my system. (see link in my sig for complete system)  Other people have had horrendous problems with this SSD, to the point of not even able to do a Windows install without errors.

I think this is the reason why I've been lucky; my MB has this:
South Bridge Intel ICH10R as a controller  (... do I remember something about the R designation being important in SSD working well ...?)
Others have said they see no problems.
Do you remember I posted spec numbers from that program "HD Tunes" someone told me about here?  Have you seen what numbers it gives you and compared?... I don't know what that means,,, but thought it might give some insight... 


From Peter
"My chipset is the ICH8 ... "
I know I've read somewhere that this chipset is a problem area for the OCZ MLC... people are really pissed.
edit
now I've read some posts that say ICH8 worked fine for people... dunno

In any case, I really hope to do a back to back with the VelociRaptor HDD and the OCZ SSD drive this weekend.  Once I set up, (no small thing trying to remember all the tweaks), I'll use the same sata cable & power cable and just switch back and forth between reboots.... The VelociRaptor HDD is about as fast as the spinning drives come, so, may give some interesting insight this weekend.

... and in any case, glad your systems back to sounding good... and who knows, maybe mine will sound even better with the VelociRaptor HDD installed.

ALSO
this is what drives me bonkers...
this is the OCZ manufacturer response to  someone complaining about an OCZ SSD drive:

"Manufacturer Response:Hello, we appreciate your input. These drives use MLC technology and are priced much lower (about 1/2 the price) than the faster SLC drives. We encourage customers to research these drives based on their application before purchasing. If your application includes writing large amounts of data, or you do allot of multitasking,
 
the OCZ SATA II drives for sale here on Newegg are a better choice. They use SLC technology

and have both extremely fast read and write performance. We will be glad to answer any questions potential customers may have on our support forums at the link below.
Thank you

External Link(s):
OCZ Support Forums|"

So??? do I have the new SLC because my drive is labled OCZ SATA II or MLC ???

Lots of confusing info.  Anyways, no more time for this tonight
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/index.php

Found this:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/staff/ryderocz/ssd/ssd_config.pdf
Says you need to install Vista service pack 1 ??

[PeterSt]

I'll be coming back on a few things, but haven't got much time right now.

Dave, try to make like more comfortable when you are going back to the spinning disk :

1.
If possible use another PC and connect the (SSD) OS disk to that. Now make a backup of that disk with any software able to backup an OS. Then connect the (due) spinning disk, and restore the backup to that. Mount it in the music PC - done.

2.
Note : appropriate backup software will be able to make a backup of a "live" OS disk, hence it theoretically will be able to do that just in your Vista machine (and of course is then able to restore that backup to the due spinning OS disk). BUT :
Acronis would be such software, which DID NOT WORK for me. So no matter what, don't go this route with that (#1 worked though with Acronis). After the restore (#2) it appears that some "live" data wasn't backupped, and the first thing after rebooting with the restore is "Windows wasn't shut down properly", and after a few reboots you end up with an empty screen and nothing to do (this is an Acronis version which supports Vista, huhmm).

Better invest in this "backup - restore" feature, because it will be guaranteed that you end up with the same settings. And in the mean time you'll be having a (guaranteed) backupped OS ...