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SSDs

Some interesting points are being raised here. Here's some more for the mix.

* Following a tip from Theo, I experimented yesterday with playing from data stored not on a "watched" folder on the 2.5" HDD attached to my cMP^2 box but on a folder on a USB flash drive.

The data are identical, the HDD is still spinning and, obviously, a USB port had to be re-enabled. In spite of all that, there was [is] a marked improvement in SQ.

* If I set the HDD to spin down after three minutes of inactivity, it does just that, suggesting that there is no disc-related R/W activity during replay. The disc has in any case a good dedicated PSU, is carefully mounted outside the CPU box, its SATA lead is fairly well shielded from the motherboard and its platters spin at a sedate 4,500 rpm.

* For all practical purposes, system power consumption can reasonably be assumed to be the same. I haven't measured it but it is unlikely to be any lower.

* Given the disparity in data rates between an SSD, an HDD and a flash drive, they are unlikely to be the cause - it takes roughly ten times longer to copy an album to the flash drive than to the HDD whereas an SSD is faster than an HDD. But the HDD seems to score worse than either for SQ.

* The only difference I can spot is that music data are being read from flash memory via USB rather than a disc via SATA.

That a similiar effect is reported if the HDD is replaced with an SSD suggests - though it certainly doesn't prove - that it's not to do with bus topology. It seems to be a case of flash memory v rust.

This should not be and, no doubt, some will tell me in no uncertain terms that it isn't.

Whatever, those little 8GB Kingston SSDs are also being sold off cheap in the UK so I've ordered one. With a bit of luck, I should be able fairly soon to repeat hfavandepas's experiment of putting the OS on one.

Watch this space.

++++

* I see that hfavandepas encountered the same issue as I did when pulling flac-format data over a LAN to a cMP^2 box. It's a bit of a relief that the problem has been replicated even if he seems to get it less often than I did. (I managed to "repair" some files by re-ripping the CD but it wasn't foolproof and in the end I had to work out a different playing routine.)


Edits: 01/31/11
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