Got some cash to spend. iMac or another MPC?

I wouldn't use a solid state drive for audio just yet - and like someone else said - get a good external drive anyway.

I'd go with an imac and maschine

FIREWIRE!!!!!

MCL wrote:I wouldn't use a solid state drive for audio just yet

why not ?

mr_debauch wrote:get the computer, you dont wanna get jacked off craigslist like that other dude almost did... even though he got those idiots good it cost him time and energy.

konc3pt wrote:

MCL wrote:I wouldn't use a solid state drive for audio just yet

why not ?

We got a few for work - I lecture on Pro Tools and Ableton at a further education college (and also use Traktor extensively) - and we got some in to see how they worked out, put them in a few of our machines that the students use all day every day.

I was pretty interested in how they performed - because I use Traktor in a club environment and was interested to see how a SSD performed, as my "traditional" spinning 7200 HD had had some problems performing well in a club environment from time to time - mainly because of bass frequencies interfering with the drives mechanics essentially.

Now - they worked superbly at first - they were fast and efficient - but after say - about three months, things were noticeably different. Taking a while to find, and read back clips for Ableton - audio for Pro Tools - and the one machine that used Traktor - the seek for audio became a bit of a mess.

Now - according to the manufacturer (we had a rep that came into work to help us with the drives) these problems stem from how the drive writes data across the drive, the more you rewrite, erase, write and alter files (adding ID3 tags for Traktor etc) - the drive slows way down - the more you move and alter files on the drive - the more compounded this problem becomes. The controller chip in the drive ultimately determines the quality of all this file handling - and for processor intensive tasks like audio - it still needs some work really.

I think SSD will be THE way to go - but for the moment, its still a bit sketchy for some applications.

The drives can be brought back to their full potential - but the only way to get this performance back is to format the drive and load all the stuff that you had on it in the first place - But, as you use that audio, move it, rewrite it etc - the problem is just gonna come back unfortunately.

I'll be keeping an eye on the SSD development - but for now - I'm using an external 7200rpm firewire drive - and a chunk of foam to rest it on to avoid unnecessary jolts - high tech eh!?

manufacturers all use their own proprietary controllers in flash drives, so your computer's OS (which benefits from years of experience in filesystem tuning) doesn't get to do clever things with the disk, you're relying on the controller to do a good job.

some good (fairly technical) info at http://lwn.net/Articles/353411/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/355149/

I'm no expert, but I'd guess SSD might work better for the OS partition, but not for audio/sample files that change frequently

Thanks for the input guys. It was very helpful on my decision. Been shopping around for a used iMac the past few days and even consider of getting one of those refurb iMacs. I guess the MP3K can wait until I graduate until I make a decent living.

CL is your friend, I seen lotta nice 24imacs for around 1k

MCL wrote:

konc3pt wrote:

MCL wrote:I wouldn't use a solid state drive for audio just yet

why not ?

We got a few for work - I lecture on Pro Tools and Ableton at a further education college (and also use Traktor extensively) - and we got some in to see how they worked out, put them in a few of our machines that the students use all day every day.

I was pretty interested in how they performed - because I use Traktor in a club environment and was interested to see how a SSD performed, as my "traditional" spinning 7200 HD had had some problems performing well in a club environment from time to time - mainly because of bass frequencies interfering with the drives mechanics essentially.

Now - they worked superbly at first - they were fast and efficient - but after say - about three months, things were noticeably different. Taking a while to find, and read back clips for Ableton - audio for Pro Tools - and the one machine that used Traktor - the seek for audio became a bit of a mess.

Now - according to the manufacturer (we had a rep that came into work to help us with the drives) these problems stem from how the drive writes data across the drive, the more you rewrite, erase, write and alter files (adding ID3 tags for Traktor etc) - the drive slows way down - the more you move and alter files on the drive - the more compounded this problem becomes. The controller chip in the drive ultimately determines the quality of all this file handling - and for processor intensive tasks like audio - it still needs some work really.

I think SSD will be THE way to go - but for the moment, its still a bit sketchy for some applications.

The drives can be brought back to their full potential - but the only way to get this performance back is to format the drive and load all the stuff that you had on it in the first place - But, as you use that audio, move it, rewrite it etc - the problem is just gonna come back unfortunately.

I'll be keeping an eye on the SSD development - but for now - I'm using an external 7200rpm firewire drive - and a chunk of foam to rest it on to avoid unnecessary jolts - high tech eh!?

appreciate the feedback man, do you know what brand ssds were installed at your work ?. I know OCZ hardware and software allows for restoring to factory condition without needing to format or doing anything else for that matter.

They were Intel X18-M's I beleive - The ones that Intel categorically said would not slow down over time - Go figure. Although I know they released a firmware update - I have no idea what impact it had.

I will say this however - Our computers were used with audio in an educational environment by students 10 - 12 hours a day 5 days a week for about 10 - 12 weeks - Hardly real world type usage I suppose. But it happened none the less - so there you go.

Sovereign wrote:

konc3pt wrote:I'd steer away from Imac for simple reason of being stuck with a slow 5400RPM hard disk drive.

I used to have a 20 imac and that thing would start bottlenecking past 10 tracks of various content

iMacs have used 7200's ever since the G5's with the 600Mhz bus.

Sell the 3kxl and 1k, keep the 950 and get the 3k then add the iMac to that.

+1

best of both worlds....

MCL wrote:I'd go with an imac and maschine

Yeah, although a Macbook Pro and Maschine would be preferable for a more portable setup.