retro fitted MPC4000 with Solid State Hard Drive

Kosher like Hanukkah. No corruption of data, nor loss of data (knock on wood). Plays nice with Ak.Sys on i7 macbook with osx 10.6.8. The only thing that has happened occassionally, when I create a new project folder it will take a while to create it, but I also keep my machine on for days/weeks/months at a time with a 40 program multi loaded in RAM. So, do not know if it an issue with the disk or the MPC OS is being buggy. It has not happened lately. Other than that it works like a charm. Faster, quieter, cooler.

I also use 2 more of these drives in external firewire enclosures for my logic setup, so it's fair to say I like Crucial drives. YMMV.

jimfowler wrote:actually sounds like atestarr is doing ok w/ his.

atestarr - can you state for the record that everything is kosher with your setup?

- jim

alright! nice!

mr_debauch wrote:
nobody is asking about the longevity of anything... it's about the data.... how is it holding up, any errors or issues of that nature? But it doesn't look as if anyone who actually has one installed wants to comment on that.

Could your ears hear 1 swizzled bit out of 3358098 in a WAV file anyway?

atestarr wrote:but I also keep my machine on for days/weeks/months at a time

You must be rich....

feline1 wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:
nobody is asking about the longevity of anything... it's about the data.... how is it holding up, any errors or issues of that nature? But it doesn't look as if anyone who actually has one installed wants to comment on that.

Could your ears hear 1 swizzled bit out of 3358098 in a WAV file anyway?

not sure what that has to do with anything... or how that is relevant to using an SSD with an OS that predates SSD drives. I mean, we know that using defrag type features would likely cause issues on SSDs... but how about other things like the way the mpc formats a fresh drive? or how deleting and writing new files affects things in the long term. These are issues some people were having on windows XP a couple of years ago... That is why I was curious.

dryad-66 wrote:

atestarr wrote:but I also keep my machine on for days/weeks/months at a time

You must be rich....

I'm rich in love. /sarcasm

I formatted the drive on the mpc. Although I have always wanted to try it, I have never defragged the SSD. Something tells me a process meant to reallocate bits of information stored on spinning platters does not apply. I do wonder what will happen after too many read/write/erase cycles since that's what eventually kills the individual memory cells, but I haven't reached that point yet. I did read they are developing SSDs that are self healing, so maybe in the near future this will not be an issue.

mr_debauch wrote:

feline1 wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:
nobody is asking about the longevity of anything... it's about the data.... how is it holding up, any errors or issues of that nature? But it doesn't look as if anyone who actually has one installed wants to comment on that.

Could your ears hear 1 swizzled bit out of 3358098 in a WAV file anyway?

not sure what that has to do with anything... or how that is relevant to using an SSD with an OS that predates SSD drives. I mean, we know that using defrag type features would likely cause issues on SSDs... but how about other things like the way the mpc formats a fresh drive? or how deleting and writing new files affects things in the long term. These are issues some people were having on windows XP a couple of years ago... That is why I was curious.

Yeah, DON"T defrag it ever, it isn't necessary as the disk controller has access to all parts of the disk no matter how much info is on there or where it is. Besides it will have its own wear levelling system built in where dead cells are quarantined off (these drives come with 5% extra cells for this purpose).

The big problem with SSDs in computers was the continual caching of temporary stuff by operating systems meant the drives were getting written to 100s of times a day, and MLC type drives were dying in a few months or a year.

mr_debauch wrote:
not sure what that has to do with anything... or how that is relevant to using an SSD with an OS that predates SSD drives. I mean, we know that using defrag type features would likely cause issues on SSDs... but how about other things like the way the mpc formats a fresh drive? or how deleting and writing new files affects things in the long term. These are issues some people were having on windows XP a couple of years ago... That is why I was curious.

The MPC4000 OS doesn't HAVE a defrag routine, so an SSD (which doesn't need defragging) is a boon.

The SSD's firmware is supposed to make all these things transparent to the OS anyways.

atestarr wrote:not sure what that has to do with anything... or how that is relevant to using an SSD with an OS that predates SSD drives. I mean, we know that using defrag type features would likely cause issues on SSDs... but how about other things like the way the mpc formats a fresh drive? or how deleting and writing new files affects things in the long term. These are issues some people were having on windows XP a couple of years ago... That is why I was curious.

I've had an SSD drive as my Windows 7 C:\ drive for about 2 years (or is it 3?) now, and it seemed very happy, with a huge performance improvement.

Actually, I've just upgraded to Windows 8 and put that on a new SSD drive (256GB), so next week I plan to put my old 128GB SSD in my MPC4000 instead, after I blow the dust off it.

Then what does going to Global>Memory>Operation>Defragment refer to?

The MPC4000 OS doesn't HAVE a defrag routine, so an SSD (which doesn't need defragging) is a boon.

The SSD's firmware is supposed to make all these things transparent to the OS anyways.[/quote]

atestarr wrote:Then what does going to Global>Memory>Operation>Defragment refer to?

Gee, dude, I don't know! Could it POSSIBLY refer to the, er, MEMORY, do you think?

That's the RAM. Not the hard drive. Duh.

feline1 wrote:

atestarr wrote:Then what does going to Global>Memory>Operation>Defragment refer to?

That's the RAM. Not the hard drive.

Yeah that's the RAM re-arranger or defragmenter, which should be used sparingly, like if you get the situation where you're running out of RAM at quite a bit less than 512mb, say 10% less or something like that.

It's not recommended as something to do every time you use the MPC for example.

Thanks. That is the kind of response I was looking for.

MPCdawk wrote:

feline1 wrote:

atestarr wrote:Then what does going to Global>Memory>Operation>Defragment refer to?

That's the RAM. Not the hard drive.

Yeah that's the RAM re-arranger or defragmenter, which should be used sparingly, like if you get the situation where you're running out of RAM at quite a bit less than 512mb, say 10% less or something like that.

It's not recommended as something to do every time you use the MPC for example.

Since other people have written about their experiences installing an SSD in their MPC 4000's, namely using another IDE adapter than the one originally on this list, I bought and tried out the Kingwin ADP-06 'SATA to IDE Bridge Board and installed it without issue. It does seem to have better throughput and doesn't hang when saving projects, so I'm updating this for anyone who stumbles across it in the future. These prices are as of 2010, so they've definitely changed.

Updated list for SSD conversion:

1.Kingwin ADP-06 'SATA to IDE Bridge Board, price NA (probably around 8.00 USD)
Found on Amazon.

2."Vantec NexStar 3 NST-360U2-BL 3.5-Inch IDE to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure
Electronics; $32.99, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

3. "SILVERSTONE SDP08 3.5 to 2 X 2.5-Inch Bay Converter"
Electronics; $7.99, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

4. "Crucial Technology 64 GB M225 Series Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT64M225" Electronics; $197.59, Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC