Topic: 722 hard drive questions..

[OFOTD]

FTP is a 40 year old protocol that is still used today and I find it MUCH more reliable than something like uploading via http or webdisks so this ancient protocol is still used today.

Could not agree more with this statement.   Still don't understand why people will trust a 3rd party service (like Dropbox) for anything other than throwaway data.

I know SSD is fast but considering this is pretty new technology, we've been doing just fine recording audio to HDD at 5400 or 7200 RPM. How would the average SD 744 improve swapping a 5400 rpm hdd with a ssd in terms of access time, write time, and overall performance? From what I've heard and read, it would not improve and the entire drive may fail unexpectedly.

It will not improve a 744 other than shock resistance and heat.   Access time and write time don't matter in the case of the 744.  Sustained write times would be the performance factor to look for.  In the case of both SSD and HDD those basic sustained write times far exceed what the throughput of the 744 would be.

Another thing to remember with the larger SSD drives is that the Sound Devices firmware does not support TRIM commands so in theory you'd need to do a reformat of the SSD far more often than a regular HDD.

[dream]

Could not agree more with this statement.   Still don't understand why people will trust a 3rd party service (like Dropbox) for anything other than throwaway data.

You see ... that's the problem with your 'mission'. To bring SSD usage together with the DropBox madness is tricking. Maybe you can imagine other people with
technical expertise exist too. I use SSDs, but not DropBox, in fact I warn about it and pay for dedicated net storage with encryption. I even used digital recording when most of my colleges warned about it (analog freaks), similar in argumentation than yours now. I survived all that and made a good living since decades with my decisions. Not everybody making other technical decisions than you is plain dumb.

[OFOTD]

Could not agree more with this statement.   Still don't understand why people will trust a 3rd party service (like Dropbox) for anything other than throwaway data.

You see ... that's the problem with your 'mission'. To bring SSD usage together with the DropBox madness is tricking. Maybe you can imagine other people with
technical expertise exist too. I use SSDs, but not DropBox, in fact I warn about it and pay for dedicated net storage with encryption. I even used digital recording when most of my colleges warned about it (analog freaks), similar in argumentation than yours now. I survived all that and made a good living since decades with my decisions. Not everybody making other technical decisions than you is plain dumb.

My apologies as it seems like something may have been lost in the translation.  As far as my argument about SSD reliability vs. HDD reliability goes it's not really an argument at all.  It's based on what the reality of what their respective reliability is.   Today SSD's just are not as reliable.  Pretty cut and dry.   No one is saying that in the future SDD's won't surpass HDD's in reliability but as of 2011 that's just not the case.

If heat and shock are your two biggest requirements then by all means go SSD.  If reliability, price per GB, capacity, power drain and overall compatibility are more important then HDD's are the way to go.   Living in Texas I can attest that running my 744 in 115°+ heat all day at a festival I have never once had a heat related shutdown with a HDD.   

[it-goes-to-eleven]

No real mission other than to just try and dispel a common myth.    Seen more SSD's fail in the last 2 years than I have seen HDD's in the last 8 or so.   Take that for what it's worth.

Agree.  People often assume new technology is superior, even when it isn't yet mature.  Case in point - I know far more people on this forum who have had SD and CF problems vs. HD problems in portable recorders.  It really is amazing that hard drives work at all, but they do work amazingly well.

The notebook hard drives used in the 7xx recorders are extremely refined technology.  The lack of failures reported on this forum is a major indicator of their maturity.

It is very easy for an electrical problem to render an SSD unreadable.  With a hard drive, the data tends to remain on the platters.

[dream]

Could not agree more with this statement.   Still don't understand why people will trust a 3rd party service (like Dropbox) for anything other than throwaway data.

You see ... that's the problem with your 'mission'. To bring SSD usage together with the DropBox madness is tricking. Maybe you can imagine other people with
technical expertise exist too. I use SSDs, but not DropBox, in fact I warn about it and pay for dedicated net storage with encryption. I even used digital recording when most of my colleges warned about it (analog freaks), similar in argumentation than yours now. I survived all that and made a good living since decades with my decisions. Not everybody making other technical decisions than you is plain dumb.

My apologies as it seems like something may have been lost in the translation.  As far as my argument about SSD reliability vs. HDD reliability goes it's not really an argument at all.  It's based on what the reality of what their respective reliability is.   Today SSD's just are not as reliable.  Pretty cut and dry.   No one is saying that in the future SDD's won't surpass HDD's in reliability but as of 2011 that's just not the case.

If heat and shock are your two biggest requirements then by all means go SSD.  If reliability, price per GB, capacity, power drain and overall compatibility are more important then HDD's are the way to go.   Living in Texas I can attest that running my 744 in 115°+ heat all day at a festival I have never once had a heat related shutdown with a HDD.

No problem. Shock resistance is important for me, as I want to walk around with my 744T, not thinking about it may get accidentally bumped around a bit. I had regular notebook drives fail after a bump.
As I wrote, critical things are recorded simultaneously to CF and SSD, therefore a backup is made. Every technology can fail and I personally can take the risk for my work as we don't have long term experiences with SSDs. Mostly I record on CF anyway for convenience. People had CF cards fail too ... I cannot remember having one failing in over 10 years (I'm a photographer too), although I have seen some fail for others.
Sound Devices new video HD recorder is announced using CF and SSD only ... what does this tell us?
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/pix.htm

[page]

Sound Devices new video HD recorder is announced using CF and SSD only ... what does this tell us?
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/pix.htm

It unfortunately doesn't (because of multiple causation and lack of information).

They could have opted for the SSD because of a size requirement that couldn't be met with drives that were as reliable. They could have because they now have SSDs that are more reliable. It could have been due to the environmental risk that they are assuming those machines will be in compared to what they assume ours will be in. If the next round of 744s or a 766 or whatever was SSD only, that would give me more reason to infer something.

[SClassical]

I actually use an IDE-CF adapter/CF inside my 722 and it works great. I did it because I can easily upgrade my internal memory by replacing CF cards which is easier. And the old one can be used for other devices or used as a backup in my 722 CF slot. I also run a SDHC card (using a SD/CF adapter) or a CF as my other backup. So I have 2 solid state drives running at the same time. Never had a problem..So everything is quite solid and reliable. I sort of invented the whole setup so maybe I'm the only person doing it this way. I used to have a HD inside my 722 but I was too worried it will break with all the vibrations/bumps my recorder goes through while travelling. So now I'm very happy that it worked out well for me for a long time.

[ghellquist]

I recently transplanted a small PATA SSD into my SD 722. Here are the reasoning "after the fact" for me.

First of all, why change. After all, if it a´int broke, don´t fix it. Well, my machine has reached a certain age and why not? Good time of the year sort of right now. ( critique , not really that well argued )

The options for me was either a PATA SSD ( there are a few available ) or new harddisk.

Price -- SSD about 4 times as expensive, not very much money though as both came below the cost radar
Capacity -- about same, never had problems with 32G in my machine, so 64 seems reasonable
Power consumption -- about same for the total system
Performance -- both good enough
Weight, other factors -- both good enough
Reliability -- probably compareable in my usage. The harddisc has never had a problem. According to the numbers, as far as I can understand, I can expect the SSD to hold the next 10 years. From the manufacturer spec: Write endurance 80years@10GBytes write and erase per day at 128GB and 10 years data retention.

So basically, just for the fun of it. Will report back if things change.

My choice was one that a distributor around here happened to have in store:
MICROSTORAGE 1.8" 64GB SSD PATA MLC
MSD-PA18.1-064MJ
Had to pad it up with some extra foam as it is smaller than the 2,5" harddisc.

Thinking right now if I want to speed up one of my old laptops with a SSD. Not quite certain that it is worth the effort, might want to have a new instead ....


// Gunnar

[AB52]

If you hook up a 722 to computer - do you have access to the hard drive - i.e. for reformatting it?  I assume so.
Intel makes an SSD with a special toolbox that will trim it.
Though I imagine if you just download the audio and reformat the drive - that should take care of it.
I wonder how many reformats an SSD can handle?
Sorry for all the questions - but here is another - how critical is a hard drive in these SD units?  Is the compact flash reliable enough?
THANKS,
AB

[mmedley.]

It's not real hard to figure out that Sound Devices is going with those SSD drives due to future availability.   Unless Sound Devices is getting some special batch of SSD's with fairy dust then they are using off the shelf consumer hard drives which I assume they probably buy in batches from a vendor like NewEgg.   

Here is what Sound Devices says in the link provided:

Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) in the 722 and 744T

Solid state hard drives, or SSD drives, are becoming a feasible storage medium for portable recorders and computers. Like CompactFlash cards, SSD drives have no moving parts and greatly extend the environmental operating conditions of the recorders. SSDs can operate in more severe temperature and vibration environments compared to traditional, spinning-disk hard drives. Additionally, they draw much less power than a traditional hard disk.

Compared to other solid state storage mediums such as CompactFlash, SD cards, P2 cards, and Express Card storage, SSDs have much higher storage capacities. Their larger physical size can accommodate more memory chips.

Transcend SSDSound Devices tested the Transcend SSD drive model TS32GSSD25-M. This drive performed properly, as expected, and can support up to four tracks of WAV audio recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz. We anticipate that other PATA (parallel ATA drives) SSDs to perform similarly.

Well its already been debunked that they draw much less power already once in this thread.  Then at the end they make the statement that they anticipate other PATA SSD's (there are extremely few PATA SSD's (<12) total on the market).   So assume they meant PATA IDE disks to perform similarly.   In that case its true because the throughput of the audio is far less that what any of those drives can handle on a regular basis.  Search for reviews on the Transcend drive they mentioned.  Not real favorable.

AnandTech has done several articles and studies linked to hard drive reliability.   Specifically with numbers of failure rates as well as manufacturer returns from both consumers and retailers.

I know how we all want to believe that SSD's are rock solid and outlast traditional HDD's but the truth is that in April of 2011 it's a myth.  There is no data as of yet to put SSD's over the top of HDD's especially in the case of using one in a 7xx recorder.   So far its all myth and marketing hype.  Just because SSD's don't have moving parts DOES NOT mean that they don't have other weak links and failure points.  At least we all know if a drive shits the bed you have a chance of recovering data from a HDD and no chance from a SSD.

Are there other reason's that lead you to believe that they are more reliable other than the 'no moving parts' argument?

Keep in mind this data is what, 3 years old? In 788T's is an undeniable fact that the SSD outperforms its non-SSD brethren. It has been fairly well documented that excessive heat in 788T's causes erratic and inconsistent operation in non-SSD units.

I drink SSD kool-aid.   

[F.O.Bean]

It's not real hard to figure out that Sound Devices is going with those SSD drives due to future availability.   Unless Sound Devices is getting some special batch of SSD's with fairy dust then they are using off the shelf consumer hard drives which I assume they probably buy in batches from a vendor like NewEgg.   

Here is what Sound Devices says in the link provided:

Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) in the 722 and 744T

Solid state hard drives, or SSD drives, are becoming a feasible storage medium for portable recorders and computers. Like CompactFlash cards, SSD drives have no moving parts and greatly extend the environmental operating conditions of the recorders. SSDs can operate in more severe temperature and vibration environments compared to traditional, spinning-disk hard drives. Additionally, they draw much less power than a traditional hard disk.

Compared to other solid state storage mediums such as CompactFlash, SD cards, P2 cards, and Express Card storage, SSDs have much higher storage capacities. Their larger physical size can accommodate more memory chips.

Transcend SSDSound Devices tested the Transcend SSD drive model TS32GSSD25-M. This drive performed properly, as expected, and can support up to four tracks of WAV audio recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz. We anticipate that other PATA (parallel ATA drives) SSDs to perform similarly.

Well its already been debunked that they draw much less power already once in this thread.  Then at the end they make the statement that they anticipate other PATA SSD's (there are extremely few PATA SSD's (<12) total on the market).   So assume they meant PATA IDE disks to perform similarly.   In that case its true because the throughput of the audio is far less that what any of those drives can handle on a regular basis.  Search for reviews on the Transcend drive they mentioned.  Not real favorable.

AnandTech has done several articles and studies linked to hard drive reliability.   Specifically with numbers of failure rates as well as manufacturer returns from both consumers and retailers.

I know how we all want to believe that SSD's are rock solid and outlast traditional HDD's but the truth is that in April of 2011 it's a myth.  There is no data as of yet to put SSD's over the top of HDD's especially in the case of using one in a 7xx recorder.   So far its all myth and marketing hype.  Just because SSD's don't have moving parts DOES NOT mean that they don't have other weak links and failure points.  At least we all know if a drive shits the bed you have a chance of recovering data from a HDD and no chance from a SSD.

Are there other reason's that lead you to believe that they are more reliable other than the 'no moving parts' argument?

Keep in mind this data is what, 3 years old? In 788T's is an undeniable fact that the SSD outperforms its non-SSD brethren. It has been fairly well documented that excessive heat in 788T's causes erratic and inconsistent operation in non-SSD units.

I drink SSD kool-aid.   

 Don't you mean LSD Kool-Aid

[2manyrocks]

I actually use an IDE-CF adapter/CF inside my 722 and it works great. I did it because I can easily upgrade my internal memory by replacing CF cards which is easier. And the old one can be used for other devices or used as a backup in my 722 CF slot. I also run a SDHC card (using a SD/CF adapter) or a CF as my other backup. So I have 2 solid state drives running at the same time. Never had a problem..So everything is quite solid and reliable. I sort of invented the whole setup so maybe I'm the only person doing it this way. I used to have a HD inside my 722 but I was too worried it will break with all the vibrations/bumps my recorder goes through while travelling. So now I'm very happy that it worked out well for me for a long time.

Bumping back to the top because I'm considering a used 722 from 2005 that has a replacement IDE drive in it.  I'd rather just have SDHC or SDXC in place of the hard drive.  Is this hard to do and about how much does it cost? 

[vegeta_ban]

looks like you can get an adapter for about 10-20 bucks for IDE-SD. I don't know how well they work though.

[MakersMarc]

Anyone know best price for a new hard drive compatible with a 722?

[thunderbolt]

You need a 2.5 inch PATA drive running at 5400 rpm (you'll have to buy a $100 adapter from SD if you want a SATA drive).  You can buy an 80 GB WD Scorpio Blue from Amazon for $38 and change.