Solid State drives and the BR1600

[bruno]

Has any one tried this? I love my Br1600, but its generally friggin slow - slow to start and to swap songs. I was wondering if any one has tried this - if and when the drive dies, I will probably replace with a solid state drive as they are much more robust (no mechanical parts) - and memory is so cheap these days - interested to see if any one has done this?
B.

[AndyR]

I'll be interested in hearing the responses to this. I've got over the slowness of loading and saving for the moment, but, yeah...

And I'm clobbering mine particularly hard at the moment - and in the back of my mind I have "hard drives wear out" ... not looking forward to it all

[Tony W]

I've had my 1600 on and off for 3 years, and got it used. I've not had a drive fail, but am anxious about it happening. I do have solid state drives in a few laptops, and I didn't notice a significant amount of increased speed, so I'm not too hopeful.

[launched]

The only thing I'm wondering is if there are legacy ATA connections with solid state drives and if the BR1600 would be compatible with their larger capacities. I think the BR1600 has at most an 80GB hard drive.

And you would definitely not be able to take advantage of a solid state drive's 3 Gigabits per second SATAII speed with an adapter. The bus speed on your BR is most likely matched with the hard drive at 100 megabytes per second or maybe even less.

So I would think there would be no increase in speed, but considering the fact that you use your recorder a LOT and have a bunch of songs on it, I would find another hard drive for it when you can. There are still new and cheap ATA drives out there - You just want to make sure that larger capacities are compatible with your unit.

Hope I didn't bore you

Mark

[64Guitars]

The only thing I'm wondering is if there are legacy ATA connections with solid state drives and if the BR1600 would be compatible with their larger capacities. I think the BR1600 has at most an 80GB hard drive.

Actually, the BR-1600 is limited to 40GB. I think they started putting 80GB drives in mainly because 40GB drives were no longer being made. The 80GB drives are divided into two 40GB partitions. I don't know how many partitions can be accessed from the BR but I'd want to find out before buying a drive that's bigger than 80GB.

You're right that there'd be no improvement in data throughput. But there should be an improvement in seek times, which just might cut down on Drive Busy errors.

[bruno]

64G's is right - my machine is 80G split into two partitions. I think the software supports multiple 40G partitions - in theory (if they've done their job right) - you should be able to have more that 2, although I've never tried this. That said, I'm on song 126 and only 1/2 way through the first partition - so never have deleted everything (although its all backed up), so more that ample disk space wise.

My thinking here is for two reasons, 1) speed and 2) robustness 3) silence (although the BR is quite quiet) - the second point is that general concern around mechanical drives - solid state ones are more robust, so should not be subject to failure (famous last words!).

Take the point about ATA drives, if the bottle neck is the bus, then a speedier disk simply won't help. However there may be some millage in it, particularly for seek times. Its swapping and loading songs which is slow on the BR1600.

I suspect it won't be long before Boss bring out a flag ship recorder - possible rebuild the BR-1600 using modern technology - they have all the software and the designs, which is the hard part. Its nearing 10 years old, and technology has shifted in that time - and now looks expensive compared with the current field. So we shall see.

Thanks for all the comments guys.

B.

[AndyR]

Yep, mine's 80G split into two 40G partitions.

I'm somewhat over halfway through the first partition at the moment - for somewhat less songs

I'm about to go and tidy up the last project (remove all the redundant submixes and unused stuff, then optimise) - should get me a good few hours back!

I'm kinda looking forward to Boss releasing a replacement, as well. I'm a little worried about it, though. This thing is almost perfect for my workflow, and I'm scared that in improving it they might lose something I use!!

[bruno]

Hmm. Have been searching to find out anything on replacing drives. One thing I've learned in IT, if it aint broke, don't try an fix it. I may buy a disk and put it away in case though.....

Though this was interesting - not the 1600, but I should imagine process would be similar.

http://thestudiofiles.com/?p=241


Also found this

When I owned the 1600, my hard-drive was defective.
I took the 40 out, and put another 40 in.
Load the OS back on, and the Ver. 2 upgrade and away you go.
As I recall, it went very smoothly, and only took about 1/2 hour.


So - the 'load the OS' - not sure where from - any ideas? Has anyone replaced a disk on the 1600 - strange, I can't find any instructions.

B.

[64Guitars]

Also found this

When I owned the 1600, my hard-drive was defective.
I took the 40 out, and put another 40 in.
Load the OS back on, and the Ver. 2 upgrade and away you go.
As I recall, it went very smoothly, and only took about 1/2 hour.


So - the 'load the OS' - not sure where from - any ideas? Has anyone replaced a disk on the 1600 - strange, I can't find any instructions.

The OS is in internal flash memory, so there should be no need to reload it. Although you should make sure you have the latest update before attempting to change the hard drive.

I think you just need to physically replace the drive. Then, when you turn the BR on, it will recognize that the drive is empty and ask if you want to initialize it. Once initialization is complete, the BR should operate normally. I think initialization even partitions the drive for you.

I'm attaching a pdf file I downloaded a long time ago (don't recall where) which shows how to change the hard drive in the BR-1180. I think the BR-1600 should be very similar.

[bruno]

Also found this

When I owned the 1600, my hard-drive was defective.
I took the 40 out, and put another 40 in.
Load the OS back on, and the Ver. 2 upgrade and away you go.
As I recall, it went very smoothly, and only took about 1/2 hour.


So - the 'load the OS' - not sure where from - any ideas? Has anyone replaced a disk on the 1600 - strange, I can't find any instructions.

The OS is in internal flash memory, so there should be no need to reload it. Although you should make sure you have the latest update before attempting to change the hard drive.

I think you just need to physically replace the drive. Then, when you turn the BR on, it will recognize that the drive is empty and ask if you want to initialize it. Once initialization is complete, the BR should operate normally. I think initialization even partitions the drive for you.

I'm attaching a pdf file I downloaded a long time ago (don't recall where) which shows how to change the hard drive in the BR-1180. I think the BR-1600 should be very similar.

Thanks 64G - appreciate it.
B.