Maschine + SD Card speed

Since the Maschine + running Kontakt can stream off the SD card, is there any sort of guideline as far as what speed of SD card to use? I'd like to get a decent idea before plonking some cash for a decent sized card.

 

This is a quote from n.i

The card included in MASCHINE+ has the following specifications: UHS-I, U3, Native I. Class 10, V30. A1, which are the recommended one. Anything faster would also do the trick

 

Are there any tips and hints about using an usb-stick?

For what I know SD-Cards are limited in reliability and write-operations.

 

The manual is out , not sure if there’s any info in that

 

I don’t think usb drives are supported at all yet. I may be wrong.

 

Hi all! Working on a video, and I think I can confirm that my SD cards are not working properly compared to the one the M+ comes with. Audio recording glitches when using any other card other than the one it comes with. Pretty sure that is the problem...
Other cards say SD XC I V30 U3 C10 170 MB/s. (and other cards that are lower than those numbers all give me the same recording glitch).
M+ card that comes is Micro SD XC I U3 C10 V30. So I'm not sure why the above card isn't working. the MB/s are not listed on the M+ card, but that might be it?

So my cheap 256GB card aint gonna work!
Post back if y'all have a high capacity card that is working well, let us know the numbers on it!

 

This is the equivalent of what the SD that came with M+ :
https://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Speicherkarte-V30-Zertifiziert-Generalüberholt-Schwarz/dp/B07BSCJQHY
It's cheap and slow.

I tried a few and they all worked fine, I have a 95 mb/s Sandisk Extreme Pro which is noticeably faster than the one that came with Mas+. This one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-SDXC-Memory-Class/dp/B01J5RHD58/

I was reading on a photography/video forum that SD cards above 95 mb/s (especially ones at 170 mb/s) use some sort of technology to get around the speed limitations on UHS-I, so they might not be supported by all devices, (generally this super high speed is only needed for very hi res cameras or cameras that shot video in RAW) on a computer, for example, you need a SanDisk special reader for full speed. Source: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4360809
So... It's unlikely that super speed UHS-I (if 170mb/s) will work at the advertised speed, or even work properly. (?)

UHS-II has higher speed ratings, 300 mb/s+ but I am not sure if Maschine+ supports those either or if it's the reader is even USB3 (or some sort of pcie equivalent) to handle 300 mb/s. (usb-2 won't support that much speed.). I tried asking NI directly but didn't get a satisfactory answer; the best I got was a recommendation for this one.

Btw this is the difference in speed between the Ni card and mine, tested on a USB 3.0 Reader.

 

Thanks for sharing the tests! Do you know of any reason we should avoid a larger size SD? Would they have any weird limits with reading a 1TB unit? I think 256 or 512 would be plenty, but as they add more compatible expansion packs I'd hate to have to re-purchase cards when capacity runs low.

 

No problem.
TBH i never heard of an SD bigger than 1 TB anyway... By that time I expect external hds to be supported.

 

Thanks D-One, I just tried some more tests, and it might have been because I was hot swapping cards... (plugging them in without restarting the M+... the thing they tell you not to do in the manual!)

Just restarted and things worked as they should!

 

No problem. If you're doing a video i'd love to see the speed difference of scan time of the original SD VS a fast SD, especially if a lot of expansions are installed, or editing big samples. I am considering buying one of those 170mb/s or a 300mb/s cards but I want to be sure it's worth it... I hate slow devices.

 

Transferring Samples from the PC over USB directly to the SD-Card in the Maschine+ is sooo slow - just 2 to 10MB/s max. Can you confirm that? Dont have a card-reader or a better card right now... Also installing expansion takes hours (not really hours but it feels like that).

 

From my SSD in OSX it did not take long to move samples, but I only moved a small folder. The install process for expansions did take some time & I have 1gig internet... the server is likely quite overwhelmed given the release of K13CE via download + the Maschine standalone units on the market.

 

Cannot confirm that. Had about 80-100mb/sec depending on sample and file size. Copying many files with small sizes always takes longer and is slower

 

downloadspeed and ni-servers are fine, but installing takes long. I also copy my samples from a fast 970 Evo plus via usb - but 6-10MB/s is even very slow for a usb2-connection.

 

hmm...weird - 80-100 is what I´ve expected :-/.

 

:O WHAT? How the heck are you getting those speeds with smaller files?? Especially with the original slow SD card.

Yes, if I use NI's SD inside M+ connected over USB I don't even reach 8MB/s, it's super-duper slow.

I went to windows to test it out, copied the \Maschine 2 Factory Library\Samples\Drums from the computer to the SD card, lots of small files, 2GB.
NI SD:
USB 3 card reader - I get a max of 28 mb/s but it dips down to less than 1mb/s often. Slow but usable.


With Mas+ connected via USB - A max of 6mb/s with not that many dips - Slow as heck...


My Sandisk SD:
USB 3 card reader - max of 40 MB/s and never dips lower than around 6 mb/s.
With Mas+ connected via USB - Max of 9MB/s, dips to 3MB/s.
Forgot the screenshots for those, sorry. So.. for 30$ the Sandisk Extreme Pro and a 3.0 card reader could be worth it for people who move files around often.

 

OK, more testing... I'm pretty sure it's down to my project having too many tracks and the CPU being too high. Just tried recording again on my big project and i get the same glitch when recording. I then restart (something I didn't do in my last tests) before loading an empty project, try recording, and it works perfectly. So I don't necessarily think it's the speed of the card that is the issue. Definitely a glitch that I need to get to the problem solvers at NI! re-shooting my vid today...

 

Oh yes, I am sorry. It was a rar-file, not the small ones.

 

Thx to the "open sunday"-shopping over here I could get a new "hopefully" faster sd-card and an USB3.0 Card-Reader (up to UHC-II) today.

First I want to get an UHC-II with 260MB/s writing speed but 155€ for 128GB? So I go for the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHC-I 256GB for 70€ because I dont think the M+ can use the speed of an UHC-II card.



TEST RESULTS:
Copying files from PC (I did a backup of the files from the original card first) via front side USB 3.0 port I got to 83MB/s writing from the pci-e ssd for most of the time. Sometimes with a lot of small wav-files it drops down to 6MB/s - but that was just once for some seconds.

The rescan with 56GB installed on the new card takes 50 seconds.

The direct transfer from pc to m+ is now always over 8MB/s up to 10MB/s - so its much better on average speed With the original card I had 2-8MB/s but most of the time at 2-3MB/s Not much better but for smaller libraries or single samples its ok.

BUT NOW THE BEST:

Previewing longer samples is now flawlessly and extemely fast - like in controller-mode with the maschine-software on pc. With the orignal card the preview takes a bit sometimes. Maybe 500ms to a second before the preview starts - what was kind of sad and not the expierience I expected or were used to from the mk2 with the maschine-software on the pc.

FINALLY:
Now I´m happy