Memory, Speed, and SSDs in DAWs

I've got an Intel quad-core machine with 3 Gbytes of RAM running XP Pro, and
recently moved to Protools 8.

I'm beginning to see some performance hits (1.4 Gbytes of pagefile use, for
example). The system works fine, it's just "sticky" (probably because of the paging)
which is annoying.

I have no problem adding more memory, but the motherboard manual informs me that
32-bit XP can't address more than 3 GBytes of RAM anyway and will ignore anything
more than 3.

I'm not inclined at this point to mess with a *very* stable OS installation by
changing the OS. (Oh, I'm sure XP-64 works great -- except for numerous
to-be-discovered gotchas. Don't really want to go there just yet.)

So I've been looking at SSDs for the system drive (or perhaps a dedicated page file
drive, as we used to do in the olden days for performance increases).

I've satisfied that the manufacturers (particularly Intel) have addressed the "wear"
problem with write cycles in SSDs, but have seen mixed reviews about speed
increases over a modern SATA II conventional HD.

Anybody been messing with SSDs for DAW use? Dramatic speed increases?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Frank
Mobile Audio

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Memory, Speed, and SSDs in DAWs
    ... I'm beginning to see some performance hits (1.4 Gbytes of ... GBytes of RAM anyway and will ignore anything more than 3. ... stable OS installation by changing the OS. ...
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  • Re: Memory, Speed, and SSDs in DAWs
    ... recently moved to Protools 8. ... I'm beginning to see some performance hits (1.4 Gbytes of pagefile use, ...
    (rec.audio.pro)