What’s The Best SSD Format for Playing Media Files?

Lmblack77 on 08/01/2022 - 17:24

I’m in the market for a SSD drive but I’ve become confused by the QVO/EVO, 860/870 etc. formats and I don’t know what’s best to buy for my intended use.

I’ll be using the SSD to play media files. That’s it. I won’t be gaming or running software of any kind. It’ll be a drive on which I keep audio and video files, maybe playing them on shared devices via DLNA.

I’ll be after a 4TB drive and they can get expensive, so I’d rather not buy a more technically advanced drive if I don’t need to. At the same time, it needs to be fast and realisable.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated 🙏

Computing Computer Component SSD

Comments

  • Nutrino on 08/01/2022 - 17:35
    +17

    Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink PCIe 4.0 M.2 is what I use op. Anything less just won't cut it for playing my divx/mp3.

    • pharkurnell on 08/01/2022 - 20:20
      +2

      hahaahahahaha!!!!!!!!

    • pegaxs on 09/01/2022 - 09:47
      +4

      Don’t want to admit it, but you had me in the first half… :D

  • boomramada on 08/01/2022 - 17:54
    +15

    Any SSD will do, just get a Samsung one. For using as media files, I wouldn't even bother with SSD.

    • mblack77 on 08/01/2022 - 19:48

      Thanks for that. Won’t files take slightly longer to load on an SSD vs HDD? Maybe only fractionally but it’s noticeable on my external drives.

      • iDroid on 08/01/2022 - 20:43
        +16

        Longer to load? I'm not sure how that would effect media playback.

        Perhaps 25ms longer before it starts to play a media file…

        I love SSD, but it provides little benefit for media playback.

        • [Deactivated] on 08/01/2022 - 22:00
          +3

          Hard drives take time to spin up, so if they're powered down, it can take a noticeable amount of time to begin populating a directory, let alone playing the file. This is quite annoying. Once the hard drive is powered up though, it would only take a second or two at most. Still noticeable, but much less annoying. You shouldn't notice any issue actually playing the file once it has begun.

          If that's what they're actually talking about, then I can definitely understand their annoyance. Any SSD will do for media playback and will not have any of the issues I mentioned above. Buy from an established brand with a decent warranty to back it up.

          • mblack77 on 09/01/2022 - 00:47

            @[Deactivated]: Thanks, that’s exactly the issue I’m referring to. The time it takes to spin up and start.

            • Hybroid on 09/01/2022 - 03:13
              +6

              @mblack77: Depends on how you use the drive. We've used HDDs in large media NAS arrays (30TB+) for years and years but they're on 24/7 so not an issue. Some external drives can be set to be constant active and not power down, others do automatically. It depends but for 4TB content, a HDD is fine and you don't need to pay SSD premium.

              Unless you're video editing. Different story. But for just playback? A $99 4TB HDD is perfectly fine.

            • shadow7412 on 09/01/2022 - 08:07

              @mblack77: You can set them not to power down if that really bothers you.

            • gromit on 10/01/2022 - 09:29
              +4

              @mblack77: Then set them to not power down, save yourself a fortune, get much more space, hell can even implement redundancy with mirroring and come out way ahead with no noticeable difference in performance. Your specific use case described really doesn't benefit from SSD.

            • knk on 10/01/2022 - 15:53
              -1

              @mblack77: if you're going to consume a minimum of 20 minutes of media 2 seconds of spin up is negligible.

        • skillet on 09/01/2022 - 14:30

          Currently, HDD ($ per GB) is perfect medium for archival. The disadvantage is that initial copy takes a bit more time, much heavier and higher power usage.

          However if you want portability then SSD is more reliable for knocking around and if you are rich why not.

        • frowny on 10/01/2022 - 18:39

          There's also the practical reality that you need to get your media ONTO the SSD/HDD somehow - are transfer speeds an issue?

          • iDroid on 10/01/2022 - 19:01

            @frowny: In a commercial setting maybe. In real personal life? I'm as impatient as the best, but eh, the sustained sequential write speeds coupled with disk and OS caches make this mostly a non issue in real world use.

            • frowny on 10/01/2022 - 21:30

              @iDroid: Depends how big your video files are - I take a lot of video and the following all suck hard:

              • Transferring from SD card -> HDD
              • Transferring from HDD -> Backup drive 1/2/3 every 6 months
              • iDroid on 10/01/2022 - 22:52
                +1

                @frowny: I hear you, but in those examples, the slow bits are the SD-Card and interface, and most likely the interface between the backup drive and machine. I'm making assumptions here as I don't know your setup, but in the scenario you describe it doesn't seem like the HDD is the limiting factor.

      • boomramada on 08/01/2022 - 22:54
        +2

        No, I can give you a good example, I got 4k movies (around 50gb each) on WD Elements Desktop hard disk, using raspberry pi as NAS, play in Shield without any issues.
        Plus media players usually got some cache for network playing) so you wouldn't notice a thing.

        And what kind of media are we talking about, for movies, 4TB isn't much.

      • AndyC1 on 09/01/2022 - 09:06
        +2

        External V's internal SSD is a different question.

        Do you want an external or internal drive?

  • Philipp on 08/01/2022 - 17:55
    +6

    you probably get away with just using a HDD instead.

  • hellbound on 08/01/2022 - 18:01

    There aren't many options for 4TB drives, they should all be QLC nand. In which case just get the cheapest known brand you find, none will have an issue handling media files.

  • smashman42 on 08/01/2022 - 18:04
    +10

    HDD would be much more cost effective for media storage, more than fast enough for video and audio playback

    If you must get an SSD, the QVO should be cheaper being a QLC drive - their downside is write performance not read, so no down side for media playback.

    Quick run down on Samsung naming - EVO and QVO are the series, EVO the more performance ones, QVO the basic storage ones. The numbers are the series. 800 is SATA, 900 is NVMe. *60 *70 is the generation, and for these SATA drives means pretty much nothing. (regardless of EVO/QVO, the generation change from *60 to *70 is just more dense newer flash chips IIRC, like going from 96 layer to 128 layer or something like that. Negligible performance differences on SATA drives, just more space per chip, meaning bigger drives possible)

  • Butt Scratcher on 08/01/2022 - 18:09
    +2

    Why not just get a hard drive? They're more than adequate for viewing media files, heck you could do it on a USB. Hard drives are probably about 4 times cheaper than an equivalent ssd.

    5tb for 155

    https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/165164153067?epid=28048276876&ha…

  • scrimshaw on 08/01/2022 - 18:10
    +3

    I’ll be using the SSD to play media files
    I’ll be after a 4TB drive

    As others have said, I'd buy a HDD instead. The advantages of an SSD is not applicable for your use case and you are overpaying for something you don't really need.

  • garetz on 08/01/2022 - 18:16

    What makes you think there is a best format for playing video files on an ssd ?

    • AndyC1 on 08/01/2022 - 18:48
      -6

      Because OP has no idea what bit rate is and how that impacts the I/O IOPS. Then there is the codec, not "Code in C"…..

      Then there which player to use….
      Then there is which screen is best for playback…
      Then there is what audio system is best for the surround sound experience….

      Do you think OP understands this?

  • xuqi on 08/01/2022 - 18:27
    +1

    Personaly, I'd look to buy a 4TB Samsung 860/870.

    Evo have higher endurance (TBW, Terrabytes written).

    QVO/QLC based drive would be perfectly fine to storing, playback of media (not write intenstive activity) without breaking the bank.

    4TB Samsung 870 QVO $429
    https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-Solid-State-Storage-Capaci…

    4TB Samsung 860 EVO $599
    https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E4T0B-A…

    4TB Samsung 870 EVO $669-$749 (latest Evo model)
    https://www.ple.com.au/Products/644777/Samsung-870-EVO-Serie…

    4TB Seagate Barracuda Internal 2.5" HDD (~$240+)
    https://www.jw.com.au/seagate-4tb-barracuda-2-5-laptop-hard-…
    https://www.umart.com.au/product/seagate-barracuda-4tb-2-5-s…

    https://techie-show.com/qlc-vs-tlc-vs-mlc-vs-slc-buying-an-s…
    https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/06/tlc-vs-qlc-nand-pick-the-…

  • AndyC1 on 08/01/2022 - 18:45
    +2

    Any HDD will do for playing video files. As such get a spinning media 4TB and save your money. Even a "slow" 4900 RPM will do.

    • mblack77 on 08/01/2022 - 19:50
      -1

      My concern is it would take slightly longer for a HDD to ‘wake up’ and start playing the files. As petty as it sounds, that little delay irritates me after a while!

      • lachhelix on 08/01/2022 - 19:53
        +1

        If it helps I have a 6TB external USB hdd with all my media on it and I've never had any problems with delays at all

      • scrimshaw on 08/01/2022 - 20:05
        +6

        You can turn that off by disabling the power management features in Device Manager.

        https://superuser.com/questions/814765/external-harddrive-sp…

        Go to Device Manager.

        Click on the + sign by Universal Serial Bus Controllers, right click on each USB Root Hub and select Properties.

        Click on the Power Management tab.

        Uncheck the box Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

        This means the HDD will never turn off (it'll keep spinning and never go to sleep).

      • Butt Scratcher on 08/01/2022 - 20:36
        +1

        Can't argue with that, feel free to spend over 4x the amount for an ssd if the spinny sound when it turns on is too irritating

        • mblack77 on 09/01/2022 - 00:48

          It’s not the sound, it’s the wait as the HDD starts spinning. Plus the longevity of the SSD over HDD.

          • havebeerbelywillsumo on 09/01/2022 - 01:10
            +2

            @mblack77: If there's a truly perceptible wait, long enough to irritate, then your setup has a problem IMO.

          • Butt Scratcher on 09/01/2022 - 22:32
            +1

            @mblack77: You literally just said it was part of your consideration.

            Plus the longevity of the SSD over HDD.

            True, SSD's are more shock resistant. A key consideration if your computer gets thrown around.

            It's pretty clear that you've made up your mind. As everyone else has pointed out, there is no performance issues to consider with any SSDs or HDs, so just get the cheapest SSD you can get your hands on. Which in your case, a QVO SSD

      • AndyC1 on 09/01/2022 - 09:04

        Have you checked you HDD S.M.A.R.T. table to see if the HDD is working okay? If not then your system is probably not setup correctly w.r.t. saving power instead of running as a power user.

        Never had an issue with the wake up time of my HDD's, but have had HDD's that are starting to fail cause wake up time issues and as such this sort of problem has allowed me to save the data and get a new HDD before the HDD died.

      • adricl on 09/01/2022 - 13:11

        This start time would also not matter so much if you are using a DLNA server as it has a fast DB to show all the content. The HDD spinning up would not be that perceptible over the wire compared with running it on your pc directly as it takes a while for the stream to start. If it has to be transcoded that would also add some delay.

          • deme on 11/01/2022 - 14:19
            -1

            @mblack77: Quite simple really:

            You: I’m in the market for a SSD drive but I’ve become confused by the QVO/EVO, 860/870 etc.

            Me: OP go away, if you were 1 metre away from the sound source it is already delayed by 3ms due to physics.

            The average SSD "seek" ~0.2 ms
            The average HDD seek time is ~3ms.
            The average CD seek time is ~70ms.

            Can you see how worrying about which SSD to get is stupid? That's not even counting the latency between reading the bits and having speaker driver react.

            If you actually have a problem then it's not your drive it's either something else or psychosomatic.

            • mblack77 on 11/01/2022 - 18:19
              -1

              @deme: no, you haven’t grasped what I was asking about and have leapt in with you irrelevant, unwanted opinion. Go find another thread to troll.

              • deme on 12/01/2022 - 13:39

                @mblack77:

                no, you haven’t grasped what I was asking about

                Given others have said the same thing as myself, do you want to specify why you need a SSD over a HDD for media files?

  • 7ekn00 on 08/01/2022 - 18:56

    Hell, even the super cheap SMR HDDs will do the job (~8TB ~ $200):
    https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/185157152382?
    Sure, it will take a while to write too, but media is generally write once, read many times ;)
    7

  • rektrading on 08/01/2022 - 19:40

    SSD is overkill for 1080p media playing.

    • AndyC1 on 09/01/2022 - 09:09

      Sure is. I have only started playing UHD 6 months ago and do not have the experience on the resources yet.

  • qwetzen on 09/01/2022 - 08:13

    Use any reputable brand SSD. Many have suggested a platter HD, but I found their noise (and heat) intrusive and exclusively use SSDs now.

  • Topdog on 09/01/2022 - 09:39
    +1

    SSD not needed for media storage/dnla. Even 4K files dont even slow down on the ol trusty 7200

  • Venustrap87 on 10/01/2022 - 17:53

    U need more than 4tb.

    How bout 100tb of storage

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join