looking at a barracuda ZA500CM1A002 i know most ssd will work but has anyone experienced one that doesn’t? is there something i should be looking for here apart from bigger/better/faster ? cheers
Yeah, rething bigger LOL. If you have that large a collection you have other problems 
But seriously, it’s all SATA600 these days and while your mileage may vary some, transfer speeds are so high that it really doesn’t make that much difference.
SSD’s depend on various factors to make them “better”:
- the actual memory chips used
- the controller used
For the chips, there are too flavors, TLC (Triple Layer Cell)/MLC (Multi Layer Cell) on the one hand and SLC (you guessed it - Single Layer Cell) on the other. The first kind is cheaper, somewhat slower and has a (relatively) shorter lifespan. SLC are hardly seen in consumer/prosumer products.
With regards to lifespan, every cell can be written too a limited amount of times. When you know this number, you can calculate the total amount of data that can be written to the SSD during it’s lifespan. These values have gone up over the recent years and are now at a level of lifetime (30+ years) with normal use. Normal use being regular writing, deleting, rewriting.
As DJs we have the added bonus of doing mainly reading from our drives (unless you decide to redo your 450GB collection every two days). And reading doesn’t change the lifespan. So, imho, expected lifespan isn’t a concern for DJs (anymore).
Controllers are a few brands with multiple models. Here you would have to look into benchmarks to find the differences. Again, with our kind of usage, I don’t think you have to worry about it too much.
In essence if a device (P4 in casu) works well with a regular HD, it will most certainly work with a comparable SSD and faster.
The main speed difference comes from the device being able to find data on the drive directly, regardless of where it physically sits within the memory cells. In regular drives the heads have to be told where to go and that takes time.
Currently the Samsung EVO series (860/870) are slightly more expensive than other brands, but considered the “best”. I have had great results with the Crucial MX500 series as well, which are a bit more attractive price-wise (mind you, it’s a 65 vs 85 euro difference, not something you should be worrying about if you just bought an 1800 euro controller).
Don’t know the Barracuda you mention personally, although I have worked with Barracuda HDDs over the years. I am assuming that with it’s genes and the Seagate brand behind it, they will just work fine too.
My 3 cents as usual.
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man thanks for taking the time for such a comprehensive reply! my experience / knowledge is more with hdd and i know / trust the barracudas back in the day. i will have a look at the evo. cheers for the heads up
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Anytime, you are welcome