SD Card vs. Ext. SSD. Whats the best to use?

I would like to use SD Card in SC Live 4, but I don’t know if it’s safer to read and write my music than an External SSD. However, it is more practical and ‘cleaner’ since it does not have cables and wires.

Which is best to use with SC Live?

External ssd will see higher read/write speeds and indexing speeds. SD Cards are fin in denon players for small libraries, but for anything larger than a few hundred tracks, go with the ssd.

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I’m using a 256GB SD card in my SC Live 4 and works perfectly. Have around 1200 tracks in total on it and never any slowdowns or hickups.

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It still baffles me why they didnt include a SATA drive slot in the SC-Live machines… its one of the best features Denon offer.

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They’s be better off with an M.2/MVMe slot in there, nowadays.

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Don’t think there would be a speed benefit with the current Rockchip used.

Yeah either would be good with me.

Ive found loading and syncing new music to the SSD far faster than doing it to say a USB flash drive, plus the convenience of having all the music internal is great for mobile gigs as one less thing to worry about.

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I was referring to the NVMe M.2 comment.

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@STU-C Yeah… I got frustrated when I saw it. At least one M.2 slot they should have put in, if it was a matter of space, as the SC Live is narrower. But I think that a 2.5" slot like the Prime wouldn’t take up space on the device. USB 3.0 ports would be very welcome. Anyway…

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Ahhh ok sorry Reese. Im guessing Ian is referring to the size aspect maybe?

Could be. I think the Rockchip even doesn’t have a SATA interface and all is going via USB3 internally.

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I was never a fan of SD Cards because of their fragility, but it’s the only ‘clean’ option for mobile DJs, as it doesn’t have cables or anything. However, a fast and good quality SD unfortunately costs more than an SSD of the same capacity!

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Size, & the fact that the last 2 drives I’ve bought have been that format. …I’m not buying 2.5 inch drives these days.

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2TB. It’s only the ssd housing that’s oversized unfortunately. Still bigger than a 2280 tho.

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Erm what about those claims about faster loads on the internal SSD? Snake oil?

Yes, enclosures need to be the size of a 2.5" HDD to conform to older laptop bay standards and computer cases. In fact, the internal board is much smaller than the enclosure. But it still helps to dissipate some heat from the components.

Drives by themselves are faster, so that always helps.

It really was a mistake for Denon not to put an SSD bay or a M.2 slot on SC Live…

But, thinking about it with myself… I believe that it is possible to put a bay and leave an SSD embedded inside the controller, like, ‘forever’. Just buy a SATA-USB 2.0 housing, remove the card from inside it, cut a USB cable, solder one end of the cable to the plate and the other end, solder it to one of the controller’s USB ports and leave it inside. But you need to know which wire goes soldered to which pin on the board, because if you invert one, the equipment is damaged! I don’t know exactly if this would actually work, but it’s an output and one of the USB ports on the back could not be used, since internally it is already being used by the SSD. And to transfer the tracks, just connect the equipment to the PC via USB cable, as in the Prime. Of course, you’ll be limited to the speed of the USB 2.0 port and if one day you want to change the SSD for a larger one, you’ll have to disassemble the unit… Or if you want to go deeper, you can cut the bottom of the cover, print a kind of of enclosure on a 3D printer, put it there and leave the SSD inside it. When you want to change it, just open the bay, like the Prime.

If someone is an engineer, suddenly, they can develop something deeper, but I don’t know exactly if this is possible, since SC Live motherboards don’t have SATA controllers (at least I don’t think so).

If memory serves me right the RK chip used in the denon 5/6000 only supports USB 2.0 speed as well.

What about external SSDs like the T7 which is faster than most consumer grade 2.5 SATA SSDs.

If the Chip is limited to 2.0 speeds then there should not be much of a difference in database load times between those USB connected storage and the SATA bay storage.

Or am I misunderstanding this?