SSD for editing then move to HDD?

Do any of you load your images to an SSD while editing for performance and then once the edit is done move them to a slower storage at lower cost? If so how is that working and what SSD do you use?

I am running in to performance issues and I am guessing it is because my photos are on an external HDD (don't remember the RPM off the top of my head)

benji25 wrote in post #18454954
Do any of you load your images to an SSD while editing for performance and then once the edit is done move them to a slower storage at lower cost? If so how is that working and what SSD do you use?

I am running in to performance issues and I am guessing it is because my photos are on an external HDD (don't remember the RPM off the top of my head)

What editing software are you using? I've done what you suggest with Lightroom and it made a little difference, but not too much compared to editing directly off the NAS. Does your computer currently have an SSD for the operating system and applications? If not, that upgrade will make more difference than where the images are. I like Samsung SSDs.

mike_d wrote in post #18454977
What editing software are you using? I've done what you suggest with Lightroom and it made a little difference, but not too much compared to editing directly off the NAS. Does your computer currently have an SSD for the operating system and applications? If not, that upgrade will make more difference than where the images are. I like Samsung SSDs.

I use a combination of Capture One, LR and Photoshop. Computer does not have an SSD it is a late 2013 iMac with dedicated graphics.

Was thinking about doing a new build since I will be editing 4k footage now so maybe it is just time to upgrade to something new.

benji25 wrote in post #18454983
I use a combination of Capture One, LR and Photoshop. Computer does not have an SSD it is a late 2013 iMac with dedicated graphics.

Was thinking about doing a new build since I will be editing 4k footage now so maybe it is just time to upgrade to something new.

I don't know if that computer can be upgraded (Apple appears to make that proposition as difficult as possible) but replacing hard drives with SSDs is life changing. My PC is an i7-2600 (6 years old?) with 16 GB RAM and all SSD storage. It runs circles around brand new computers with hard drives.

mike_d wrote in post #18454989
I don't know if that computer can be upgraded (Apple appears to make that proposition as difficult as possible) but replacing hard drives with SSDs is life changing. My PC is an i7-2600 (6 years old?) with 16 GB RAM and all SSD storage. It runs circles around brand new computers with hard drives.

Yeah I would do a new PC build. No way I am upgrading that even if possible.

benji25 wrote in post #18454954
I am running in to performance issues and I am guessing it is because my photos are on an external HDD (don't remember the RPM off the top of my head)

More important than the "RPM" might be the connection method.

I think for photo editing, it makes little difference. Once you open the RAW, most info is sitting in RAM, assuming you have enough RAM. I also don't notice much difference in LR, but I do have quite bit of RAM. For video editing, it makes more differences even if you max out your RAM, it is unlikely to be able to storage all the footage you need to load at once.

For exporting, in my case, it is CPU limited when exporting to SSD, but I think is HDD limited exporting to HDD. However, if you need to copy from SSD to HDD, might as well just export to HDD

If you are doing a new PC build, there is no doubt at least your OS drive should be on SSD. Random access performance of SSD is what makes the most difference in term of how fast the PC feel. You can swap the HDD to an SSD for a 5 years old computer and it will feel like a new computer. IMO, the processing power of desktop micro processors hasn't really improve by too much for many years.

I use Lightroom on a 2 or 3 year old Windows 10 box, with my OS and software on an SSD and data on an external HDD. For 3 months, as an experiment, I put the LR catalog and new RAW files on the SSD. It made little if any difference to performance.

But as the SSD filled up I had to have transfer sessions, moving the files from the SSD to the much bigger HDD. So putting new pic files on the SSD greatly increased the complexity of file and backup management. I had to be verrrry careful not to delete stuff from the SSD until I was sure it was all properly moved and backed up. It was totally not worth it and I reverted to using the HDD for all photo files new and old.

I am wondering abou someing similar and that is how to speed up transferring the images off the camera.

I am, as I type, importing into LR some 2000 images of a cfast card from today and they are going onto my laptop hard drive...non ssd, 5400rpm, via USB 3 cable direct from camera.

Would importing them to direct to an external SSD be quicker?

Or is it better to Download from the camera - to whatever HDD - in one step and the import into Lightroom in a separate step?

I really need to speed up this process, it is bad enough with 20mp images but when I have a couple of thousand 30mp images it really sucks.

graham121 wrote in post #18534653
I am wondering abou someing similar and that is how to speed up transferring the images off the camera.

I am, as I type, importing into LR some 2000 images of a cfast card from today and they are going onto my laptop hard drive...non ssd, 5400rpm, via USB 3 cable direct from camera.

Would importing them to direct to an external SSD be quicker?

Or is it better to Download from the camera - to whatever HDD - in one step and the import into Lightroom in a separate step?

I really need to speed up this process, it is bad enough with 20mp images but when I have a couple of thousand 30mp images it really sucks.

Get a USB 3.0 card reader. It'll likely be faster than reading directly from the camera. Writing to an internal SSD will be faster than writing to a hard drive, but I think the weakest link in your case is the camera. Writing to an USB SSD would just add more congestion to the USB bus.

mike_d wrote in post #18534876
Get a USB 3.0 card reader. It'll likely be faster than reading directly from the camera. Writing to an internal SSD will be faster than writing to a hard drive, but I think the weakest link in your case is the camera. Writing to an USB SSD would just add more congestion to the USB bus.

I already have a Tarangus USB 3.0 card reader for the CF and SD cards, but not CFast, however when I have used it
A) download speed seems about the same, maybe a bit faster but not significant
B) a number of files ( maybe 1 or 2 %) would get corrupted during the transfer and would need to be transferred again individually.

I also had this issue usung a previous USB 2 card reader, and combined with a bent pin has made me reluctant to take cards out if possible...

The external SSD would hang off the USB 3 hub just like the camera.

Agreed an internal SSD would be better, but dont fancy swapping out the existing HDD myself.

graham121 wrote in post #18535105
B) a number of files ( maybe 1 or 2 %) would get corrupted during the transfer and would need to be transferred again individually.

Amazing, never had a file corrupted by transfer.

benji25 wrote in post #18454954
I am running in to performance issues and I am guessing it is because my photos are on an external HDD (don't remember the RPM off the top of my head)

Not sure about the other software but it won't make any significant difference in Lightroom. What is important for speed in Lightroom is the location of the catalog and the previews. The RAW data is never actually edited so its location is irrelevant. During the editing process the various RAW processors create/update the preview image and write adjustments to a catalog/file. So putting your LR catalog and the preview folder on an SSD will have a much greater impact on processing speed than the location of the RAW files.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #18535948
Not sure about the other software but it won't make any significant difference in Lightroom. What is important for speed in Lightroom is the location of the catalog and the previews. The RAW data is never actually edited so its location is irrelevant. During the editing process the various RAW processors create/update the preview image and write adjustments to a catalog/file. So putting your LR catalog and the preview folder on an SSD will have a much greater impact on processing speed than the location of the RAW files.

Maybe your comparison is right, but the difference when working in LR is inconsequential.