Solid State for the OS?

You don't need an SSD for images, you just need two disks on an SATA or USB 3.0 interface. SSDs are good for cache, but don't really help with batches. Fast hard disks (anything modern, really) will give the CPU data just as fast as an SSD.

tim wrote in post #11056935
Fast hard disks (anything modern, really) will give the CPU data just as fast as an SSD.

Nonsense! An SSD will pump data to your processor anything from 5 to 50 times (depending on file size) faster than a mechanical drive. When I installed my SSD the speed difference was incredible.

It reminds me of the old days when we used to have the OS, and frequently accessed data, on a hard drive (I had a massive 32 MB for my first one) but most data was kept on floppies. Now I keep the OS and frequently accessed data on the SSD and most of the data on HDD.

Even the fastest 10,000 RPM Velociraptors pale in comparison to an SSD.

tim wrote in post #11056582
Solara, why would you move the page file to a slow spinning disk? The only time i'd do that is if I had heaps of RAM and a 64 bit OS.

I have 8gb of RAM and Win7 64-bit, and I've never approached full use of the RAM, so I decided to move the pagefile off the SSD, and onto the HDD to reduce wear on the SSD. In the very rare instance where Windows might have to use the pagefile, it's still fast enough on the 7200RPM internal HDD, and it's on a separate drive, so it's not that detrimental to performance.

tim wrote in post #11056582
Solara, why would you move the page file to a slow spinning disk? The only time i'd do that is if I had heaps of RAM and a 64 bit OS.

You wouldn't want to use the SSD for processes which do a lot of writing to the disk, such as a page file. Ideally, I believe that a high speed (Velociraptor 10Krpm) empty disk would be ideal for your temp workspace files.

Putting the OS and application files on the SSD is ideal since they don't do a lot of writing (other than software updates), but are read-mostly files. You can check your existing disk to see how much space is required, but probably 40-60 GB would be fine. Then put your home directory and data files on regular disks.

On my MacPro, I have 4 disks. I use a 120GB SSD with dual-boot of OS X and Windows 7 both with their associated applications. My home files and data is on a pair of 1TB disks striped as RAID-0 to have 2TB of space at double the data rate. The 4th disk is a 300GB Velociraptor 10K disk for workspace (although it would be better if it was normally empty, I also keep my Virtual Images here for Windows 7, Linux, and Windows XP for running as a VM in a window under OS X as well as my normal Windows data in a separate NTFS partition).

I then back all this up over the network to a Drobo FS in the basement using Time Machine for the data disk and SSD, and a script for the VM images which runs nightly.

So far, it works well...

-howard

dmbpettit wrote in post #11055968
Not sure what this means.

It means we have replaced the stage with TV, replaced TV with the internet, and at the core of every internet access lies a MPU (microprocessor unit). Must be a few trillion of these devices in the world by now with the bulk likely being obsolete.

The only problem I have with a SSD is that I use a gaming laptop with 2 drive bays and the 80GB is a bit of a limit since one drive is dedicated to images and the other drive is partitioned into OS and data drives. I would certainly welcome the speed and the possibility of an increase in reliability. Drives are pretty stable these days.

Ok, I checked, for large file transfer (which is what batch processing RAW files is) an SSD is twice as fast. As I said though, with two hard drives being used i'm CPU limited, not hard disk limited. My disks do about 120MB/sec, and my RAW files are about 15MB. It takes my quad core CPU about 1-2 seconds to process a raw file, so the disk isn't even working hard. An i7 would be faster, but not ten times faster.

SSDs come into their own for things like loading the OS or launching programs. That makes the machine faster without hugely increasing batch job throughput.

hfgarris wrote in post #11058740
You wouldn't want to use the SSD for processes which do a lot of writing to the disk, such as a page file. Ideally, I believe that a high speed (Velociraptor 10Krpm) empty disk would be ideal for your temp workspace files.

Why not? There should be no reason why you can't put the swap file on the SSD. That is, if speed is your primary concern. And if you are thinking of an SSD in the first place then speed IS your primary concern.

tim wrote in post #11059712
Ok, I checked, for large file transfer (which is what batch processing RAW files is) an SSD is twice as fast. As I said though, with two hard drives being used i'm CPU limited, not hard disk limited. My disks do about 120MB/sec, and my RAW files are about 15MB. It takes my quad core CPU about 1-2 seconds to process a raw file, so the disk isn't even working hard. An i7 would be faster, but not ten times faster.

SSDs come into their own for things like loading the OS or launching programs. That makes the machine faster without hugely increasing batch job throughput.

Yes, you'd think that an SSD wouldn't help much in such obviously processor-intensive tasks. But it's obviously more complicated than that, because real-world tests show a substantial speed increase. I tested importing a load of files into Lightroom and generating 1:1 previews - which should be limited by he processor. But it was substantially faster. I can't remember the exact numbers, but there's a thread about it somewhere. I'm pretty sure that CyberDyneSystems has posted similar test results.

Indecent Exposure wrote in post #11060508
Why not? There should be no reason why you can't put the swap file on the SSD. That is, if speed is your primary concern. And if you are thinking of an SSD in the first place then speed IS your primary concern.

Some people are worried about the limited number of read/write cycles an SSD can perform. They wear out after around 10,000. But that's still 1.6 petabytes of data on my drive. Even with a swap file on there it's going to take many years to reach that limit - by which time I'll probably be looking for a larger, faster, drive anyway.

I went with this one for my ssd

http://www.memoryexpre​ss.com …/PID-MX25842%28ME%29.aspx

With Win 7 64 bit and my applications installed I've used up 60.2 GB of the 148 GB usable capacity.

hfgarris wrote in post #11058740
You wouldn't want to use the SSD for processes which do a lot of writing to the disk, such as a page file. Ideally, I believe that a high speed (Velociraptor 10Krpm) empty disk would be ideal for your temp workspace files.

Putting the OS and application files on the SSD is ideal since they don't do a lot of writing (other than software updates), but are read-mostly files. You can check your existing disk to see how much space is required, but probably 40-60 GB would be fine. Then put your home directory and data files on regular disks.

What do you mean by the 'home directory'?

Here is a second question. I have Carbonite as a one of my backups. I cannot tell carbonite that the images it has already backup are now on a different drive letter. According to Carbonite, they must remain in the C:/users/brian/picture​s folder. Any way of tricking carbonite? I have heard about mountain a drive as a folder on another drive, but never tried it.

Indecent Exposure wrote in post #11060508
Why not? There should be no reason why you can't put the swap file on the SSD. That is, if speed is your primary concern. And if you are thinking of an SSD in the first place then speed IS your primary concern.

SSD drives are fast READ, but not so fast WRITE. They start out running pretty fast, and then tend to slow down because of the way they allocate space. Unlike a conventional magnetic disk, they don't overwrite freed-up space immediately, they continue to write to unused cells until the device is full (fast writing), then they have to do an erase cycle before they can write new data (now they are slowing down). To alleviate this problem the OS (windows) or certain controller chips attempt to do "garbage collection" during idle time to reset the no longer used cells to the unprogrammed state, but if you are hitting it constantly with a swap file it doesn't get the chance before the SSD disk is full (unless you have a really big $$$ SSD drive). There is a lot of information out on the internet regarding this problem and identifying which drives are better for certain operating systems and applications. There is also a lot of difference in write performance for different brands of SSD disks, so you have to read the specs and not just go on the flashy read speeds advertised.

Also, clearing the drive with "scrubbing" data (writing all zeros to the disk) doesn't work with SSD drives like it does with conventional drives, in fact that drives it to the worst performance state. The SSD has to be "reset" to the un-programmed state with a special controller command to regain the factory fresh speeds again, something not all motherboards can do.

Disclaimer: I admit I am not an expert in SSD applications, but I have been doing a fair bit of research and forum participation recently to better understand how to effectively use these devices in my computers. I am currently running SSDs to some extent in 2 desktop computers and 2 laptop computers and am learning as I go. Hopefully some "working experts" may hang out here and can clarify the details better than I am.

-howard

hollis_f wrote in post #11060734
... I'm pretty sure that CyberDyneSystems has posted similar test results.

My RIG is using something not exactly the same as an SSD, much faster in fact, especially where write is concerned.

I use something called a "GigaByte I-Ram"
http://techreport.com/​articles.x/9312

4GB only but the fastest physical drive to put your PSCS swap file on, but still it is limited in speed by the fact that it uses the SATA interface...


I also use this in conjunction with a "RAM-DRIVE" http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/RAM_disk

which is a segment of your motherboards RAM being reserved and used as a logical "drive" with a drive letter and all,. this is faster still than the I-Ram as the interface is eliminated allowing full speed of the RAM to be used.

And yes, these tweeks dropped timings considerably!

Well, I just completed a New Tower with a 64G SSD, and four 500G Sata drives for storage and work area. I haven't filled my SSD and the only program I am missing is Photomatix for HDR work. All of my other business apps are loaded and running.

And like someone suggested, I only have the bare essential programs and support on the SSD. I am lucky that my Mobo, supports Sata3, and my SSD is capable.

But like many of you, I too am learning about this technology as I work with it. So beware I am no expert either, but I am learning day by day.