With prices of solid state hard disks falling I'm temped to get one and install Windows + programs on it and use the rest for 'in work' images. Everything else will be on normal HDs.
Has anyone tried these? Is there a noticable performance gain when opening and closing 300MB+ files in photoshop often?
Full Version: Solid state hard disks
QUOTE (MarkL @ Aug 11 2009, 09:28 PM) 
With prices of solid state hard disks falling I'm temped to get one and install Windows + programs on it and use the rest for 'in work' images. Everything else will be on normal HDs.
Has anyone tried these? Is there a noticable performance gain when opening and closing 300MB+ files in photoshop often?
Has anyone tried these? Is there a noticable performance gain when opening and closing 300MB+ files in photoshop often?
Read this - Overview of SSD
Yes - it relates to Mac. But then again.. if its performance gain you want.. a MAC should be on your shopping list.
QUOTE (MarkL @ Aug 11 2009, 07:28 AM)
With prices of solid state hard disks falling I'm temped to get one and install Windows + programs on it and use the rest for 'in work' images. Everything else will be on normal HDs.
Has anyone tried these? Is there a noticable performance gain when opening and closing 300MB+ files in photoshop often?
Has anyone tried these? Is there a noticable performance gain when opening and closing 300MB+ files in photoshop often?
I just ran a test on my laptop:
Converted 60MP (P65+) DNG file to 16-bit TIFF in LR 2.4 - 10 seconds
Opened resulting 346MB TIFF in Photoshop CS4 - 2.5 seconds
I'm running two Samsung 256GB SSD drives in RAID 0, Quad core QX9300M, 8GB RAM, Nvidia Qaudro FX3700M 1GB video card.
Here are two benchmarks I ran on my current SSD setup:
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
The short answer is that, yes, using SSDs, especially in RAID 0, will take your image processing performance to the next level. SSDs allow laptops to compete with desktop workstations, they are silent, cool-running, and shock-proof. I decided to use the larger sized Samsung drives so that I could get 500GB of usuable disk space. That way, my OS, programs, and files all have a home. I can store more than just the last shoot on the SDD, and move files off onto >1TB HDDs as I need to. Remeber, also, that SSDs don't slow down as you fill them up. Regular disks do. And the newer drives, like my Samsungs or the Intels have the TRIM command built-in which should prevent seasoned drives from slowing down in random write cycles (this plagued earlier drives). My Samsungs also have background idle-time garbage collection, whcih allows them to optimize perfomance while I'm away from the computer.
So, far, I couldn't be happier with my decision to go SSD. I've never had as fast a computer before.
David
QUOTE (dfarkas @ Aug 11 2009, 10:09 AM)
I just ran a test on my laptop:
Converted 60MP (P65+) DNG file to 16-bit TIFF in LR 2.4 - 10 seconds
Opened resulting 346MB TIFF in Photoshop CS4 - 2.5 seconds
I'm running two Samsung 256GB SSD drives in RAID 0, Quad core QX9300M, 8GB RAM, Nvidia Qaudro FX3700M 1GB video card.
Here are two benchmarks I ran on my current SSD setup:
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
The short answer is that, yes, using SSDs, especially in RAID 0, will take your image processing performance to the next level. SSDs allow laptops to compete with desktop workstations, they are silent, cool-running, and shock-proof. I decided to use the larger sized Samsung drives so that I could get 500GB of usuable disk space. That way, my OS, programs, and files all have a home. I can store more than just the last shoot on the SDD, and move files off onto >1TB HDDs as I need to. Remeber, also, that SSDs don't slow down as you fill them up. Regular disks do. And the newer drives, like my Samsungs or the Intels have the TRIM command built-in which should prevent seasoned drives from slowing down in random write cycles (this plagued earlier drives). My Samsungs also have background idle-time garbage collection, whcih allows them to optimize perfomance while I'm away from the computer.
So, far, I couldn't be happier with my decision to go SSD. I've never had as fast a computer before.
David
Converted 60MP (P65+) DNG file to 16-bit TIFF in LR 2.4 - 10 seconds
Opened resulting 346MB TIFF in Photoshop CS4 - 2.5 seconds
I'm running two Samsung 256GB SSD drives in RAID 0, Quad core QX9300M, 8GB RAM, Nvidia Qaudro FX3700M 1GB video card.
Here are two benchmarks I ran on my current SSD setup:
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
The short answer is that, yes, using SSDs, especially in RAID 0, will take your image processing performance to the next level. SSDs allow laptops to compete with desktop workstations, they are silent, cool-running, and shock-proof. I decided to use the larger sized Samsung drives so that I could get 500GB of usuable disk space. That way, my OS, programs, and files all have a home. I can store more than just the last shoot on the SDD, and move files off onto >1TB HDDs as I need to. Remeber, also, that SSDs don't slow down as you fill them up. Regular disks do. And the newer drives, like my Samsungs or the Intels have the TRIM command built-in which should prevent seasoned drives from slowing down in random write cycles (this plagued earlier drives). My Samsungs also have background idle-time garbage collection, whcih allows them to optimize perfomance while I'm away from the computer.
So, far, I couldn't be happier with my decision to go SSD. I've never had as fast a computer before.
David
If you have the money SSDs are the only real choice right now. However they are still expensive especiall if you need a lot of space. The king of the hill is still the intel drives untouched by any competition. Sadly the same goes for the price. If you still want good SSDs go with the new Intels if you want to make sure OR the new Samsung, here it is important that they are new, because older drives have older firmware and are slower especially after a lot of use.
QUOTE (Christopher @ Aug 12 2009, 06:00 AM)
If you have the money SSDs are the only real choice right now. However they are still expensive especiall if you need a lot of space. The king of the hill is still the intel drives untouched by any competition. Sadly the same goes for the price. If you still want good SSDs go with the new Intels if you want to make sure OR the new Samsung, here it is important that they are new, because older drives have older firmware and are slower especially after a lot of use.
What about these guys?
http://www.crucial.com/
Their prices are lower I believe.
QUOTE (Christopher @ Aug 12 2009, 12:00 AM)
If you have the money SSDs are the only real choice right now. However they are still expensive especiall if you need a lot of space. The king of the hill is still the intel drives untouched by any competition. Sadly the same goes for the price. If you still want good SSDs go with the new Intels if you want to make sure OR the new Samsung, here it is important that they are new, because older drives have older firmware and are slower especially after a lot of use.
Christopher,
True. My Samsung drives are manufactured post July 1st, meaning they have the new firmware wtih TRIM and idle-time optimization. I decided on two of these because I wanted the size and the speed. I end up with 500GB, which is plenty for my laptop needs. Also the Samsung has incredibly fast read and write speeds. It is no match for Intel's 4K random write, but it is still many times faster than a spinning HDD.
I think the Intel will be a better choice when they release the 320GB model that is rumored. I decided to go with works and is available today, which was the P256 drives. Incidentally, I cheated a bit on the price. I bought mine from Dell for $469 a piece, which is by far the lowest $/GB of any SSD I looked at ($1.83/GB).
David
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