Hard Drive mavens needed!

angevin1

I need help figuring out how to best use the SSD Hard Drive I just bought and will be here in a day or two.

160Gb

Should I install my apps on it, or run my apps on my platters?

plenty of room there!! I'd really like to get the most of my CS4 soon to be 5 , thats my goal~

I know there is no way in H that I'll get away with the whole Current Main C drive on it..though it is a trim 140Gb..Leaving only 20Gb doesn't seem Wise. ??

It is truly amazing how much data is on the Internet, and yet it is equally amazing how many folks really do not know how to describe it to a twelve year old..thats my standard of whether you know your stuff or not...stolen of course from Feynman ( the Physicist).


Lots of questions...H E L P ~


Any ideas?

Art Scott

I have no advice.......but I do have a question for you........................ why did you buy such a small drive? Was simply monetary? I am just curious.

ziggy53

Art Scott wrote: »

I have no advice.......but I do have a question for you........................ why did you buy such a small drive? Was simply monetary? I am just curious.

160 GB is a pretty sizable, and expensive, solid-state-drive.

I suspect that an SSD is best used as "scratch pad" for those chores that need both rapid storage and rapid access. Since applications generally only need to load once, assuming persistence, time savings are probably not that beneficial.

Unfortunately, SSD has a much more limited life when used for transient memory, so you may want to use it for program storage, just to save the life of the drive. (Unless, of course, you are budgeting for frequent replacement of the SSD.)

Database use also looks justified as the SSDs generally do very well with random read/writes.

Do make sure to max out your RAM first as that's where most speed comes from in modern operating systems, after the CPU itself.

Next I would add a RAID array to speed up anything large, like video files.

For the sublimely ridiculous, how about 24 SSD drives in a RAID array:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

Richard

angevin1 wrote: »

Any ideas?

Lots of good advice from Ziggy, as usual.

I wouldn't put my app program files on it. Generally, they load once and then are in RAM. What's more useful is to put cache files that programs use for temporary data, which are read and written often.

First choice--if you can do so--is to put the operating system's page files there.
Second choice: Photoshop swap space.
Those are the basics.

Next I would put some of my working directories for photo processing there--upload directly to the SSD and do your culling and temporary storage there, though not your final archive.

After that, you might consider moving your browser and any other program that you use frequently but that does not let you configure the location of its cache. This isn't always possible, as some programs make assumptions about where subordinate directories are located in the hierarchy. You may have to re-install programs to take advantage of this possibility.

Finally, I would not try to fill it too much. As has been mentioned, SSDs do have a limited number of read/write cycles, but most of them have smart controllers that will spread the wear over all physical locations on the device. If you fill the drive to capacity, this could interfere with spreading.

angevin1

Art Scott wrote: »

I have no advice.......but I do have a question for you........................ why did you buy such a small drive? Was simply monetary? I am just curious.

Yeah, in a way. I can be cheap! But truly I almost bought two instead, but figured I'd be better served learning about one at the price point they are, and then go for more once my learning curve has plateaued..

angevin1

ziggy53 wrote: »

160 GB is a pretty sizable, and expensive, solid-state-drive.

I suspect that an SSD is best used as "scratch pad" for those chores that need both rapid storage and rapid access. Since applications generally only need to load once, assuming persistence, time savings are probably not that beneficial.

Unfortunately, SSD has a much more limited life when used for transient memory, so you may want to use it for program storage, just to save the life of the drive. (Unless, of course, you are budgeting for frequent replacement of the SSD.)

Database use also looks justified as the SSDs generally do very well with random read/writes.


Do make sure to max out your RAM first as that's where most speed comes from in modern operating systems, after the CPU itself.

Next I would add a RAID array to speed up anything large, like video files.

For the sublimely ridiculous, how about 24 SSD drives in a RAID array:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

Ha. I saw that Vid the other day and of course, that was pretty darned cool..R/W speeds were pretty darned fast huh...yet so funny, I'll bet in ten years our R/W speeds for a normal drive will be up there too, and I suspect all HDD's will be third or fourth Gen SSD. Can't wait.

I thought about getting two SSD's to begin with and using a RAID ARRAY, but realized I'd have to get really, three SSD's to pull off what I wanted, faster I/O AND redundancy...with the two and a RAID 0 all I get is fast and failure with Loss of Data.....Which, I think I'm pretty good at redundancy now, but all it takes is that moment in time.

Yeah, not sure about transient aspects with the new Intel Tool box and the TRIM methods for management of the SSD. I am busy reading Intel and Adobe trying to piece it together, WHile keeping an eye peeled toward my incoming Quadro-FX cards' spec's. But everything I read says you're right...things go downhill quicker with transient data on an SSD.

Part of the overall aspect of what I am doing is about not jumping the gun. I do have an older CPU, an INTEL Q6600, quadcore @ 2.4GHZ per core, with my RAM Maxed out @ 8GB....plenty of unused HDD space, and like I said, I only have 140 +/- 2 GB on the Main Drive as it is, so pretty slim and trim in my mind....and that is uncompressed.

I think it would be easy to just say, oh, let me follow the crowd here, update to a i7 930, overclock to stable 4GHZ and install the 12 GB RAM and so forth, which is actually in my Newegg basket ready to ship...But I have time on my side. Time to see what it is that actually is problematic with the machine I presently run.

What I began doing this a.m.: Rather than running PC MARK and so forth I decided to do some real time tests and see what kind of time or problems came up.

I took 5 25MB PS Photo Files and opened them each into a Large screen at Full res. then after selecting all five began rotating them each simultaneously in 90' increments All the while watching my Core usage and my RAM usage. Basically, from what I could tell the only hold up had to be HDD related. The RAM was barely being used there...so theres a strike in that direction, but with platter style HDD's it could be the HDD is the bottleneck not the older CPU.

The I opened AFTER EFFECTS, and Put three 1080p HD video Files into a new Composition. Each file was about 35 sec's in length and were appx 190MB in size. As I added each file, I ran a RAM preview and Watched my Core/Ram Monitor on my desktop to see what it was up to all the while. Beginning with the first file due to my settings, It rendered almost all 35 sec's in real time...(.whereas before I got the Open GL type Vid card I am using now before the Quadro comes in, it would take about five minutes to render 35 Seconds worth of video).

I noticed in each one (RAM PREVIEW), My CPU cores all about Maxed out for the entire rendering process. Yet my RAM didn't get to 90% usage until about 25 seconds into the RAM preview. So while After Effects writes to RAM, I seem to have enough onboard to satisfy it. Even after adding all three files and also a Lighting effect that turned lights on/off brighter and darker and rapidly changed the coloring all at the same time, My RAm still only got to 90% usage after about 20seconds of rendering in the timeline. Though...and here's the deal, the render time slowed way up with all three files (as layers within) and the lighting effect applied. And THAT is where I want to improve my lot! COuld be that I HAVE to change CPU's to get there...But I want to prove it to myself....=justify!

Thanks for the Input Ziggy!

angevin1

Richard wrote: »

Lots of good advice from Ziggy, as usual.

I wouldn't put my app program files on it. Generally, they load once and then are in RAM. What's more useful is to put cache files that programs use for temporary data, which are read and written often.

First choice--if you can do so--is to put the operating system's page files there.
Second choice: Photoshop swap space.
Those are the basics.

Next I would put some of my working directories for photo processing there--upload directly to the SSD and do your culling and temporary storage there, though not your final archive.

After that, you might consider moving your browser and any other program that you use frequently but that does not let you configure the location of its cache. This isn't always possible, as some programs make assumptions about where subordinate directories are located in the hierarchy. You may have to re-install programs to take advantage of this possibility.

Finally, I would not try to fill it too much. As has been mentioned, SSDs do have a limited number of read/write cycles, but most of them have smart controllers that will spread the wear over all physical locations on the device. If you fill the drive to capacity, this could interfere with spreading.

Thanks Richard, for taking the time to think thru this with me.

I actually have disabled my paging file system. And I think from what little I understand regarding SSD's, I ought to Not use the SSD in that way. From what I gather using an SSD for temporary space is not a good move.

The caching idea is one I need to seriously look at. I had sent my cache to another inboard HDD that my app was not on/in and thats how I'd been using it...I will look that thought over...that combined with the fact of the app being in RAM makes some sense.

I don't know about PS swap space or files, so there's another thing I need to go and read about. I suspect Adobe has some data regarding that idea.

thanks again~

PhotoLasVegas

That's one of the new drives that doesn't use a spinning disc - VERY expensive and pretty sure that's one of the larger sizes.

I can't help other than to say, use it for disc-intensive processes - say if you use LR use it as the drive to export your photos to - but I think you'll still spend the same amount of time moving them to your normal drives.

aquaticvideographer

I'm running a Mac, but FWIW, I got a small (48GB) SSD and put OS X and Aperture 3 on it-nothing else. It's wicked fast to boot, and Aperture is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy faster than the version I have on my HD. Unfortunately, I can't afford an SSD that is large enough to put my Aperture library on it, or else I would. I've got a mid-2008, 2.6GHz C2D with a 7200rpm HD, so although not brand new, it's a pretty hardy computer even without the SSD.

angevin1

aquaticvideographer wrote: »

I'm running a Mac, but FWIW, I got a small (48GB) SSD and put OS X and Aperture 3 on it-nothing else. It's wicked fast to boot, and Aperture is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy faster than the version I have on my HD. Unfortunately, I can't afford an SSD that is large enough to put my Aperture library on it, or else I would. I've got a mid-2008, 2.6GHz C2D with a 7200rpm HD, so although not brand new, it's a pretty hardy computer even without the SSD.

Yeah! That is where the rubber meets the road. And that is the kind of info I wanted to hear too. So...Thanks for commenting !