SSD... How Good?

[gan_esh]

Greetings,

 

As many of you may have noticed, Solid State Drives (SSD) seem to be the 'next

big thing' in the mobile computing market. More and more manufacturers are

introducing notebooks with SSD's included or as an option (Toshiba 800, MacBook

Air, Asus eePC).

 

It's still new tech and relatively pricey, and currently offered mostly with

'ultra-portable' type notebooks, which aren't the ideal rigs for photo editing,

IMHO, but I think SSD's will eventually trickle down(up?) to larger 17"

powerhouse notebooks an maybe even desktops in the future as prices drop/stabilize.

 

I've read quite a few articles regarding their benefits and all, and the words

'reduced latency' keep popping up often.

 

What does it mean, actually? For example, if the next gen Macbook Pro line had

SSD's as an option, all else being equal (CPU, RAM,) would a SSD outperform a

HDD with regards to performance in Photoshop CS3, Illustartor, Corel Painter

X...etc?

 

Thanx in advance. Cheerz!

[steven_clark]

My guess as far as the theory goes is that, unless you are paying an absurd amount for an ultra-premium high-bandwidth drive, that these drives will actually perform slower for image editing applications, but will load Photoshop itself like lightning. Solid state drives are usually lacking in throughput for large files, while at the same time having an access time so low as to be effectively immune to all disk thrashing, storage tug-of-wars, and file fragmentation.

[richsimmons]

Read quick. Write slow. At least so far. By the way, the new Macbook Air comes with an optional 64 gig SSD. Other advantages, no heat, no mechanical arm swinging back and forth, longer lifetime, not subject to vibration issues and nothing to spin. Latency is how long it takes for you to click to how long it takes for you to recieve your response. Hard drives have traditionally been the slowest factor.

[mark_sirota1]

In terms of speed, on a scale of 1-10:

<p>

A 4200rpm drive == 2

<br>

A 5400rpm drive == 4

<br>

A 7200rpm drive == 7

<br>

An SSD drive is a 32.

<p>

(Drive speed isn't only about RPM, but this should give you some idea.)

<p>

Disclaimer: I'm making up these numbers.

[mark_sirota1]

Clarifying that -- I'm talking about access time, not throughput. Throughput is not so much about the disk but about the bus and the glue connecting the disk to the bus.

[spchampion]

Hi! A number of years ago, I profiled a bunch of solid state drives. The technology has changed a lot since then, but the underlying issues remain:

 

- Throughput is faster than regular drives, but not a lot faster. You are still limited by your bus speed - likely SATA or SCSI. Solid state does not necessarily mean "performs like regular RAM." (Throughput measures how much data can get pushed through in a given time. It's the measure most people care about.)

 

- Latency, however, is improved. If you're dealing with a large number of small files, or your disk is fragmented, expect somewhat better performance. (Latency measures how fast the drive can find the data you want. On a spinning disk, the drive has to spin around to the point where the needed data begins. On an SSD, no spinning is required and the data can be accessed almost instantly.)

 

- Power consumption is much lower. No spinning moving parts means less power required to keep the drive going. If you're on a laptop, this is really nice to have.

 

- Failure rates should be lower in some cases. The drive has no moving parts and that means no little pieces to break and go crashing around on your disk. Dropping the drive and causing sudden jolts won't be as dangerous.

 

- Long-term failure rates remain to be seen. I think it's likely that SSDs will last longer given their design, but I would still backup your precious data early and often.

 

- Price is killer. It's been killer for years. Nothing has changed, although it will likely get cheaper as the technology gets more popular. However, if you need large amounts of storage, regular drives will likely be cheaper for the foreseeable future.

 

Hope this is helpful.

[wes_baker1]

Last review I read of one of these was that it was nearly unusably slow. Certainly the technology must have improved though, and will continue to do so.