SSD hard drives consideration

[RaymondC]

<p>Hi all - I have a PC that is a 2.33Ghz Intel Quad I got in 2009 for this hobby of mine. I don't process so many images so it is fine, nor do I shoot sports or events etc. Pretty much a sunset type shoot a few. </p>

<p>I have 2x normal 500GB for my Lightroom. Should I upgrade the boot drive to SSD will I see a big difference? I mean the photographs would still be in the normal hard drive. I won't be getting 1TB SSD anytime soon ... </p>

<p>Cheers.</p>

[hapien]

<p>It depends how You use computer. If You have computer on 24/7 or snap it on at morning and shut it down for the night it is not necessary worthwhile to upgrade to ssd. If You use computer randomly and boot up for every task now and then, it is definitely worth doing. System boot time is reduced with ssd.<br>

Image storage is still cheaper in traditional disks. But if You have ssd, You can use work folders located at ssd and recieve performance gain.</p>

<p> </p>

[chrisnielsen]

<p>That's an old machine. It's probably SATA-II I would guess, so you won't see nearly as much benefit from an SSD as if it was SATA-III. My 2011 Mac Mini which came with a spinning notebook drive was absolutely transformed by an SSD. Boot times went from 90 secs to 10 secs, Lightroom opened in a few seconds instead of a minute or so. But if you have SATA-II it won't be nearly as fast. You're in Wellington, right? PBTech has a store there, they do nice cheap SSDs, it's a cheap experiment really, you can pick up a 120 gig like I have for a little more than a hundred bucks.</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Speed is one obvious advantage, but just as important is the SSD's reliability* and lower power consumption (and therefore less heat). </p>

<p>They have become so inexpensive these days (in North America) that it makes sense as an upgrade to any modern computer. </p>

<p>*Go for a name brand known for high performance and reliability - Intel, Samsung, etc. </p>

[JosvanEekelen]

<p>A few years ago I have upgraded my PC (Core Duo/4GB) with a Samsung 256 GB SSD + 4 GB RAM. The software is installed on SSD. The system runs much faster/smoother now. IMO it's worth upgrading with an SSD. Another option may be an USB-3 board to use nowadays external disks. BTW, my most demanding program is Lightroom 4. I have also managed to run a virtual version of Windows 8 through VMWare on this system, so two Win 8 versions simultaneously. This isn't too bad either.<br>

Check the internet wrt SSD reliability, it's not too bad and it's a more or less controlled decrease whereas harddisks most of the time completely fail at once. </p>

[john_harper9]

<p>+1 on SSDs for boot drives (and swap file drives). You didn't mention the amount of RAM or the OS in your machine, but 8+ GB and a 64-bit OS will make a difference for photo editing - particularly using CS6 with many layers. </p>

<p>My photo editing box (built in 2011) is a Core i5 with 16GB, SSD boot, and a high-end RAID w/cache for photos. I routinely run a couple VMs concurrently with Lightroom5, but CS6 can be sluggish unless I stop the VMs. Having a generous amount of RAM is essential.</p>

 

[john_harper9]

<p>+1 on SSDs for boot drives (and swap file drives). You didn't mention the amount of RAM or the OS in your machine, but 8+ GB and a 64-bit OS will make a difference for photo editing - particularly using CS6 with many layers. </p>

<p>My photo editing box (built in 2011) is a Core i5 with 16GB, SSD boot, and a high-end RAID w/cache for photos. I routinely run a couple VMs concurrently with Lightroom5, but CS6 can be sluggish unless I stop the VMs. Having a generous amount of RAM is essential.</p>

 

[RaymondC]

Win7 x64, only Lightroom, 4GB.

[blumesan]

<p>Before going for an SSD, first increase your RAM to at least 8GB; even better 16GB.</p>

[RaymondC]

<p>I have DDR2 RAM, it's pretty expensive for these older RAM. Might consider a new build. DDR2 4GB here cost like $100-120 or about $100US. But it looks like I can only get 2x 2GB sticks. So about $50 each. 4GB is maybe not that easy to get on DDR2 if not impossible.</p>

<p>Chris - yes I am in Wellington.</p>

[Mary Doo]

<blockquote>

<p>Should I upgrade the boot drive to SSD will I see a big difference</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Think you will if you install your most used programs, and store your most used files, on this SSD boot drive - SSD does not have movable parts, so it's much faster than a traditional hard drive.</p>

<p>You should see a difference in speed but not sure how "big" due to constraints in the other components of your system, such as ram, CPU speed, cache, bus speed, video speed, etc. Components in the PC are interdependent.</p>

<p>An old adage: "The system is only as fast as the slowest component being used". Beside the CPU, which is very fast, your most used component is the hard drive, which is traditionally the slowest. So you got it there by switching to a fast SSD.</p>

<p>It would be best, of course, to also update other components.</p>