Is a second SSD worth it?

matty D

matty D

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Matt
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I have a mid 2012 15" MBP that I have already upgraded to 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD to replace the hard drive that it came with. Its pretty snappy with most things, but Lightroom and Photoshop get a bit bogged down at times.

I have a Nikon D810 that has 45MB raw files, and when they are opened in PS they become 206MB TIFFS. Add an action or two and they soon become 2GB files! I regularly max out the RAM when multiple images are open, and I regularly have to move images off of the internal SSD and onto my externals.

I was thinking about just upgrading to a new Retina MBP, but I thought maybe I could save a bit of money and just replace the optical drive with a second SSD. Would I see a performance improvement if I moved my images and catalogue onto a second SSD? Ive read that it helps to have the OS and apps on a separate drive to your images and scratch disk, although I've also read that there is no benefit to a second SSD unless you use it in a RAID 0 configuration. A bit confused!.....
 
In theory a RAID0 stripe set will improve the maximum throughput of the storage system but I doubt that the SSD is the bottle neck on your system. Might be worth running a performance monitoring tool to see what resource is peaking when under normal operation.

As a guess I would say it's most likely the CPU, monitor the peaks and queue wait times to confirm this.
 
JohnBradbury said:
I doubt that the SSD is the bottle neck on your system
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Nor me.

Are your exernal drives fast access (USB3/eSATA)? If so then I'd stick the images I'm currently editing onto the SSD and then transfer them onto the external when they're finished. But I agree with John, it's almost certainly down to the CPU.
 
matty D said:
Ok thanks guys, I'll not bother with a second ssd then. My system has a 2.6ghz i7 cpu, the new 15" has a 2.5ghz i7, does that mean there is no point upgrading?
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That CPU should have enough grunt unless you are processing mahooosive files. Which gen i7 processor is it?
 
I think the bottle neck could lie in this statement by you," when multiple images are open " how many is multiple ? :)
 
If you're maxing out the memory then consider going from 16GB to 32GB if your M/B can take it.

And an external SSD connected through a USB3 could make quite a difference if you're just using an ordinary HDD.

If it's possible use the external SSD to load the finished images to as you work on them.
.
 
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Please note I'd recommend that you do not RAID0 SSD's. They typically lose the ability to use TRIM (which helps them stay speedy and efficient after prolonged usage) and you would only increase the sustained transfer speed rather than input/output operations. Boot speed slows and seek time increases!
Best to RAID0 HDDs if they're big and cheap

It sounds like you could benefit with more RAM. The incremental processor upgrade won't really be noticeable.
 
Overexposed said:
That CPU should have enough grunt unless you are processing mahooosive files. Which gen i7 processor is it?
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Wasn't sure so I got this from everymac website
2.6 GHz Core i7 (I7-3720QM)
And files get to about 2GB each at times

simonblue said:
I think the bottle neck could lie in this statement by you," when multiple images are open " how many is multiple ? :)
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Generally no more than 5 or 6 at a time.

petersmart said:
If you're maxing out the memory then consider going from 16GB to 32GB if your M/B can take it.

And an external SSD connected through a USB3 could make quite a difference if you're just using an ordinary HDD.

If it's possible use the external SSD to load the finished images to as you work on them.
.
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Limited to 16GB unfortunately, good idea re the external ssd, will look into it
neil_g said:
me neither.

have the resource monitor open while you work and see what is maxing out.
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CPU and RAM
 
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Actually SSD is fast but it is still the slowest component of a pc so chances are there it is part of the bottle neck. Or becomes a bottle neck.

When u experience bogginess in your situation with multiple images it because you have ran out of RAM and the SSD is being used as cache. Thus the bogginess. Even by going to raid 0 I doubt it will help. The solution is to increase your RAM
 
I'm in approx the same config as you. I have a lenovo t430 with a intel i5-3320m at 2.6 ghz, my OS is on a ssd, my motherboard will take a max of 16GB.
I just order a second ssd to put my picture and i will fit it in the ultrabay which replace the dvd player, this like the os ssd is connected via sata III.
I'm not expecting increase in speed (or i would love to see a bit of increase but i'm not holding my breath) but at least i won't have to bother anymore with the external HD and the recent samsung evo 850 with read/right at around 450mbit/sec are not that expensive...
 
matty D said:
I have a mid 2012 15" MBP that I have already upgraded to 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD to replace the hard drive that it came with. Its pretty snappy with most things, but Lightroom and Photoshop get a bit bogged down at times.

I have a Nikon D810 that has 45MB raw files, and when they are opened in PS they become 206MB TIFFS. Add an action or two and they soon become 2GB files! I regularly max out the RAM when multiple images are open, and I regularly have to move images off of the internal SSD and onto my externals.

I was thinking about just upgrading to a new Retina MBP, but I thought maybe I could save a bit of money and just replace the optical drive with a second SSD. Would I see a performance improvement if I moved my images and catalogue onto a second SSD? Ive read that it helps to have the OS and apps on a separate drive to your images and scratch disk, although I've also read that there is no benefit to a second SSD unless you use it in a RAID 0 configuration. A bit confused!.....
Click to expand...


Having the catalogue and scratch disks on a SSD speeds things up, but not the images. Once they're loaded, they're loaded. I have all my images on mechanical hard drives, they still load quickly and my raw files are the same size, and often bigger than yours.
 
FWIW, *if* the HD performance were the bottleneck on your system, you should see significant benefits with a 2015 MBP.

Your 2012 model still uses SATA, which means the read speed is probably topping out below 500 MBps (and write slower than that). I have a suspicion also that the optical bay on the 2012 MBP was only SATA 2, but it may have been the model before that was.

The 2015 models use a new four-lane PCIe 3.0 Samsung SSD, which will read about 1400 MBps and write 1300 MBps with the 512 GB drive - roughly double the speed of the 2014 PCIe 2.0 drives in the 2014 models.

This test is with the 13 inch MBP, but applies equally to the 15 inch MBP

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...e-new-macbook-literally-is-twice-as-fast.html

From what I've seen, the 512 GB drive is the one to go for if speed is your first priority.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
Having the catalogue and scratch disks on a SSD speeds things up, but not the images. Once they're loaded, they're loaded. I have all my images on mechanical hard drives, they still load quickly and my raw files are the same size, and often bigger than yours.
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lightroom uses a lot of disk read/writes if i remember rightly. arad85 did some tests a while back and found that having the working set of images on a SSD helped no end. they could then be moved to mechanical storage when processing was complete.
 
hollis_f said:
I wouldn't be too suprised to find that things have changed, but in 2009 I ran a test and found that Preview generation was significantly faster if the images were stored on the SSD. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=8890253
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Can't say I notice a difference. It takes less than a second to fully resolve an image in LR from a mechanical hard drive. I doubt I'd notice a difference if they were on SSD. SSDs are simply not a financially viable mass storage option IMO. SSD for OS, Applications and scratch... old spinners for mass storage. The only way to go unless you've got cash falling out of your ass.
 
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neil_g said:
lightroom uses a lot of disk read/writes if i remember rightly. arad85 did some tests a while back and found that having the working set of images on a SSD helped no end. they could then be moved to mechanical storage when processing was complete.
Click to expand...

I remember those, they were really helpful reading. For what its worth and the way I process in LR is keep all the RAW files on mechanical drives but create smart previews on my SSD and process those. They're a fraction of the file size but you can do everything with them. That speeds things along & no need to move files afterwards. The only time I use the original files is when I export or publish. Then they images are only referenced not written and its so slow a process anyway a few seconds here or there makes no difference
 
Pookeyhead said:
Can't say I notice a difference. It takes less than a second to fully resolve an image in LR from a mechanical hard drive. I doubt I'd notice a difference if they were on SSD. SSDs are simply not a financially viable mass storage option IMO. SSD for OS, Applications and scratch... old spinners for mass storage. The only way to go unless you've got cash falling out of your ass.
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Absolutely.

However, if I'm processing a lot of images (say 100 or more) then I will copy them to the SSD, process them, then move them to the HDD. It really does speed up the generation of previews.
 
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