TaoTeJared said:
If you are using Lightroom that would help a great deal. Due to my "laziness" and as a gap fill before I get a new computer I had to move my older files catalogue to an external drive - Now it feels like I am trying to walk though 4 feet of mud to edit anything. That just showed me the extreme on the slow side where speed improvements can exist.

Sounds to me like all you are using your catalogue for is to keep the picture-edit-history, like all the other >90% of photographers do (me included).

I found there is a workaround to that. I use a temporary catalogue that i clean up after processing a photo shoot (just remove all the pictures). If you enable the "Automatically write changes to XMP" option in your catalogues Metadata configuration setting then all those edits (exposure/whitebalance/brushes/cropping/etc) will be saved in a seperate XMP file. So there is no need for keeping the catalogue anymore. If i want to re-edit an old shoot i just import the pictures again into my temporary catalogue and the XMP file will be automatically applied, nothing will get lost.

By using the XMP option you can get rid of your lightroom catalogues, no need to waste your storage with them (they do waste a lot!) and no need to back them up anymore!

The point is that a 7200rpm 3.5 inch drive performs better than 7200rpm 2.5 inch drive, not to mention having larger capacities. Adding that additional speed to a hybrid drive would give your system even more of a boost.

Of course that is more of an issue for single drive systems (all in ones), than standard desktop PC's, which could easily have an SSD as a boot drive and then have additional traditional hard drives for storage.

PB PM said:
I think it is too bad that there are no desktop variants yet...

There are many 5.25"/3.5" bay mounting kits that you can get in order to mount one of these Hybrid Drives's within a desktop PC.

Hybrid drives are really worth looking at, especially if you have a notebook. Seagate has had several on the market for a few years now, and they are known to preform well. I think it is too bad that there are no desktop variants yet (that don't require a PCI-E slot).

Another option for some to consider are Hybrid Drives. Apple has introduced there own called Fusion Drive. These drives are basically flash-base storage in conjunction with a standard hard drive. The flash storage range from 8gig to 128Gig while the traditional HD storage range from 1-3 TB, combination.

Here are some data for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/hybrid-solutions.html
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/momentus-xt-hybrid/

Cheers....

mirtos said:
Actually, its not BS at all. Apple is consistently behind on upgrading their chipsets, their MOBOs, and ESPECIALLY their graphics cards.

Apple excels at using the latest in what the user directly experiences, and pushing their software to get the most out what the user doesnt directly experience. It is a fallacy that apple uses the latest technology though. Think about how long it took them to upgrade to i5/i7. Especially in their desktop models. Their laptop models might/are a different story because they realease updates so much more often than the desktop lines. But because apple doesnt tend to support the new chipsets until they release the new model, it means upgrading apples is a pain in the ass.

Who cares about BluRay? Well, depsite what you think, a lot of people still deal directly with discs. Apple has chosen not to support BluRay for whatever reason. It took apple a LONG time to accept that HDMI was something they had to support. The reality is when you buy apple (and i do, i have both apple and PC), you are buying into their vision of the future. They havent always been right. They were when it came to smartphones and tablets, they were wrong when it came to other things. When they are wrong it takes them a long time to admit it.

Also their hard drives are almost always substandard.

Yes Apple has slower upgrade cycles for some products (yearly), but when the new models are released they do use the latest chipsets. Why Apple does that? Profit plain and simple. I agree that the Mac Pro is very out of date, but then again so is the whole Xeon platform that it is based on, when compared to consumer chipsets.

Substandard hard drives, what are you talking about? My iMac has a WB Black drive, so how is that substandard? In the notebook space they are a little slow (why 5400rmp?), so I wont argue there. Then again they were one of the first brands to push SSD's in a retail notebook.

If you haven't noticed Apple is removing optical drives from all new Macs, so there is no chance of Blue-ray ever coming. In any case Blue-ray as a platform is DOA, like any new optical disk media coming out in this digital age (unless you are over 40). Don't get me wrong, I still use optical media for some clients, but I might burn 2-3 DVD's a year compared to 10+ a few years ago. More clients seem to want data on a USB drive these days, basically negating the need for optical media.

Anyway, lets back on topic (I'll do that now). As for SSD vs hard drive, for editing. I don't think it makes a huge difference in the speed of the editing process itself, but it makes accessing files much faster. SSD's perform best when put into a RAID array, where they will max out SATA3's throughput.

Just a minor nit, but 15,000rpm HDDs are available and offer 50% better seek latency (obviously). SSDs are still faster, but as many have mentioned, limited by bus speed. Thunderbolt on the apple is rated for 10 gigabits/s. (technically 20, but the other channel is used for display). Third party blu-ray players work fine on the Mac.

Just clouding the issue with a few facts :-)

Now to the actual topic of this thread: if you could somehow separate the catalog and the data onto separate I/O channels, that would be the best performance. On a desktop this would mean buying an additional PCIe card to drive an SSD just for the catalog and using the embedded I/O channel for the rest of the data.

Backups are essential no matter what physical media is used. I've seen plenty of catastrophic HDD failures without any warning.

one thing about SSD. Its important to remember, that while its ALMOST as reliable as HDD technology, two things you need to consider before using it: 1. there is almost no warning sign that it will go. 2. when it goes, its EXTRAORDINARILY expensive to recover data, and its much more difficult. I do all my editing on SSD as well, but its important to keep that in mind.

Actually, its not BS at all. Apple is consistently behind on upgrading their chipsets, their MOBOs, and ESPECIALLY their graphics cards.

Apple excels at using the latest in what the user directly experiences, and pushing their software to get the most out what the user doesnt directly experience. It is a fallacy that apple uses the latest technology though. Think about how long it took them to upgrade to i5/i7. Especially in their desktop models. Their laptop models might/are a different story because they realease updates so much more often than the desktop lines. But because apple doesnt tend to support the new chipsets until they release the new model, it means upgrading apples is a pain in the ass.

Who cares about BluRay? Well, depsite what you think, a lot of people still deal directly with discs. Apple has chosen not to support BluRay for whatever reason. It took apple a LONG time to accept that HDMI was something they had to support. The reality is when you buy apple (and i do, i have both apple and PC), you are buying into their vision of the future. They havent always been right. They were when it came to smartphones and tablets, they were wrong when it came to other things. When they are wrong it takes them a long time to admit it.

Also their hard drives are almost always substandard.

Apple uses the latest Intel chipsets in new machines, just like any Intel based Windows PC, so this nonsense about Apple using old tech is simply BS. SATA3 chipsets (6GB/s) have only been shipping in 2009, so it is impossible for your 6 year old machine to have a chipset that supports SATA3. It likely has SATA2 (3GB/s), but nice try.

As for Blu-ray, who cares? I haven't bought a DVD in years, let alone have any interest in Blu-ray. When there are digital services like Netflix (for example) who needs a crap load of disks filling up their house?

TaoTeJared said:
Most all PCs are 6gb/s and have been for years. That is one of the "apple" secrets that they still use old tech - kind of like no blu-ray anything. ;)
I have a 6yr old machine and it has it. Now whether your drives are 6gb (including your SSD) that could be a good question.

With all do respect, Apple does not use "old-tech" they use and incorporate many of the newest tech within their computers. As for Blue-ray, I have not found a need for any optical drive for many years. Hence, why I pulled mine out and put in the second hard drive. If I want to watch a Blue-Ray movie, that is what my home theater is for. On my laptop, I find the ripped version of the video in 1080P and I'm all set.

SATA Ver 3.0 /w 6 Gbit/s data throughput was introduced in July 2008, and it was fully adopted by computer manufactures in May 2009, thus I question your 6 years old motherboard in having it. Moreover, it was not until late 2009 that hard drives were introduced that could take advantage of such read/write speeds.

Most all PCs are 6gb/s and have been for years. That is one of the "apple" secrets that they still use old tech - kind of like no blu-ray anything. ;)
I have a 6yr old machine and it has it. Now whether your drives are 6gb (including your SSD) that could be a good question.

ps-the 5 series/ 6 series is only an Apple distinguishing name.

TaoTeJared said:
Mac or PC?

PC

TaoTeJared said:
If you are like me and use your PC for more than just photo editing, there is probably 3 dozen programs working in the background (most you don't even know of but need to run) and eat up ram fast.

No, that one is editing only so it has Windows 7 64, LR, PS, Photomatix and a few plug-ins on it.

golf007sd said:
10,000 RPM drive suck up way to much power and heat to be inside a laptop.

I have a desk-top.

golf007sd said:
Also, it is important to note the hard drive controller on your mother board will also have a hug impact on your hard drive data throughput. For example the controller on my MBP max's out at 3Gig-bit per sec..it has the 5 Series Chipset. But those with the 6 Series Chipset get twice the read/write speed than I get.

Now that is interesting. I will have to try to find out what speed mine transfers. It was new with the AMD Black CPU about 4 months ago.

10,000 RPM drive suck up way to much power and heat to be inside a laptop. I would not recommend such a combination. You are far better off with a SSD. I have the OWC 240Gig Pro 6G and it rocks.

Also, it is important to note the hard drive controller on your mother board will also have a hug impact on your hard drive data throughput. For example the controller on my MBP max's out at 3Gig-bit per sec..it has the 5 Series Chipset. But those with the 6 Series Chipset get twice the read/write speed than I get.

spraynpray said:
Right, but that's the detail Gabbb. What I'm asking is about the

"Best is Program, images and catalogue on the same SSD. That can't happen for me as I have only 64Gb SSD for OS and editing software.

Next best is Program and catalogue on SSD and image on 7200RPM HDD that way initial display of image is slow but editing is OK (this is what I have got).

Worst is everything else."

Do I have that wrong? If there is a way I could improve my speed short of spend a lot of money I'd sure like to hear it.

Mac or PC?

The only other HD option that is out there is a 10,000rpm drive. They are almost as pricey as SSDs now as well.

I think realistically that is about as good as you are going to get. Ram is the quickest way, if you have some headroom. If you are like me and use your PC for more than just photo editing, there is probably 3 dozen programs working in the background (most you don't even know of but need to run) and eat up ram fast.

Maybe I'll try Hawks suggestion and move to HDD after PP.

if the space is limited on your main drive why not upgrade it OWC has a 240gb drive for less than $300 or a 120 for $125

I've tried every combination of SSD and HDD for the program, catalog and images and found a noticeable advantage in overall performance with at least the program and catalog on the SSD - as expected. I currently have the program and catalog on a fast SSD, but my images live on a RAID 1 array and backed up on an internal redundant HDD (more or less the equivalent of a RAID 10 array) and an external HDD. I also back up to the cloud.

I also import all new images to the SSD and take care of sorting and initial PP there before I transfer them to the HDD array.

I have 8Gb of ram and monitor ram usage, HDD access and CPU use real time and never see more than 4 to 4.5 Gb RAM used by lightroom. However, CPU use constantly taps out on all 4 cores (AMD 965 BE overclocked to 4.1mHz). I'm planning on upgrading to an i7 3770 s, but will stay with 8gb RAM. The only time I see 7+ Gb of RAM used is when I have PS build large panos in the background.

Right, but that's the detail Gabbb. What I'm asking is about the

"Best is Program, images and catalogue on the same SSD. That can't happen for me as I have only 64Gb SSD for OS and editing software.

Next best is Program and catalogue on SSD and image on 7200RPM HDD that way initial display of image is slow but editing is OK (this is what I have got).

Worst is everything else."

Do I have that wrong? If there is a way I could improve my speed short of spend a lot of money I'd sure like to hear it.

spraynpray said:

That all assumes the computer has enough fast RAM, fast enough processor and enough cores.

Do I have that wrong? If there is a way I could improve my speed short of spend a lot of money I'd sure like to hear it.

The ram speed is not really significant, I would bet a lot of ppl wouldn't even notice the difference 1333mhz vs. 1866mhz ddr3s. It's measurable if you are playing a computer game or running 3dmark, then you gain a few fps sure, but when you are doing photo editing the difference is very close to null.

As I understand it:

Best is Program, images and catalogue on the same SSD. That can't happen for me as I have only 64Gb SSD for OS and editing software.

Next best is Program and catalogue on SSD and image on 7200RPM HDD that way initial display of image is slow but editing is OK (this is what I have got).

Worst is everything else.

That all assumes the computer has enough fast RAM, fast enough processor and enough cores.

Do I have that wrong? If there is a way I could improve my speed short of spend a lot of money I'd sure like to hear it.

+1 to ssd upgrade (considering You have already an adequate amount of ram). Though I wouldn't suggest You to use ssd for long-term storage, as it's not price effective. What I do, if I'm in hurry. I copy the files from my cards to my box, do the editing and than copy it to external USB 3.0 hdd for storage. After that I just update the file reference in Apperture. This will allow me to do fast editing on one hand and save money on ssd on the other.

TaoTeJared said:
I had to move my older files catalogue to an external drive -

Putting the catalogue on an external is not recommended

the catalogue needs to be on your fastest internal drive, the RAW files can be on an external or ( I am told) even in the cloud

The difference will be massive with a new-ish ssd. Especially when importing+exporting. One thing to bear in mind, ssd is not a "safe storage" for files. I've lost some data because of ssd malfunction.

spraynpray said:
I have exactly the same set-up as you Golf and I got an 'OK' speed-up not a 'vastly improved' one (which is why I said it is subjective).

I am wondering about moving the catalogue onto SSD too.

If you are using Lightroom that would help a great deal. Due to my "laziness" and as a gap fill before I get a new computer I had to move my older files catalogue to an external drive - Now it feels like I am trying to walk though 4 feet of mud to edit anything. That just showed me the extreme on the slow side where speed improvements can exist.