Benchmark: Configuration Help Please.

[Mike_Lewis]

I've had a new desktop PC built specifically for astro image processing. The PC has an AMD 8 core 4.7GHZ processor, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a 4 TB HDD, and a 128GB SSD. I'm running Windows 10. This yields a great increase in processing speed compared to my "old" processing laptop, a Quad core. Still I want to make sure I'm getting all of the performance that I can out of the new machine.

The OS is installed on the HDD as is PixInsight. When I process a project I put all of the files on the SSD. My hope is that this combination will get the best processing speed out of the machine. Is there a better way to configure things? I don't have much data on the machine yet and could likely have PI and the OS installed differently if that would maximise the system. I'm actually not at all sure how difficult this would be any more than a chimp knows how hard it is to change the spark plugs on a car, but I have friends that can do it for me.

So any advice is much appreciated.

Mike

[pfile]

you want to get PI to put its scratch files ("swap files") on the SSD as well. this is configurable in the global settings. creating more than one swap folder on the SSD might increase performance. while having the project on the SSD will speed up opening and saving of the project, while PI is actually running all the disk IO goes to the scratch file location.

rob

[Pierre]

Also add more RAM! The best way to to use Linux with ramdisks, this gives you the optimal speed and use of the available resoures.