Any experience with SSD drive?

[bitli]

Hello,

Do anybody have some experience using SSD drive to store the images being processed ? Would there be a performance gain, especially for 'normal' systems (single drive, dual core, 4GB, Windows 32 bits) ?

Thanks for any hit
-- bitli

[Nocturnal]

That would probably depend on the file size you typically work with. I would expect large files like my 50MB TIFFs to load much quicker. Swapping files (popping up/down the history explorer) should be faster too.

[Niall Saunders]

Hi Bitli,

Yes, I am sure that this would help, but I now firmly believe that if you need ANY excuse to upgrade your OS to 64-bit, then the ability to access extra RAM is your best one.

I have been using 4Gb of RAM for the last year now, and have just ordered an extra 4Gb (to take me up to 8Gb) because I am now starting to work with multiple 24Mb images from my DSLR.

I am also not confident (however, this is based on NO justification whatsoever) that the SSD would be 'reliable' in the long term. They are also SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than standard HDDs (Gb for Gb), and I reckon that you could get better value for money using an external RAID-based storage system: Firewire, eSATA, USB or NAS, depending on your needs.

Whilst these may not compete in terms of speed, you could at least offload the (un-needed) contents of your internal HDD whilst you are processing the next batch of images.

And RAID gives you another safety-net as well.

Granted if, in a few years, SSD storage gets down to the level of 10Gb/$, it will be the way forward - but current costs are more like TEN times (and more) of this rate, so SSD is - in my opinion - just not the way forward at the moment.

(And, I still have horrible nightmares about the 3" floppy drives that I bought back in 1983, believing that 'they' were the way forward - and, at $800 for 80Kb storage back then, this would have equated to 10Gb/$100million nowadays  - and they were obsolete in less than 6 months as everyone ELSE adopted the 5.25" 'standard'  )

Cheers,

[Nocturnal]

I think a small SSD (say 30GB or so) could be well worth the trouble for PI use and isn't expensive at all compared to a complete system overhaul. Reported reliability of these drives is excellent, no worse than spinning disks. I've actually had quite a few drive failures recently. Clearly whatever storage medium you use you need a backup strategy.

Consider small SSDs your 'workspace' where you keep frequently used master frames for calibration and your current projects. When done you copy your files to cheaper long term storage to free up space for your next project.

I agree going 64bit is great but going from 4 to 8 GB only makes a difference if you regularly bump into the 4GB limit and start swapping. The main benefit by going to 64b IMO is that you can keep more processes going at the same time (say PI with images loaded and DSS stacking and firefox browsing). My images are about 50MB when stacked and those work just fine in 32b.

Anyway, there are many ways to spend your money. I recommend you first analyze where your bottlenecks are and fix those rather than arbitrary 'cool' upgrades.

[David Serrano]

Anyway, there are many ways to spend your money. I recommend you first analyze where your bottlenecks are and fix those rather than arbitrary 'cool' upgrades.

Yep, this is a nice piece of advice.

[georg.viehoever]

Hi,

if I had the money and my system would allow to do so, I would invest in more RAM and a faster CPU (in this order). If this is not an option, a fast HDD (7200 RPM or faster) is usually better value for the money than an SSD (but also noisier).

If you buy an SSD: There have been test reports recently in german computer magazines. There are slow and fast SSDs, with the current ones from Intel usually being quite fast. Other brands depend on the concrete type of internal controller. So far, there is limited experience with the longterm reliability of SSDs (they work for something like 10000 write cycles only, but use clever balancing algorithms to level the load). For a one year perspective and ordinary desktop use, they appear to be reliable.

Georg

[Nocturnal]

It seems that SSDs have come of age with Windows 7 and TRIM.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667

I'm considering getting one to stick my windows 7 boot partition on. Right now I have a mirrored WD Black (7200 RPM high performance) 500GB drive for both Vista and Win7. Plenty fast but hey, faster is better.

I had a Maxtor 1GB system drive fail within weeks of building my system on it. I had two identical 320 GB Fujitsu laptop drives fail in several months. I'm afraid drive failures are a constant and precautions need to be taken. On the other hand I have IDE drives from 10 years ago that still work.

[bitli]

Thanks everybody. Clearly we do not have hands on experience. I was thinking more of a small drive (32GB) to enhance a system that I cannot upgrade otherwise for a lot of reasons. More for storing the work area than for long term saving of the images (I have plenty of external disk space).
However, the SSD being limited in the number of write, it may not be the best use to have them for highly temporary storage.

Maybe this should be revisited in a few months/years..
--bitli

[Luigi]

I don't as yet have any direct experience, though the mailman will be bringing an Intel 80GB SSD any day now. If you're using Windows 7 (as I am, as of yesterday), may I suggest reading http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx about 7 and SSDs.

I intend to load the OS on this SSD plus whatever programs are most-often used. My magnetic drive will be for my user documents and the like.

What I found surprising is that after reading many give advice not to put the Windows page file on the SSD, this article says few if any files are better candidates for SSD. I splurged and went with 8GB of RAM; other articles I've read said that with that much RAM the pagefile is seldom "touched."

Regardless, time will tell, but I'm excited to try it.

[NKV]

I use 2 SSD. PQI(S527) 128gb for Win7 OS and PQI(S528)64gb for system Temp drive. HDTuchRW show about 160-230 MB/s in continuous write operation.
But in PI i use 4xHDD's for Temp. = like SSD speed with huge spaces.