«

| >> I see no point to buy SSD drives for photo editing.
| >
| > others do.
| >
|
| No need for speed and its the OS that generally goes to the HDD
|

nospam is saving tens of milliseconds every time
he saves a giant photo to disk. By the end of the
day he's saved enough time to render a brief,
dogmatic statement. I'm sure that's worth the money
to him.

| > No. Then again, my machine responds instantly,
| > and I've never seen anything faster than instant.
|
| Depends what you are running.
|
| Loading OS, not instant, starting a 100Mb program, not instant, browsing
fast through 5Mb JPG's, not instant.
|

That's true. If I want to move 1 GB between disk
partitions it's going to take a bit longer with hard disks.
Perhaps even a full second longer. And there may be
a slight lag loading/displaying a 5 MB photo. (Though
most of that lag will actually be the work of the software
rendering the display. Disk I/O is extremely fast.)

I don't see any reason to see this as a contest
between hard disks and flash storage. I don't claim
that you won't be able to discern any difference.
I'm just saying put it in context. My point was
only that people shouldn't jump to the conclusion that
faster and more expensive is better.

With 99% of what I do, the response is pretty
much instant, and in most cases operations are mainly
in RAM. As long as I don't feel like I'm waiting I'd say
the machine is fast enough. If your PC isn't responsive
then it's likely to be excessive services and startup
programs that are the problem....or loaded TEMP folders
on Windows.... or a number of other causes that have
nothing to do with the disk I/O speed.

As for loading the OS, I've never understood that
obsession. The media is gaga lately over Windows 8
load time, which is achieved by putting the OS into
a sort of hibernation when it's shut off. My PC boots
in about 30 seconds. I don't find that tries my patience.
I leave it in "sleep" most of the time, anyway.

When people start using boot time as a reason to
spend hundreds of dollars on flash memory I have
to assume they've either been reading too many
marketing press releases or they just have time and
money to burn.

On 06/12/2012 18:07, Alfred Molon wrote:
> In article <k9pl0o$13n$>, David Taylor says...
>> Yes, maxing out the memory is usually the best way to improve speed on a
>> PC, although /if/ you are doing something which is very disk I/O
>> intensive getting a faster disk may be the better choice.
>
> The problem with SSDs is that they are not so suitable for disk I/O
> intensive operations due to the wear on the memory cells. It's better
> having lots of RAM, so that page swapping is minimised.

... and hence the dilemma of just which disk to get - a fast mechanical
one or an SSD which may wear out more quickly. Will be more likely to
affect videographers than stills photographers.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

In article <8fbff92b-ad9d-40be-b1b5->,
DanP <> wrote:

> > No. Then again, my machine responds instantly,
> > and I've never seen anything faster than instant.
>
> Depends what you are running.
>
> Loading OS, not instant, starting a 100Mb program, not instant, browsing fast
> through 5Mb JPG's, not instant.

three situations where ssd will make a dramatic difference.

In article <>, Alfred
Molon <> wrote:

> > Yes, maxing out the memory is usually the best way to improve speed on a
> > PC, although /if/ you are doing something which is very disk I/O
> > intensive getting a faster disk may be the better choice.
>
> The problem with SSDs is that they are not so suitable for disk I/O
> intensive operations due to the wear on the memory cells. It's better
> having lots of RAM, so that page swapping is minimised.

the number of cycles for ssd is *very* high.

some ssds come with *ten* year warranties, which is far more than any
hard drive. in fact, hard drive makers *reduced* their warranty period,
and 1 year is now typical.

in other words, ssd is a much better choice for disk intensive
operations. you'll see a significant benefit since seek time is zero
and longetivity is a non-issue. you'll probably replace the computer
before the ssd wears out.

In article <k9q7q6$34k$>, Mayayana
<> wrote:

> nospam is saving tens of milliseconds every time
> he saves a giant photo to disk. By the end of the
> day he's saved enough time to render a brief,
> dogmatic statement. I'm sure that's worth the money
> to him.

it's more than ten milliseconds. the difference is huge.

the point is that the overall user experience is much nicer. it's like
driving a sports car versus a family sedan, even if you're driving on a
city street at 30 mph.

also, having ssd means the cpu & gpu doesn't need to be as fast for
similar performance, which means the product can be cheaper, run cooler
and have longer battery life.

David Taylor <david-> wrote:

>On 06/12/2012 18:07, Alfred Molon wrote:
>> In article <k9pl0o$13n$>, David Taylor says...
>>> Yes, maxing out the memory is usually the best way to improve speed on a
>>> PC, although /if/ you are doing something which is very disk I/O
>>> intensive getting a faster disk may be the better choice.
>>
>> The problem with SSDs is that they are not so suitable for disk I/O
>> intensive operations due to the wear on the memory cells. It's better
>> having lots of RAM, so that page swapping is minimised.
>
>.. and hence the dilemma of just which disk to get - a fast mechanical
>one or an SSD which may wear out more quickly.


I had no choice. If I wanted a MacBook Pro with a Retina display, the
choice was between a 128 GB SSD or a 256 GB SSD.

I chose the former. Actually, I chose it twice because I picked up my
second yesterday. I now have a 15" and a 13". If I can manage with
the 13" I will be selling the larger one.

It will be interesting to see how the 128 GB SSD lasts. I am backing
up all documents every evening to cloud storage and two HDDs.

On 06/12/2012 20:37, nospam wrote:
[]
> it's more than ten milliseconds. the difference is huge.
>
> the point is that the overall user experience is much nicer. it's like
> driving a sports car versus a family sedan, even if you're driving on a
> city street at 30 mph.
>
> also, having ssd means the cpu & gpu doesn't need to be as fast for
> similar performance, which means the product can be cheaper, run cooler
> and have longer battery life.

It depends on what you are doing. If you are encoding videos, for
example, CPU/GPU power is by far the most important factor. There is no
single "correct" answer - each use needs to be evaluated on its own.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

On 06/12/2012 20:37, nospam wrote:
[]
> the number of cycles for ssd is *very* high.
>
> some ssds come with *ten* year warranties, which is far more than any
> hard drive. in fact, hard drive makers *reduced* their warranty period,
> and 1 year is now typical.
>
> in other words, ssd is a much better choice for disk intensive
> operations. you'll see a significant benefit since seek time is zero
> and longetivity is a non-issue. you'll probably replace the computer
> before the ssd wears out.

For disk operations where the majority of operations are /read/, yes.
But the number of write cycles (including erase etc.) is limited, so
SSDs may not be the best choice where a high write throughput is
required. Choose your device carefully.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

On 06/12/2012 23:36, Anthony Polson wrote:
[]
> I had no choice. If I wanted a MacBook Pro with a Retina display, the
> choice was between a 128 GB SSD or a 256 GB SSD.
>
> I chose the former. Actually, I chose it twice because I picked up my
> second yesterday. I now have a 15" and a 13". If I can manage with
> the 13" I will be selling the larger one.
>
> It will be interesting to see how the 128 GB SSD lasts. I am backing
> up all documents every evening to cloud storage and two HDDs.

Yes, I have the same issue with the iPad - SSD or nothing. On the other
hand, I'm not editing videos on the iPad, or doing anything else which
requires a lot of disk write operations, so I'm hoping it will be OK. I
backup to iTunes on one PC from time to time, the applications are
mostly stored on the stores I bought them from and the settings
reasonable easily recoverable. There are very few critical documents
created by me on the iPad which aren't stored elsewhere.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu