[jeff k]

I have three external 2 TB drives that hold all my photos and documents....

But I thinking of the idea of getting solid state. Way too expensive to get large amounts but maybe a few of even 50GB to just hold new photos one is working on in Photoshop?. Anyone doing this? Is just a killer how slow using Bridge and Photoshop can be.

[P]

I use SSD in general (boot+apps, but the docs on HDD), but I don't have any experience with photoediting in particular. I like the experience, as it tends to improve the things that are the slowest. If I had to do it again, I'd get something like a 250 gig drive, though, so I don't have to move things quite so aggressively.

[reader50]

I've been waiting for the ~250 GB SSDs to reach $100.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by P 

I use SSD in general (boot+apps, but the docs on HDD), but I don't have any experience with photoediting in particular. I like the experience, as it tends to improve the things that are the slowest. If I had to do it again, I'd get something like a 250 gig drive, though, so I don't have to move things quite so aggressively.

Yeah, I've been thinking that having to manage what is on the SSD and dealing with HD space issues might get old, so I'm thinking about a large SSD too.

I'm also thinking that it may not be worth such an investment for a machine (like mine) that can only support SATA 2 rather than SATA 3. Sound logic?

[abbaZaba]

the only reason for putting a SATA3 SSD into a SATA2 connection is if you're planning on moving that SSD into a new machine in the future. it would kind of suck to be stuck on SATA2 on a SATA3-supported machine.

[P]

It doesn't really matter. SATA 6Gb/s drives are not any more expensive than SATA 3Gb/s these days, and I maintain that maximum transfer speed has very little to do with why SSDs feel fast.

[SierraDragon]

First is to makes sure no drive is overfilled because drives slow as they fill. No operational drive should exceed an arbitrary 70% full. Even less full is preferable; expect slower performance from more full drives.

Second thing is to max out RAM in that box and set PS memory preferences optimally. Any sub-optimizing of RAM setup will hamstring PS operation, and 4 GB usually is by definition sub-optimal. Photoshop has under OS X been able to take advantage of up to 32 GB RAM for a decade.

Third is to set up a scratch disk 10x as big as your largest file and on your fastest internal (best) or FW800 drive other than the boot/apps drive. If your drives are USB expect slowed operation.

If that fails to give you good PS operation come back with full hardware specs and detailed description of the operational setup. An SSD is always a good thing (every new box should boot from SSD) but putting one into an old box may or may not be a smart investment.

When you do evolve to SSD, I fully agree with P: "...maximum transfer speed has very little to do with why SSDs feel fast." It is all about latency, not speed.

-Allen

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by reader50 

I've been waiting for the ~250 GB SSDs to reach $100.

IMO SSDs became cost-effective years ago. The reduced latency has huge impact on almost every major operation, second only to RAM and way more important than marginal improvements in CPU.

-Allen

[SierraDragon]

My expectation is that you have inadequate RAM in that relatively old box for most PS workflows, but IMO each of us should empirically evaluate whether or not we have adequate RAM:

Look at the Page Outs number under System Memory on the Activity Monitor app before starting a typical PS work session and write the number down. Recheck the Page Outs count after working and write the number down again. if the page outs change (manual calculation of ending page outs number minus starting page outs number) is not zero your workflow is RAM-starved. Ignore the pie charts and other info in Activity Monitor.

If your test and calculation showed that page outs increased during operation you can

• add RAM (very strongly recommended)

• and/or simply try to run PS by itself, especially no browsers open

• Restart before PS work sessions to clear possible memory leaks

• and/or switch from 64-bit operation to 32-bit operation (which will make some additional RAM space available). See Switching Kernels:

Mac OS X v10.6: Starting up with the 32-bit or 64-bit kernel
 
All that said, I have a spare 2.33 GHz C2D 2006 MBP that does "work" for PS under its max of 3 GB RAM. However it is slow and I doubt if it would properly digest a really large file. Also I run 10.6.8 on that box. 10.7.x is more RAM-demanding so personally I do not recommend 10.7 or above on Macs that old.
 
My 2011 MBP has 8 GB RAM and rocks. However I do get page outs when I run an Aperture-Photoshop workflow, so I will be upgrading to 12-16 GB RAM soon.
 
HTH
 
-Allen

[mduell]

I disagree, the SSD performance you feel is all about transfer speed not latency. You can't tell the difference between microseconds and a few milliseconds. But the important transfer speed isn't the maximum transfer speed everyone likes to talk about, it's the minimum transfer speed that matters. So when you're getting 25MBps where a mechanical disk would yield <1MBps, that's where you notice.

[jeff k]

THANKS GUYS.
1) Why is it even after a reboot, with then only Photoshop open, I'm still struggling with the super long open times for PS files and super long times for crop saves.

Then on a different day --a couple of days later --with 8 apps open -- its wasn't so bad? What happened on that different day??

2) I was tortured by Adobe Bridge for years, still am -- at how clunky and slow it is to scroll through of folder of just 25 GB of images. Someone on the Adobe forum said, ram, ram, ram. So I went from 4GB to 16 if I remember. Made zero difference, so I returned it the Ram. Huge waste of time.

3) This final idea is the drive because it was not the ram it was the limitation of the spinning drive. So that's why I posted this. Would putting those 26GB of images on an external SSD help? And note that it o would have to pass through a USB 2 cable.

[Nergol]

I have a self-customized 2011 MBP with a 120GB SSD (a Kingston HyperX) as the main boot drive and a 1TB hard drive in an OWC Data Doubler sitting in the optical drive slot. I moved my iTunes and Calibre libraries to the Data Doubler drive, and set up a folder on it as my normal download location, so I normally run with about 70GB free on the SSD. Thus, I really never feel cramped even in only 120GB.

Add to that my 8GB RAM upgrade, and I have a very nicely fast machine indeed, that even has a whole lot of storage. Boot time is wicked fast.

Get an SSD. I will never use a spinning hard drive as my main boot drive again.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I disagree, the SSD performance you feel is all about transfer speed not latency. You can't tell the difference between microseconds and a few milliseconds. But the important transfer speed isn't the maximum transfer speed everyone likes to talk about, it's the minimum transfer speed that matters. So when you're getting 25MBps where a mechanical disk would yield &lt;1MBps, that's where you notice.

Great point, thank you for this!

What I've been sitting on the fence about is whether I should just get a new laptop to replace my mid-2009 15" MBP, but with your post I'm strongly considering getting that SSD and keeping my laptop for much longer. If I do decide to upgrade my laptop at some point, I'm sure the SSD would increase the resale value of this laptop, and if nothing more I can sell it on its own to make some money. I'm just a web developer so I don't need a fast CPU really, but I'm growing tired of various database indexing and I/O related stuff just sucking. An SSD will surely breath all sorts of new life into this machine for me.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by jeff k 

THANKS GUYS.
1) Why is it even after a reboot, with then only Photoshop open, I'm still struggling with the super long open times for PS files and super long times for crop saves.

Then on a different day --a couple of days later --with 8 apps open -- its wasn't so bad? What happened on that different day??

2) I was tortured by Adobe Bridge for years, still am -- at how clunky and slow it is to scroll through of folder of just 25 GB of images. Someone on the Adobe forum said, ram, ram, ram. So I went from 4GB to 16 if I remember. Made zero difference, so I returned it the Ram. Huge waste of time.

3) This final idea is the drive because it was not the ram it was the limitation of the spinning drive. So that's why I posted this. Would putting those 26GB of images on an external SSD help? And note that it o would have to pass through a USB 2 cable.

What is the detail of your PS scratch setup and what was the result of the page out testing, and how full is each HDD? You are asking questions without providing info.

An SSD will likely resolve your problems but you still need to optimally set up RAM and scratch allocation (PS/Preferences/Performance). It sounds like you may have thrown RAM at the issue without the required careful setup of PS.

I have three external 2 TB drives that hold all my photos and documents....
But I thinking of the idea of getting solid state. Way too expensive to get large amounts but maybe a few of even 50GB to just hold new photos one is working on in Photoshop?

It sounds like you are considering external SSD, IMO the wrong approach. The real benefit will be to replace your internal boot HDD with a SSD. If you configure appropriately like Nergol describes above an inexpensive 128 GB drive or even smaller can work wonders.

I use Aperture, not Bridge, and with referenced images multiple TBs of images on external HDDs are essentially instant-access; and round-trip editing an image in PS (CS5, PS v12.1 x64) takes just a few seconds. 2011 17" MBP with SSD and 8 GB RAM (soon to be 16 GB RAM because I do page out the 8 GB with an Aperture/PS workflow).

-Allen

[jeff k]

thanks Sierra, wow did not have a scratch disc checked at all! Thought I had. Says available Ram 3.5.

I assume better to use the Mac HD for scratch over external?

Wow again, to have the SSD internal, I'll have to hire someone to do that. I'm not adept. Another moderate expense --So external for SSD cancels out benefits?

But my Mac HD is about 120GB currently! So the SSD would want to be, ? ..... 300?

Talk to me about Bridge. I'm not going to switch to Aperture, too happy/comfortable with Bridge. Can I achieve this referenced images thing there?

Finally, again, curious:


1) Why is it even after a reboot, with then only Photoshop open, I'm still struggling with the super long open times for PS files and super long times for crop saves.

Then on a different day --a couple of days later --with 8 apps open -- its wasn't so bad? What happened on that different day??

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by jeff k 

Says available Ram 3.5.

That is RAM for all processes, not just PS. You need to assign RAM: with an inadequately equipped box like yours try different amounts within the range PS suggests.

thanks Sierra, wow did not have a scratch disc checked at all! Thought I had.

I assume better to use the Mac HD for scratch over external?

No. Unless the main drive is an SSD scratch should be assigned to a different drive. That way PS can be accessing scratch at the same time the OS/app is operating.

Wow again, to have the SSD internal, I'll have to hire someone to do that. I'm not adept. Another moderate expense --So external for SSD cancels out benefits?

Not having boot and apps on the SSD would limit the benefit, but certainly an external SSD for scratch would have benefit.

But my Mac HD is about 120GB currently! So the SSD would want to be, ? ..... 300?

Of course more is better, but 128 GB is plenty adequate if you set up a second drive to hold excess data like Nergol discussed above.

Talk to me about Bridge. I'm not going to switch to Aperture, too happy/comfortable with Bridge. Can I achieve this referenced images thing there?

I have always used Aperture which is a standalone images management app like Adobe Lightroom. Bridge is just Adobe's free included file manager and I am inexpert in it so I have no comment except to say use it if you like it.

Finally, again, curious: 1) Why is it even after a reboot, with then only Photoshop open, I'm still struggling with the super long open times for PS files and super long times for crop saves. Then on a different day --a couple of days later --with 8 apps open -- its wasn't so bad? What happened on that different day??

I have no idea except to say that with suboptimal RAM and poor scratch disk setup exacerbated by a slowish CPU I would expect frequent if not constant poor PS operation. I suggest adding an SSD and RAM to total 10-16 GB on board.

Note we still have very limited info about your setup including no info on how full drives are.

OWC provides good presales tech support at
http://eshop.macsales.com/

HTH

-Allen

[jeff k]

Allen, thanks, well I'm on a fairly new 27" imac.
IN nutshell, you recommend a SSD internal for booting up and apps, and also a SSD external for the image files?

The internal I would have to get someone to install that.
The external, wont the transfer through USB 2 void out the benefits?

I set the new scratch disk, thanks.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by jeff k 

IN nutshell, you recommend a SSD internal for booting up and apps, and also a SSD external for the image files?

No I do not suggest an external SSD for image files unless you have money to burn. I did say it would be beneficial for scratch when you asked, but is not generally cost effective for most folks. In a PS workflow an external SSD would be nice for scratch of you had no other SSD, but a scratch disk is not the same as "for image files."

A scratch disk is a temporary work space that PS uses for material actively in process of being used. No doubt google searching will provide better descriptions.

Keep any hard drives that scratch is assigned to fairly underfilled (ideally less than half full) because drives slow as they fill, and overfilled scratch drives will seriously slow PS operation. In the old days when I did constant PS with large files and much weaker hardware than today I assigned scratch to a RAID0 array. Today with a 2011 17" MBP, 8 GB RAM and SSD PS just works, no problem (caveat: page outs do occur so I am upping to 16 GB RAM).

-Allen

[Cipher13]

It's also worth noting that not all SSDs are created equal. I've had good experiences with the Samsung 830 series, Intel 520 series, and Corsair ForceGTs. I've only had one SSD die, and it was an OCZ - and those have some pretty awful failure rates.

Just for ref, this is interesting.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-7/components-returns-rates-6.html

[CharlesS]

Go with Crucial. Not only do they make a high-quality product, but their support is phenomenal. Seriously the best support I've received from a company that I can remember.

[jeff k]

I'm passing on the whole thing as it entails cracking my computer open....