Topic: editing on location (Read 23440 times)

rainer_v · « **on:** July 11, 2009, 11:48:52 am »

if i edit my mf files in he laptop on location i am always a bit suffering from processing power on location, so i tried to "tune up" my macbookpro 2x2,2ghz and not to upgrade to the new mbp cause the increment of the newer mbp doesnt seems to be worth the upgrade, more so because i hate these reflecting screens.

i upgraded now my internal ram from 4gb to 6gb, which is the ( inofficial ) maximum, i built in a fast 7200/ 500gb drive and - by far most important - i bought a 50Gb SSD flash card memory to put all editing programs and temporary files ( photoshop, lightroom, bridge ) on this. reading speed of the ssd drive is app.10 higher than harddisc, writing speed app. 3 times faster.
the result is incredible. i havent measured it, but subjective photoshop works at least twice as fast than with the normal 4gb internal ram and 5000/320gb hd, the programs ( which are on the flash drive ) open in few seconds ( incl lightroom with large image banks ) and no more problem to let run and work several of this programs together.
these are highly highly recomendated tuning steps, the result is surprising.

JTFOTO · « **Reply #1 on:** July 11, 2009, 12:44:39 pm »

How do you use the 50gb SSD drive? through usb to use it as a start up??

Snook · « **Reply #2 on:** July 11, 2009, 12:56:32 pm »

Yes Rainer please expalin more as I am corios about this as well.
I have the 17 " MacBook Pro, not the newer versions but the all silver one.
Thanks for any further information

Snook

rainer_v · « **Reply #3 on:** July 11, 2009, 01:30:36 pm »

Quote from: Snook

Yes Rainer please expalin more as I am corios about this as well.
I have the 17 " MacBook Pro, not the newer versions but the all silver one.
Thanks for any further information

Snook

its a 48gb NAND flash Drive Expresscard which goes in the never used card slot. i moved to it my programs as photoshop, bridge,
lightroom, exposure as well as the image files from lightroom, the scratchdisc for photoshop and the cache for bridge.

further, but less important , i installed a 4gb PC-5300 Memory Module together with a 2gb module ( results in 6 gb ram )
and a fast 500gb Segate 7200rpm 2.5" hd.

the memory and the hd built in here in chicago ( very fast service ) a nice guy called gino, he gave me also the advice to try ssd drives and sold me the card.
http://www.machero.com/

now its the fastest laptop i ever touched or saw .... by far. it even dont slow down noticeable if lightroom converts, photomatix renders hi dynamic files and i work in ps at the same time on multi- layer files. also the programs start now very very quick, even if i start all three adobes together they come up very fast for the hot reading speed of the ssd.

the express cards costs $ 199,-- and i will add ssd cards or drives to all my systems.

jimgolden · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2009, 01:52:10 pm »

holy smokes!! I might call that guy for advice on my towers too...

Christopher · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2009, 02:06:13 pm »

Other solution would be to use a small external SSD drive. If you want even more speed with raid 0. However you need to use it just with an eSata connection. (USB or FW800 would be to slow) In addition one can use the same drive to transfare data from one's notebook to one's workstation with great speed.

Christopher · « **Reply #6 on:** July 11, 2009, 02:07:25 pm »

Andrew Fee · « **Reply #7 on:** July 11, 2009, 02:14:10 pm »

I had no idea ExpressCard SSDs were so cheap now. I might have to look into getting one for my MacBook Pro as it's mostly hard drive performance that slows things down for me. (opening applications, paging to disk)

I'd probably want to use it as my boot drive with all my applications on it and just use the internal one for storage, possibly upgrading it to a faster drive as well.

gwhitf · « **Reply #8 on:** July 11, 2009, 02:16:04 pm »

With this approach, would the same "scratch disk" mentality apply here too, in that, if your machine is processing and the data is in scratch, and your machine crashes, then you lose that work, since it's not saved?

What are the downsides of this approach?

Voiding warranty issues?

Thanks.

Graham Mitchell · « **Reply #9 on:** July 11, 2009, 02:18:06 pm »

Quote from: gwhitf

With this approach, would the same "scratch disk" mentality apply here too, in that, if your machine is processing and the data is in scratch, and your machine crashes, then you lose that work, since it's not saved?

What are the downsides of this approach?

Voiding warranty issues?

Thanks.

It is no different to assigning a regular hard disk as the Photoshop scratch disk, just a lot faster. No warranty issues.

Dick Roadnight · « **Reply #10 on:** July 11, 2009, 03:36:46 pm »

Quote from: rainer_v

its a 48gb NAND flash Drive Expresscard which goes in the never used card slot.
the memory and the hd built in here in chicago ( very fast service ) a nice guy called gino, he gave me also the advice to try ssd drives and sold me the card.

My Mac book pro (17" mat) can take 8Mb - and I originally ordered it with 8 so I am expecting to be able to upgrade.

The ssd is faster than the hard disk, but, if you have plenty of memory, don't programs stay in memory once loaded?

What interface standard (not which hole) does the ssd use?

Could I use an eSata drive on my mac (via the "never used" slot)?

What are the actual data transfer rates?

Christopher · « **Reply #11 on:** July 11, 2009, 04:06:46 pm »

Quote from: Dick Roadnight

My Mac book pro (17" mat) can take 8Mb - and I originally ordered it with 8 so I am expecting to be able to upgrade.

The ssd is faster than the hard disk, but, if you have plenty of memory, don't programs stay in memory once loaded?

What interface standard (not which hole) does the ssd use?

Could I use an eSata drive on my mac (via the "never used" slot)?

What are the actual data transfer rates?

Yes, you can use a eSata drive through that slot. eSata can reach up to 200 MB/s, which depends on the drives you use. One normal harddrive will only give you something between 50-100 a raid 0 more towards 80-150 and SSD drives can use the full power of eSata connections.

Graham Mitchell · « **Reply #12 on:** July 11, 2009, 06:25:18 pm »

This looks like the card to get at the moment:

PhotoFast G-Monster Express Card 54 - 180MB/s read, 100MB/s write

There's an Express Card 34 version too - 120MB/s read, 60 MB/s write

Guy Mancuso · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2009, 06:36:01 pm »

I wrote this back in May and since than Apple came out with a new laptop but only the 17 inch will take a Express card. If you want a 15 inch look for a 2.93 like mine that has the Express slot.

But this is how to Hot Rod a MBP

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7632

jimgolden · « **Reply #14 on:** July 11, 2009, 11:54:42 pm »

anyone care to share a tuned up Tower config?

Jack Flesher · « **Reply #15 on:** July 12, 2009, 01:00:17 am »

Early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 x 3.2, 24G RAM. I have 6 SATA2 drives in my Mac Pro using this device: http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/in...Product_ID=158.

I have my OS residing on a striped pair of WD 640G Caviar Black drives. These drives are very fast for 7200 RPM drives and RAID very well, but they do have a slight amount of head seek noise, soft but audible in my Mac Pro -- and they give me a huge, fast desktop. I then have 4 of the WD 640G Caviar Blue drives in RAID-0 mounted in the main bays. These are perhaps a tad slower on random I/O operation than the Blacks, but are virtually silent -- and in a 4-drive RAID-0 they are VERY fast. On that array, I have a thin outer 120G partition (4x30G) for a dedicated uber-fast CS scratch and a large 4x450G (1.8G) partition for working image storage. I then left a small 115G partition at the very end of each drive non-RAID, and use these to store back-up and bootable copies of my OS and other miscellany.

This machine churns quickly even when handling multiple heavy lifting chores concurrently.

gwhitf · « **Reply #16 on:** July 12, 2009, 06:29:23 pm »

I buy all my Macs from Smalldog.com in Vermont. On their "price list" they show the new 17 MBP with custom config with SSD drives installed. Yes, they're fast, but they're very expensive too. If it was me, though, I'd rather have have everything installed internally, instead something hanging out the side of it, in that Express slot. Seems like asking for something to break or get damaged.

http://www.smalldog.com/SmallDogPriceList.txt

Scroll down to 17 MBP area... Small capacity drives: 128 and 256.

revaaron · « **Reply #17 on:** July 12, 2009, 06:53:32 pm »

a ecard ssd was one of the things they were talking about years and years ago as the advantage of ecards.
when I read this originally, I thought you were using the SSD to mean a USB thumb drive. those things on my get 17MB/s or something terrible like that when I test my fastests.

Guy Mancuso · « **Reply #18 on:** July 12, 2009, 08:26:32 pm »

Anything you buy configured already will most likely and especially from Apple will not be Intel SSD drives. There are big performance difference between the SSD drives and I would certainly check on what is on board . This stuff is really best to either do it yourself or if it is a custom config. that you know exactly what they are putting in the box. All SSD drives are not created equally. With my two Intels inside the MBP I use the e-sata for a external hard drive that has just current data that is available to me so they are not on the main drives. Than I have the backup using Firewire 800 to a Drobo for storage. The issue is using the 2 SSD drives I really don't use a external scratch because the SSD drives in Raid 0 are actually faster than any scratch drive I could come up with externally. So for me it does not make sense for external drives running Raid 0 since the e-sata is limited to 200mg transfer speeds. Instead I try to keep about 90gb free on the two internal SSD drives so they have room to work. Before investing in SSD drives and such, may want to check there performance and such before buying them . Frankly some really suck bad and not worth installing. This is not a cheap route to take but if you need a rocket for a laptop than this setup works great. The limitation on laptops with any of them is the two cores and not much will get around that. Running C1 which is a core hungry program is the only bottleneck I run into as it is slower than my old MacPro but I am also processing 31mpx files as well. Other than that CS4 runs without any hiccup no matter what I am doing with layers , panos and such. Since it is a more Ram hungry program the 8 gbs of Ram is the key here. Other than that the rest of the system no matter what program flies. But until laptops come in 4 core versions that will be the biggest bottleneck. The one hope is Snow Leopard which is supposed to increase speed as it takes advantage of the graphics card as well. Also said to be less bloated operating system. We will see what that brings in September

jimgolden · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2009, 10:38:20 pm »

jack -do you store your "live" jobs on your desktop then?? did you use the MaxConnect cable to do your raid? was any other raid card needed?

Author Topic: editing on location (Read 23440 times)

Snook