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Jeremy Roussak

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« on: August 31, 2009, 10:59:30 am »

I have a Mac Pro (8-core), with the standard single internal disk. I'm getting bored waiting for PS to save large TIFFs, so I'd like something faster. It seems to me that a couple of reasonably fast internal SATA disks, in  RAID 0 configuration, would do nicely. I don't need anything too large: 500GB would be adequate, and the built-in RAID will probably be enough. I have a rather anal backup strategy, so I'm not too worried about the increased risk of hardware failure with RAID 0.

Any recommendations? The quieter the better.

Thanks

Jeremy
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ErikKaffehr

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« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2009, 11:15:56 am »

Hi,

Check link below and scroll down a bit...

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-Recomme...wareMacPro.html

Best regards
Erik

Quote from: kikashi
I have a Mac Pro (8-core), with the standard single internal disk. I'm getting bored waiting for PS to save large TIFFs, so I'd like something faster. It seems to me that a couple of reasonably fast internal SATA disks, in  RAID 0 configuration, would do nicely. I don't need anything too large: 500GB would be adequate, and the built-in RAID will probably be enough. I have a rather anal backup strategy, so I'm not too worried about the increased risk of hardware failure with RAID 0.

Any recommendations? The quieter the better.

Thanks

Jeremy
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2009, 11:29:53 am »

SSDs (intel or OCZ Vertex) would seem like a good choice.  If you're willing to spend.
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Gemmtech

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« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2009, 01:03:40 pm »

Go with an SSD for your OS and programs and use a SCSI HD for everything else.  I've always used SCSI and never had one fail, some are 11 years old.  That's the latest and greatest advice.  HOWEVER, we just don't know about the reliability regarding SSD and performance degradation after a few years.  I do have an SSD (Intel X25-M) in my laptop and it's been great so far, but EVERYTHING is backed up just in case.  I have had my fair share of SS devices going south on me.
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2009, 01:54:24 pm »

Anandtech has a nice article on SSDs today.
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Jeremy Roussak

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« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2009, 03:16:53 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
Anandtech has a nice article on SSDs today.
Thanks, but particularly at UK prices, SSDs of suitable capacity are way out of my price range: if I had that much spare cash, I'd spend it on kit to take photographs, not to process them. I'm a keen amateur, not a pro!

The article to which Eric pointed me is interesting. I'd been looking at Western Digital, in particular their Caviar stuff, which has had some good reviews, is quiet and is reasonably priced. Does anyone here have any experience of them?

Jeremy
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Sheldon N

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« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2009, 04:14:22 pm »

Quote from: kikashi
Thanks, but particularly at UK prices, SSDs of suitable capacity are way out of my price range: if I had that much spare cash, I'd spend it on kit to take photographs, not to process them. I'm a keen amateur, not a pro!

The article to which Eric pointed me is interesting. I'd been looking at Western Digital, in particular their Caviar stuff, which has had some good reviews, is quiet and is reasonably priced. Does anyone here have any experience of them?

Jeremy

I've been using all Western Digital drives... I use a Velociraptor 10k drive for the OS, a pair of 640GB Caviar Black in RAID 0 for PS CS4 scratch and secondary storage, and then a 1TB Caviar black drive for main storage.

Fast, excellent performance, and no issues whatsoever.
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Jeremy Roussak

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« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2009, 03:35:23 am »

Quote from: Sheldon N
I've been using all Western Digital drives... I use a Velociraptor 10k drive for the OS, a pair of 640GB Caviar Black in RAID 0 for PS CS4 scratch and secondary storage, and then a 1TB Caviar black drive for main storage.

Fast, excellent performance, and no issues whatsoever.
That's just what I was interested in hearing! Two questions: does the Velociraptor make much noise, and why do you not use RAID for your main storage? I may have misunderstood matters, but since it's the time taken by PS to save large files which is the main prompt for me to upgrade, I wonder how much I'd gain if I used a setup like yours.

Jeremy
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Sheldon N

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« Reply #8 on: September 01, 2009, 12:54:22 pm »

Quote from: kikashi
That's just what I was interested in hearing! Two questions: does the Velociraptor make much noise, and why do you not use RAID for your main storage? I may have misunderstood matters, but since it's the time taken by PS to save large files which is the main prompt for me to upgrade, I wonder how much I'd gain if I used a setup like yours.

Jeremy

The Velociraptor makes some disk seek noise when the heads move, but is not terrible. I've actually used the Hitachi software to disable Auto Acoustic Management (AAM) to speed up the drive even further. It makes them a little more noisy, but that doesn't bother me.

I don't use RAID 0 for my main storage since my backup schedule is not rigorous enough to allow for the extra risk. I use the 1TB drive as primary, keep duplicates on the RAID 0 array, then off site backup every few weeks or so. RAID 0 is most important for the speed of scratch disk, where Photoshop will constantly read/write to the disk when it runs out of RAM.

I don't notice any significant delays when saving large files (1GB+) from CS4 to the 1TB drive. I think your delays may come more from the fact that you are running a single drive setup and that many resources (OS, PS, and saving) are all competing for use of the drive at the same time. SATA transfers from drive to drive are very fast, but things slow down when the drive has to both read and write from the same hard disk.

In your shoes, I would look at buying two WD Caviar Black 640GB drives and putting them in a RAID 0 array. Partition off the first 32GB stripe of each drive to dedicate exclusively for photoshop scratch (64GB total). The remainder of the drive can be for storage since you back up regularly. Keep your existing hard drive for the OS and programs, or if you want to speed up the overall performance of the computer and get faster program launch times, swap out your primary disk for an SSD to use in conjunction with the RAID 0 array.

The primary thing you need to do though is move to a multi-drive setup where one drive can be dedicated to OS/Programs and another drive or RAID array can be dedicated to scratch disk/storage.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 12:57:37 pm by Sheldon N »
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Jeremy Roussak

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« Reply #9 on: September 01, 2009, 06:39:04 pm »

Quote from: Sheldon N
In your shoes, I would look at buying two WD Caviar Black 640GB drives and putting them in a RAID 0 array. Partition off the first 32GB stripe of each drive to dedicate exclusively for photoshop scratch (64GB total). The remainder of the drive can be for storage since you back up regularly. Keep your existing hard drive for the OS and programs, or if you want to speed up the overall performance of the computer and get faster program launch times, swap out your primary disk for an SSD to use in conjunction with the RAID 0 array.
Having done some more research, that's pretty much the conclusion I'd reached, and it's nice to have it confirmed! I think I might go for Caviar Blue rather than Black, as the reviews don't indicate much of a speed difference and the Blues are said to be a bit quieter. I spent an uncomfortable three years with a G5 Mirrored Drive Doors model, feeling as if I had a jet engine test bed in the room, so I've developed rather an aversion to noise. The change when my Mac Pro arrived, and I could listen to music (classical, in its widest sense) at reasonable volume, was wonderful and I don't want to go back.

I'm not too bothered about launch times. I never log out or restart unless I'm installing new software which requires it, such as Apple's period updates, so once PS is launched, it stays launched.

Thanks for the tips.

Jeremy
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Plekto

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« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2009, 08:10:43 pm »

I would really REALLY recommend getting the WD RE3 or RE4 models instead if you are running RAID, though.  Their electronics are designed for on-board RAID controllersBasically anything PC-board/Intel based, including Apple) and they are only a few dollars more.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 08:14:28 pm by Plekto »
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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2009, 09:47:15 pm »

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro 8x3.2Ghz with 24G RAM. I am running 4xWD 640G Caviar Blues in RAID-0 in the main 4 bays and 2x WD 640 Caviar Blacks in RAID-0 in a lower optical bay enclosure.  My 4-drive stripe is partitioned so the fastest outer 140G is dedicated CS scratch (and yes it improves performance measurably over a 2-drive stripe for heavy CS operations) and the rest makes for a huge, fast image storage array.  Then the 2-drive stripe in the lower optical bay is used for my OS and programs and a relatively large (over 1TB) desktop.  Of course since these are RAID-0 arrays, the images are backed up to an external array (DROBO) and the OS is bootable cloned to single connected drives. My system is very fast and essentially silent. These WD's also run cool --- my hottest drive hits 40 degrees C in heavy I/O, idle averages around 36.

And while I think the recommendation for enterprise class drives is sound, I have been running the WD Blue 4-drive array for over a year and the 2-drive WD Black array for just under a year with heavy daily use and they are relatively cheaper.  Of course I don't worry too much since everything is redundantly backed-up -- let me reiterate that back-up is VERY important if you do RAID-0!

My next OS array will be a pair of SSD's in R-0, and assuming they get cheap enough, probably a pair R-0'd for CS scratch, or maybe just a single for the OS and a pair or 3 R-0'd for scratch -- unless CS 5 finally uses available RAM efficiently ().  Regardless, I'll continue to use backed-up spinners in R-0 for fast mass storage simply due to low cost per gig.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 09:56:35 pm by Jack Flesher »
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