OK firsts off sorry some who know me know I cant write to save my life !
this is long but good solid info I put together so sorry if its hard to read
some things I heard before I started this ? that I wanted to get my own answers for
I kept hearing people say stuff with no real data etc.. and the info was all over the place ?
put everything on one SSD and then move your originals back to another drive when done ?
you have to do a raid 0 or SSD are useless ?
you only need to have the cache on a SSD ?
you only need the catalog on the SSD ?
you need to have catalog on one and cache on another ?
so I got a few SSD and here we go
test catalog:mix of images in the catalog around 6000 and 1200 per folder mix of 5D and 5DMKII files for the test I stuck with 5D files previews made 1:1 using LR latest RC of 3.2
computer used: mac 3,1 identifier so 8 core 2.8 14GB memory
OS: Snow leopard boot into 64 bit
HD setup
main storage is
Areca 1222X with battery module setup as Raid 6 on the Areca are 8 750 GB seagate 7200.10 ( (ST3750640AS)
SSD two of the 100 GB Mercury Extreme Pro RE (OWCSSDMXRE100)
why these ? until OS X supports trim and really these and the OCZ vertex 2 are the ones to beat right now ? since they are close enough in price and I have had good luck with OWC I am going to stick to these !
(the SSD are running off the extra two SATA ports inside)
for raid 0 I did testing on block size of 32 & 64 & 128
ended up with 32 ? I thought it would be 64 or 128 but it made no difference (which it can sometimes)
also using Bridge testing which was minimal testing more just how the cache acted but 32 was the quickest since it does do lots of small stuff so with the choice of 32 or 64 being the same in LR but 32 being quicker overall easy choice !
(also have 4 1TB hitachi inside on sleds 1-4)
ON TO LIGHTROOM and SSD !
also this is about setup of SSD not regular HD ? so dont expect data comparing to regular HDs since this can be all over the place depending on what people have ? it was to decide how to get the most out of SSD and LR
the times below are what I found on my machine and sure you can crunch the numbers in your head with what you have going now and decide if its worth it ? I hope this helps you decide how many to get and how you might use them ?
also I say test things on your system ? cause it might be different but this should help enjoy !
first I thought my jump to Snow Leopard and 64 bit was a good hit of performance so if you are suffering ? it might be worth looking into more ? make sure you have lots of memory though !
running SL under 64 bit for me has made a improvement and since PS and 64 fly on many things I am staying with this setup !
from my early tests with 10.5.8 and LR 3.0 the switch to SL and 64 bit and RC 3.2
was about 2x as fast for me
a little rant ! LR should be instant from image to image ! if C1 V3 could do it ? why cant Adobe do it now ? OK rant over
The biggest thing for me and others I am sure is the dumb waiting for the sliders to get to white so you can use them !!!!
the loading text ? not as big a deal but those dumb sliders !!!!!!
this is more about performance in Dev mode than anything !
since Lib mode is pretty quick already
I did a ton of testing in every setup of catalog, cache & original file location that I could think of
which included:
SSd as Raid 0
SSD as two single drives
running one hitachi as a single HD but I short stroked it to 100 gigs (so it would be the same size as my SSD and quicker)
also did a Raid 0 with two short stroked hitachi to replicate the SSD in raid 0
and of course my raid 6 setup
from my own testing my thoughts are:
1) the most important is the cache location
2) the catalog location is not that important
3) it really did not matter where your original files are located ?
which is really good to know cause you can keep them on large less expensive HDs and not worry about it !!!
I am sure like most of you we want the best bang for our buck and dont want to buy what you do not need !
I decided to buy two SSD since its the only way I could truly test them out and I have not seen a good write up on the benefits yet ? people just say OH its quicker ? well quicker what does that mean ? so with two SSD I decided to say whats the best way and could someone get just one or do they need two or ?
running your OS off a SSD is nice things load fast things are snappy programs load quick interfaces seem to pop out with no delay etc.. but does this help overall production time ? I might say yes it does less waiting is good ? but how much does it help ? who knows this would be harder to test also once PS is loaded once its quick the next time I need it so is LR etc. things like Mail is for sure quicker overall I think this is a nice bonus and makes it seem like the computer is running quicker ?
if you cringe at load times do the upgrade ? if not I would say skip this
me I think I am sold on my OS on a SSD its just a nice luxury
I wish I had 2 more SSD to test with
OS one one and raid 0 in 3 drives for cache catalog ?
2 sets raid 0 ?
ANYWAY!
so how did I test ? shot a movie and used the time code
Each time I started a new catalog and did import build 1:1 previews thought this way its all even and fresh start every time with a group of images out of a large catalog took averages 3x and came up with my numbers
and then I repeated this with 2 dif catalogs to compare one was a well used catalog and as long as I optimized it times were in line with my new catalog
some things I noticed the HD times were all over the place where the SSD times were much more tight and consistent
the chart is in seconds (centiseconds) or seconds to 0.01 seconds
figure this will show you just how close it really all is with SSD
to sliders means the sliders are white and you can start adjusting !
"Loading" text is that loading you see you now can check focus etc..
so as you can see ? its pretty hard to go wrong with any setup you decide they are all way way closer than I thought ?
my first round of testing I swore the raid 0 cache setup was way faster ? funny how your mind works
I am not sure how things will go with YOUR catalogs ? and everyone has dif amounts in theirs etc..
also I dont have super slow super full drives ? so if you do get some new ones !
my catalogs are on pretty fast setups so I am not sure how that effected the outcome on the catalog on HD outcome using AJA I get Write: 1316.93 MB/s Read: 789.45 MB/s with the 128 MB test
and Write: 445.53 MB/s Read: 402.55 MB/s with the 4 gig test
so as some of you know we have a company that does raw as part of designing albums along with PS work so I have a catalog for each client and I end up doing a lot of work in LR so every bit of speed I can get I will
my own photos I use C1 mostly :
and I can say C1 is faster using SSD by a good amount !
my personal fun snapshot family stuff is in LR with over 30,000 images and it moves along nicely
I think for those looking for a boost can really get away with just one SSD and maybe even get it in a smaller size if budget is tight ? but remember if you use it for LR and PS and Bridge you might want to look at the 100 so you can have enough room set 50 for LR and let bridge and PS manage themselves with whats left
I am sure others will have other results ? but since I could find no info anywhere it seemed that was solid other than
"Its much quicker now"
thought some numbers of how fast my machine is would help
hope this helps some of you