Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: rainer_v on July 11, 2009, 11:48:52 am

Title: editing on location
Post by: 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: JTFOTO 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??
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook 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  

Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v 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/ (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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden on July 11, 2009, 01:52:10 pm
holy smokes!! I might call that guy for advice on my towers too...
Title: editing on location
Post by: Christopher 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Christopher on July 11, 2009, 02:07:25 pm
.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Andrew Fee 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: gwhitf 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Graham Mitchell 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Dick Roadnight 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?
Title: editing on location
Post by: Christopher 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Graham Mitchell 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

(http://legitreviews.com/images/news/2009/G-Monster_54.jpg)
Title: editing on location
Post by: Guy Mancuso 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 (http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7632)
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden on July 11, 2009, 11:54:42 pm
anyone care to share a tuned up Tower config?
Title: editing on location
Post by: Jack Flesher 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 (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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: gwhitf 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 (http://www.smalldog.com/SmallDogPriceList.txt)

Scroll down to 17 MBP area... Small capacity drives: 128 and 256.
Title: editing on location
Post by: revaaron 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.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Guy Mancuso 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
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden 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?
Title: editing on location
Post by: revaaron on July 12, 2009, 11:30:49 pm
I finally found an email from january:

Quote
OCZ has 60GB SSDs for $96
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1197245 (http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1197245)

people are taking them and putting them into a RAID 0.
Yeah you only have a 60GB drive, but look at these rates:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/sh...ead.php?t=50502 (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50502)

doesn't help lappies.
What about ibm turbo memory in your lappies?
Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on July 13, 2009, 12:54:30 am
i always search for simple solutions... so was ment my sharing here.
and its simple and cheap to invest 170 -199$ in an older mbp, stick the card in the express slot, format it and double the speed of that machine at least with photoshop but also lightroom.

no,- gwith, the card doesnt stick out. just 1 millimeter and  thats that it can be pressed in a bit it to eject it.

btw. : i use a filemate solidgo expresscard with 48gb, price between 170-200$, 115MB/s reading speed, 65Mb/s writing.
part of the increased speed seems to be  that SSD is with many small files ( as the scratch file or camera raw file is ) much faster than the pure numbers tell, cause there is no head to be moved.

of course you can tune the box faster investing several thousand bucks and much energy, but mine works with my over 2 year old laptop and it does it very good. thats the point of what i wrote ...
Title: editing on location
Post by: gwhitf on July 13, 2009, 08:30:50 am
Quote from: rainer_v
no,- gwith, the card doesnt stick out. just 1 millimeter and  thats that it can be pressed in a bit it to eject it.

can you snap a photo of it with your cell phone and post it? I know the card doesn't stick out, but where does the drive live? Outside the card, or inside the card? Is the SSD like a CF flash card? Hard to picture the setup in my mind.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Graham Mitchell on July 13, 2009, 09:16:55 am
Quote from: gwhitf
can you snap a photo of it with your cell phone and post it? I know the card doesn't stick out, but where does the drive live? Outside the card, or inside the card? Is the SSD like a CF flash card? Hard to picture the setup in my mind.

Try this link: http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn261/s...pg?t=1247490978 (http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn261/serpentine645/IMG_0309.jpg?t=1247490978)
Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on July 13, 2009, 11:18:49 am
Quote from: gwhitf
can you snap a photo of it with your cell phone and post it? I know the card doesn't stick out, but where does the drive live? Outside the card, or inside the card? Is the SSD like a CF flash card? Hard to picture the setup in my mind.

it sticks out less on a mac than on foto-z`s photo.
yes the drive is inside the card.
why they have built in an usb port in the card ?  dont know.


[attachment=15370:090713_0...75_1615X.jpg]
Title: editing on location
Post by: gwhitf on July 13, 2009, 11:54:08 am
Quote from: rainer_v
yes the drive is inside the card.

Incredible. All that, tucked into that tiny space. Thank you.
Title: editing on location
Post by: dfarkas on July 13, 2009, 01:15:52 pm
I just took delivery of my new Dell Precision M6400 Mobile Workstation on Friday.

Dell Precision M6400 (http://www.dell.com/us/en/business/notebooks/workstation-precision-m6400/pd.aspx?refid=workstation-precision-m6400&s=bsd&cs=04&~ck=mn)

I chose this unit for a few reasons:

The bad part is the Precision weighs 8.5 lbs and only clocks about 2.5 hours on a full battery charge. So far neither of these things have really bothered me. I'm in love with the speed, silence, amazing LCD screen, and expandability. Also, I'm running Windows 7, which is an absolute joy to use. It is very Mac-like while still retaining the logic of Win XP (don't want to start any OS flame wars here.... I've used both for many years, but just in two days Win 7 is my favorite by far! It is so intuitive and quick).

As far as speed, I ran Lightroom 2.4 64-bit and converted a P45+ 39MP file to a 16-bit TIFF in just over 5 seconds! And, that was with no RAID and the slow (90MB/s) SSD that I have until the fast Samsungs arrive.

This is an amazing piece of hardware and any reservations I had about weight or size or whatever have fallen by the wayside. My plan is to do most of my production on this computer and not have to go back to work on files on the Eizo a second time.

David
Title: editing on location
Post by: Guy Mancuso on July 13, 2009, 01:57:00 pm
This is something Apple needs to be doing is making laptops that just fly. Sounds really nice David. The trick on that box is the quad core with C1. Damn I'm jealous. LOL
Title: editing on location
Post by: dfarkas on July 13, 2009, 04:04:12 pm
Quote from: Guy Mancuso
This is something Apple needs to be doing is making laptops that just fly. Sounds really nice David. The trick on that box is the quad core with C1. Damn I'm jealous. LOL

Guy,

I just processed a P30+ file in C1 4.8 to 16-bit TIFF in 11 seconds. How does this compare to your 15" MBP? Just curious.

Interestingly, I ran the same file through LR 2.4 and it processed in 4.5 seconds.

In both, my CPU meter was pegged at 100% on all 4 cores.

Thoughts? And remember, these numbers are with my slow SSD. When I get the new drives, I'll run my tests again.


David
Title: editing on location
Post by: Guy Mancuso on July 13, 2009, 04:36:32 pm
18 seconds in Profoto color space you dog. LOL

I need quad cores
Title: editing on location
Post by: ziocan on July 13, 2009, 09:54:50 pm
Quote from: dfarkas
Guy,

I just processed a P30+ file in C1 4.8 to 16-bit TIFF in 11 seconds. How does this compare to your 15" MBP? Just curious.



David
On my 2 years old Macbook pro 17", 2.4, 4gb ram and 7200rpm drive it takes 25 sec on prophoto rgb space.

I believe you spent nearly for grands for what seems a great pc.
Title: editing on location
Post by: ziocan on July 13, 2009, 09:57:05 pm
Quote from: dfarkas
Interestingly, I ran the same file through LR 2.4 and it processed in 4.5 seconds.
that must be the reason LR files are not as detailed and clean compared to c1.
too fast to be good.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Jack Flesher on July 13, 2009, 11:59:15 pm
Quote from: jimgolden
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?

I do all my raid using the basic OSX software raid tool -- piece of cake easy to set up and works very well for RAID-0 or 1 applications, but it won't do RAID-5. (It will do 0-1 or 1-0 though, and given the low cost of drives right now, that might be a better overall redundancy strategy...) Anyway, I originally stored my "live" jobs on the desktop, but usually only the output folders as ALL of my job raw files get put immediately on the Working Image array since that gets backed up to the DROBO at regular scheduled intervals (my desktop doesn't get backed up to the DROBO, but it could.)  Then what I do is convert my raws and write to the dedicated output folder that C1 sets up automatically for each session on the 4-drive array.  

I used to write the output folder on the desktop since I figured it would be faster reading from the 4-drive array and writing to the 2-drive desktop array, and why I set it up that way to begin with, but at the end of the day the 4-drive array is so fast when being shared for I/O the difference in speed is essentially insignificant even when processing a couple hundred files -- in the end it just didn't matter that much.  So right now, I have a really fast OS array with a HUGE desktop that sits mostly unused other than for occasional temporary storage of large folders.  Where it does come in handy is reading and saving a large set of files I'm currently editing in CS while doing batch raw processing in the background since the programs are not competing for I/O on the working array.  But in all honesty my total efficiency would be very similar -- and I'd still have plenty of free space -- with just one of the 640's dedicated to the OS and desktop -- and I'll likely reconfigure it that way just as soon as I find a better purpose for that freed up OS drive.  Assuming Time Machine gets improved with Snow Leopard (a lot of us think TM should be directly bootable), maybe I'll use it as TM for a full historical OS and desktop file backup .  But at least the way it is now, my programs launch really, really quickly .
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden on July 14, 2009, 12:18:04 am
thx jack
Title: editing on location
Post by: Adina on July 14, 2009, 02:49:46 am
Quote from: rainer_v
why they have built in an usb port in the card ?  dont know.

hi rainer,

you can use this card as a usb 'stick' on a laptop without a express slot
(... for file exchange ...)

Greetings
Adina
Title: editing on location
Post by: BJNY on July 14, 2009, 05:15:18 am
David,

May I ask what your setup cost?

Sigh....I've been wishing for many years Apple would offer similar.

Regards,
Billy

Quote from: dfarkas
I just took delivery of my new Dell Precision M6400 Mobile Workstation on Friday.

Dell Precision M6400 (http://www.dell.com/us/en/business/notebooks/workstation-precision-m6400/pd.aspx?refid=workstation-precision-m6400&s=bsd&cs=04&~ck=mn)

I chose this unit for a few reasons:

  • Quad core processor - Mine has a QX9300 Quad 2.53Ghz
  • 16GB RAM support - the laptop has 4 DDR slots instead of two, allowing you to either spec it out with 4x4GB for max capactiy or use 4x2GB for an inexpensive 8GB (~$100). Mine has 8GB
  • 100% AdobeRGB Gamut display - It uses an RGB LED backlight LCD panel at 1920x1200. Plenty of screen real estate and the color gamut is almost too much. After turning down the brightness to about 30% to get 100 cd/m2 and profiling with an EyeOne XT, the color is pretty much dead-on. Extreme colors like 255 0 0 red are really, really intense (for better or for worse).  It is available in both glossy and anti-glare finishes. I chose the anti-glare, which is working out very well so far.
  • Graphics card - comes with Nvidia Quadro FX3700M dedicated graphics card with 1GB GDDR3 and 128 ALU cores. This card sucks battery power like it is goind out of style, but full-screen HD content has never been smoother. This allows me to take advantage of CS4 CUDA optimizations, and do full HD video editing in real time.
  • Dual HD support with hardware RAID (and optical drive, too) - The BIOS supports RAID 1 or 0 on the hardware level. My machine came with a moderate speed 128GB SSD, but I'm awaiting my two Samsung 256GB SSDs which I will be putting into a RAID 0 for 500GB onborad storage. This Samsung drive uses a brand new controller and gets about 250MB/sec read with 190MB/s write. In RAID 0, should be about 400MB/s read and 350MB/s write. The random write isn't as good as the Intel X-25M (20MB/s) but it isn't bad at 5MB/s. Compared to other SSDs and standard HDDs at about 0.5MB/s, this is still pretty good.
  • Expandability - besides the dual HD and slot-load optical drive (up to Blu-Ray burner if desired), I also have full size Display Port, E-Sata, plenety of USB ports, full size Firewire, SD card reader, PC Card slot, and Express54 slot.
  • Warranty - Comes with 3 year Next Business Day Onsite. Someone shows up at your home, office, hotel, studio, wherever... to do any repairs or replacements. Much more convenient than driving to the mall and waiting at the Genius Bar. For an extra $169, I upgraded to Complete Care, which covers all accidental damage as well. Nice piece of mind for someone who depends on their machine on the road.
The bad part is the Precision weighs 8.5 lbs and only clocks about 2.5 hours on a full battery charge. So far neither of these things have really bothered me. I'm in love with the speed, silence, amazing LCD screen, and expandability. Also, I'm running Windows 7, which is an absolute joy to use. It is very Mac-like while still retaining the logic of Win XP (don't want to start any OS flame wars here.... I've used both for many years, but just in two days Win 7 is my favorite by far! It is so intuitive and quick).

As far as speed, I ran Lightroom 2.4 64-bit and converted a P45+ 39MP file to a 16-bit TIFF in just over 5 seconds! And, that was with no RAID and the slow (90MB/s) SSD that I have until the fast Samsungs arrive.

This is an amazing piece of hardware and any reservations I had about weight or size or whatever have fallen by the wayside. My plan is to do most of my production on this computer and not have to go back to work on files on the Eizo a second time.

David
Title: editing on location
Post by: woof75 on July 14, 2009, 08:16:49 am
Quote from: foto-z
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

(http://legitreviews.com/images/news/2009/G-Monster_54.jpg)

Do these both fit into the new 17 inch macbook pro, I thought it only had express card 34 slot?
Title: editing on location
Post by: dfarkas on July 14, 2009, 08:42:49 am
Quote from: BJNY
David,

May I ask what your setup cost?

Sigh....I've been wishing for many years Apple would offer similar.

Regards,
Billy

Billy,

I got the laptop refurbished from the Dell Outlet. Aside from the sticker on the bottom that says "refurbished" it looks and acts brand new. Not one fingerprint anywhere and still came with the new warranty. With the "slow" 128GB SSD (Dell calls it a mobility SSD), it cost $2800. Then, I added 2x 256GB Samsung SSDs (Dell calls them performance SSDs) for $469 each. I figured I saved enough on the computer to splurge on the drives. So, in total, it was about $3750.

I think I saw that some are running OS X on it using the Hackintosh method. Maybe you could look into it. But, I will say that Win 7 is really, really nice. I think even a die-hard Mac user would like it.

David
Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on July 14, 2009, 11:27:54 am
Quote from: Adina
hi rainer,

you can use this card as a usb 'stick' on a laptop without a express slot
(... for file exchange ...)

Greetings
Adina
hi adina,

year, i didnt realise that it is an input ,- but it is and so you can use the card also as usb device to transfer the data.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Graham Mitchell on July 14, 2009, 01:14:31 pm
Quote from: woof75
Do these both fit into the new 17 inch macbook pro, I thought it only had express card 34 slot?

You would need to add a 54 to 34 adapter (if available), and then the card would stick out, of course. However the 54 version is a lot faster than the 34 as you can see.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Carsten W on July 14, 2009, 03:17:38 pm
Quote from: foto-z
You would need to add a 54 to 34 adapter (if available), and then the card would stick out, of course. However the 54 version is a lot faster than the 34 as you can see.

At some point, a Firewire 800 drive must make more sense. Almost as fast as eSATA and much more space.
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden on July 14, 2009, 05:39:36 pm
Quote from: carstenw
At some point, a Firewire 800 drive must make more sense. Almost as fast as eSATA and much more space.

i thought so too, but take a look -

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Dri...s-Firewire.html (http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-SATA-vs-Firewire.html)

seems like a RAID 0 in eSATA will be much faster than a FW800 external - even if it was a RAID 0


Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on July 14, 2009, 07:12:09 pm
Quote from: jimgolden
i thought so too, but take a look -

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Dri...s-Firewire.html (http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-SATA-vs-Firewire.html)

seems like a RAID 0 in eSATA will be much faster than a FW800 external - even if it was a RAID 0
you are wrong guys. the pure reading/writing numbers dont reflect the behavor with many small files.
there is no head to be moved in the ssd drive and this leads to much faster results than the max. writing/reading speeds of regular promise if compared the regular drives.
Title: editing on location
Post by: ziocan on July 14, 2009, 07:29:53 pm
Quote from: Adina
hi rainer,

you can use this card as a usb 'stick' on a laptop without a express slot
(... for file exchange ...)

Greetings
Adina
Could this card could be used for quick and fast back ups at the end of the shoot? is it faster than an eSata or FW800 external drive?

All the times I end the shooting day with a few tenths of thousands euros worth of production costs in my HD. During the shoot or at the end, we always spend quite some time backing up on external raids or a couple of single drives normally FW800. I was wondering if a couple of this cards could be a faste alternative.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Jens_Langen on July 15, 2009, 03:45:13 pm
Can you put the OS on the SSD Express Card?  Will this give faster boot up?
If so, then what about all the music and movies (80 gigs worth} that I have on the internal hard drive
of my MBP- can these be left on the hard drive but still have the OS on the SSD card?
How do you strip out "User" files from the OS so they can be in different places without
affecting your ability to use iTunes?
I use the MBP for location shoots and editing, but also for personal use.
Would love the speed bump the SSD card can provide....
Title: editing on location
Post by: jimgolden on July 15, 2009, 06:01:16 pm
Quote from: rainer_v
you are wrong guys. the pure reading/writing numbers dont reflect the behavor with many small files.
there is no head to be moved in the ssd drive and this leads to much faster results than the max. writing/reading speeds of regular promise if compared the regular drives.

I was referring to the FW800 vs eSata. theres no way SSD could be faster do to no moving parts...
Title: editing on location
Post by: Boris_Epix on July 15, 2009, 08:47:12 pm
Quote from: rainer_v
it sticks out less on a mac than on foto-z`s photo.
yes the drive is inside the card.
why they have built in an usb port in the card ?  dont know.


[attachment=15370:090713_0...75_1615X.jpg]

The USB ports on SSD devices is usually EXCLUSIVELY used to update the firmware which in some cases can bring significant performance boosts as many of todays SSD products are shipped to the customer like bananas (half green). So if you want to get them yellow at some point you need to update the firmware.

A word of caution: SSD's are an entirely different thing than harddisks. Harddisk are all somewhat fast. With SSD's you get REALLY fast ones... and EXTREMELY CRAPPY ones. I put a first generation OCZ Core Series 60 GB SSD into my tower. It was fine with one program. I enjoyed that there was no noise and that it didn't require any cooling. But I noticed that as soon as you ran two programs it would get REALLY slow. Windows XP freezes for 2-3 seconds before the screen refreshes and basicly it's worse than working on a 10 year old computer.

Now I have the Intel SSD's which are GREAT. Entirely different game. Sending the computer to standby takes 2 seconds or less. Starting up less than 30 seconds (2 minutes before with traditional harddisks). Most programs take less than a second to start. It's just amazing.

Intel's SSD's are optimized for read operations. So they are fast to show you thumbnails of your pics... browse through files. Very good on many files in parallel. They are a little slower on write operations than some of the competition. Some of the competitors really improved their products by adding caches or built-in RAID 0 (which I wouldn't buy because of the bigger risk of failure). If you want to use SSD REALLY REALLY REALLY don't be a cheapskate. Skip first and second generation products. Go straight to the current models and make sure they do not have the crappy JMicro controllers that cause the "stuttering" and freezes.
Title: editing on location
Post by: geesbert on July 29, 2009, 08:40:48 am
so which one is the current best option, in 128gb size and 34mm express slot?
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on July 30, 2009, 10:31:35 am
Quote from: rainer_v
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/ (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.


CAn anybody let me know where I can buy the right card that rainer is talking about. when I do a seacrh they come up USB etc.. But I a cannot find the card that rainer is talking about. I have the older 17 Inch and wanted to keep it for a while longer as I like , do not need a newer one ann nd bascially happy with it.
I would how ever like to Pimp it out and the Card sounds great that Rainer speaks of as well as the price!!
Thnaks for any help with this, sounds like a great solution and many places I look do not carry the cards because the newer macintoshes do not have the PC slots.
Thanks for maybe a link or specific model number so I can purchase one on my trip the the USA next week.
When I did a google seacrh for the product rainer mentioned it came up USB sticks only.
Thanks again
Snook

Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on July 30, 2009, 10:33:47 am
Quote from: Snook
CAn anybody let me know where I can buy the right card that rainer is talking about. when I do a seacrh they come up USB etc.. But I a cannot find the card that rainer is talking about. I have the older 17 Inch and wanted to keep it for a while longer as I like , do not need a newer one ann nd bascially happy with it.
I would how ever like to Pimp it out and the Card sounds great that Rainer speaks of as well as the price!!
Thnaks for any help with this, sounds like a great solution and many places I look do not carry the cards because the newer macintoshes do not have the PC slots.
Thanks for maybe a link or specific model number so I can purchase one on my trip the the USA next week.
When I did a google seacrh for the product rainer mentioned it came up USB sticks only.
Thanks again
Snook
SolidGo 48 Gb


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820161325 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161325)
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on July 30, 2009, 01:08:20 pm
Quote from: rainer_v
SolidGo 48 Gb


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820161325 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161325)

Thank you very much Rainer... I was mistaken I thought it was the USB slot but in fact it is a PC slot but with a USB connector built in..
Thank you very much...

Snook
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 09, 2009, 11:30:20 pm
Quote from: Snook
Thank you very much Rainer... I was mistaken I thought it was the USB slot but in fact it is a PC slot but with a USB connector built in..
Thank you very much...

Snook

Getting ready to buy this set up, but was wondering a couple of things.
Is it the same to have an expresss card with eSATA instead og the USB and with out the 49GB SSD card and instead have a external HD set up through the eSATA conected to an external HD 500 gig HD.?
Is there any, beside less Bulk, about having the express card wit the 49Gb on it or just using an expresss card with a 500 gig External HD connected to the express card with eSATA connectivity?

Like this,
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Te...y/SATAIIPROE34/ (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/SATAIIPROE34/)

Connected to an external Boot drive that would have C1 and photoshop installed on it.
Would I see the same performance boost.
I just recieved my 500gig 7200rpm drive for the MacbookPro. I have a 2.4ghz 17" MacbookPro and have  4 gigs of ram installed which is the Max on this model.atleast at apple.
So I was thinking even when in studio or locations where it  is was possible I would rather have the Expresss with eSATA connectivity and connect that to a 500 Gig HD external hard drive.
Or is that not going to improve speed at all?
Or is it actually faster the 49gig espress card that you have mentioned?

Thanks for any help as I need to purchase this sometime tomorrow. I prefer macsales as I have an account there, but they do not seem to sell any espress cards with the 49gigs storage on the card itself, they only seem to have express to connect drives (externally).

Snook



Title: editing on location
Post by: evgeny on August 10, 2009, 10:00:15 am
My Macbook Pro 13.3" with 8Gb RAM and 256GB SSD boots in approx 12 seconds. CS4 starts in about 3 seconds.
Title: editing on location
Post by: shuttersny on August 11, 2009, 09:23:57 am
Just want to mention that Tekserve in NYC still has in stock 15” Macbook Pro 2.66G/z with Expresscard Slot for under $2k- On which can accommodate these  cards
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 13, 2009, 06:34:10 pm
Just got my  SSD card in and had a few questions..
Can I keep it always in the PC slot or is it better to eject when traveling or not in use?
Also does anybody know if I need to Install programs like lightroom/photoshop/C-1 to this drive or can I drag them to the drive?
Is making it a scratch disk already going to make photoshop faster?
Would appreciate if any bbody has any more information or links to more information about these little SSD card drives.
My main questions are the first 2, can I just leave it in the slot "permanently" and do I actually have to re-install photoshop to the drive?
Thanks for any further information
Snook

Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on August 13, 2009, 08:41:47 pm
Quote from: Snook
Just got my  SSD card in and had a few questions..
Can I keep it always in the PC slot or is it better to eject when traveling or not in use?
Also does anybody know if I need to Install programs like lightroom/photoshop/C-1 to this drive or can I drag them to the drive?
Is making it a scratch disk already going to make photoshop faster?
Would appreciate if any bbody has any more information or links to more information about these little SSD card drives.
My main questions are the first 2, can I just leave it in the slot "permanently" and do I actually have to re-install photoshop to the drive?
Thanks for any further information
Snook
you can drag ps to the ssd drive.
you can leave the card in the slot.
i disabled the sleeping mode of the Hds, my experience is that the ssd card can make problems after awakening from sleep.
runs better witout letting it go to bed.
ps is a lot faster only with the scratch disc on the ssd.
same with bridge if you put the raw and the bridge cache to the ssd.
same with the catalog of lightroom.

i dont have the programs itself installed on the ssd after i one time had problems with the need to activate them again, no idea for which reason.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 13, 2009, 08:52:39 pm
Quote from: rainer_v
you can drag ps to the ssd drive.
you can leave the card in the slot.
i disabled the sleeping mode of the Hds, my experience is that the ssd card can make problems after awakening from sleep.
runs better witout letting it go to bed.
ps is a lot faster only with the scratch disc on the ssd.
same with bridge if you put the raw and the bridge cache to the ssd.
same with the catalog of lightroom.

i dont have the programs itself installed on the ssd after i one time had problems with the need to activate them again, no idea for which reason.

Thanks Rainer so much for the information..
Do you know if C=1 would make a difference running off the card?
Thank you again
Snook
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 15, 2009, 05:44:39 pm
Photoshop does not seem to recognize it as a Drive for scratch disk?
Also I notice when looking with dosk utility that it says Windows NT file system..
Do I or should I format it for macintosh?
Sorry but not sure how to work it best.
Should I erase and format it or keep it like it is.
Have not tried to place photoshop on it either as I wanted to check here first.
Please let me know if I should or need to format it as Mac file system.
I have it attached in my Macbook pro 17 inch and it shows mounted on the desktop but does say Windows file system and in photoshop CS4 it is not recognized as a possible scratch disk.
Thanks for any more help
Snook
Title: editing on location
Post by: jjlphoto on August 15, 2009, 07:25:49 pm
Quote from: Snook
Do you know if C=1 would make a difference running off the card?
CO is a processor based application.

Quote from: Snook
Do I or should I format it for macintosh?
Photoshop does not seem to recognize it as a Drive for scratch disk?
Format Mac OS extended (journaled)
If still not seen, do a Get Info (Apple I) on the drive and see what it reads for permissions.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 19, 2009, 01:45:22 pm
Hey guys sorry to keep this up, but this seems to be the only site I have found with information and where I can ask questions.

I remember Rainer stating that he just dragged photoshop to the SSD drive. Would I drag it to the drive then toss the one on my main HD of the laptop?
I have tons of Actions and Plug ins that I would hate to have to re-install again but no big deal if worse came to worse.
Do I just drag the whole photoshop folder to the SSD and is there going to be more improve VS just using the SSD as the Scratch disk only.
Also I have the 17 inch 2.4 GHz Intel Cor 2 Duo version which I have 4 gigs of ram. is the model able to have the gigs like stated or an I edition ealier than that one?
Thanks for information.
I basically like my 17 incher and just would like to Pimp it out more.
I just got the SSD card and a 500 gig 7200rpm Seagate Momentus Internal Drive for it.
Appreciate all the good information here and another 2 gigs of RAM would certainly help out as I do a lot of retocuhing on this one when not on the MacPro with 10 gigs of RAM. Will try to leave that in the studio for Tethering etc....

Thanks
Snook

Title: editing on location
Post by: AlexM on August 19, 2009, 01:57:50 pm
Quote from: Snook
Would I drag it to the drive then toss the one on my main HD of the laptop?
What is the point of dragging photoshop to SSD?

It will load a little faster from SSD but once it's loaded it works mostly from memory and there will no significant improvements in performance.
However, having your SSD as a scratch disk or having your images stored on it does make sense.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 19, 2009, 02:57:57 pm
Quote from: Oleksiy
What is the point of dragging photoshop to SSD?

It will load a little faster from SSD but once it's loaded it works mostly from memory and there will no significant improvements in performance.
However, having your SSD as a scratch disk or having your images stored on it does make sense.


Thanks, I was asking because the original poster had stated that he simple dragged his photoshop program as well as Lightroom and I think one other to the SSD card. I myself was not sure that would make a differnce and was exactly why I was asking

Snook
Title: editing on location
Post by: rainer_v on August 19, 2009, 05:44:42 pm
Quote from: Snook
Thanks, I was asking because the original poster had stated that he simple dragged his photoshop program as well as Lightroom and I think one other to the SSD card. I myself was not sure that would make a differnce and was exactly why I was asking

Snook
snook, although when starting to work with the ssd drive i installed programs as ps cs4 to it, just dragging the program icon to the ssd. it asked at the first startup if the changed disc locations should be accepted, i clicked yes and it worked. but after i got an aburring registration issue after the ssd didnt awoke from sleeping mode, i didnot went on having the programs on the card cause i dont like to repeat the nice adobe hotline session which followed. now i use the ssd as scratch disc for photoshop and for bridge, the ps raw converter and for the lightroom catalogues. this works perfect and makes most sense i.m.o.
Title: editing on location
Post by: Snook on August 19, 2009, 06:27:54 pm
Quote from: rainer_v
snook, although when starting to work with the ssd drive i installed programs as ps cs4 to it, just dragging the program icon to the ssd. it asked at the first startup if the changed disc locations should be accepted, i clicked yes and it worked. but after i got an aburring registration issue after the ssd didnt awoke from sleeping mode, i didnot went on having the programs on the card cause i dont like to repeat the nice adobe hotline session which followed. now i use the ssd as scratch disc for photoshop and for bridge, the ps raw converter and for the lightroom catalogues. this works perfect and makes most sense i.m.o.


Thank you very much..:+}
Snook