Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Asset Management => Topic started by: Alan Klein on August 02, 2021, 04:50:40 pm
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I'm replacing my computer with a Dell tower, no monitor. I can get a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive + 2TB 7200RPM Hard Drive or a 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive for about $225 more. The full SSD comes with no separate SSD cache drive. Is it necessary?
If it isn't, would I be better off with the full SSD or the combo 512gb SSD with 2TB HD?
Here are the configurations.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/desktop-computers/xps-desktop/spd/xps-8940-desktop/xd8940msr20h?configurationid=d637fa68-8f89-493a-9774-5811861763ed $2096.20
https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/desktop-computers/xps-desktop/spd/xps-8940-desktop/xd8940msr20h?configurationid=6153c0bd-b9c1-4c31-8e04-ae126f0c5ca7 $2311.80
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The "Google Machine" is your friend:
https://www.crucial.com/articles/about-ssd/ssd-vs-hdd
Money no object (I'd find that difficult to believe) and speed is, go SSD.
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Thanks Andrew. It's not SSD vs. HDD. It's 2TB SSD vs. 2TB HDD and 512gb SSD cache.
Does that make a difference?
Dell just got back to me and they said: "Dual drives are more safe to be honest because if one crashes there would be another one on standby."
So is it safety vs. speed?
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Indeed it makes a difference and if a boot drive and the budget allows; go bigger.
As for safe; gotta back up somewhere. Doesn't have to be an expensive SSD.
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I already have a 4TB My Passport backing up the whole machine connected to a USB port. Its 2TB HHD is split into C and D drives where I keep programs on C and photos on D.
Dell offers a 1tb 7200rpm Boot drive to go with the 2tb SSD for another $49 which sounds reasonable. SO the pricing looks like this:
2TB 7200 HDD with 512gb SSD vs. 2TB SSD with 1TB Boot drive 7200rpm. The latter for about $275 more. Sounds like a good deal.
How does a machine configure the SSD with the boot drive?
Do you know if Acronis the backup software from Western Digital for their drive restores the entire new computer with all the programs and data? WOuld you need a C and D section as in my current computer?
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I don't use Acronis (or Windows for that matter).
You should be able to use any Windows backup software of course. Any decent backup utility should be able to restore what it has backed up (and if you boot off it, and you'd want a bootable backup), you could then reformat another drive and clone it back exactly like the backup.
A 'machine' should be able to boot from a HD or SSD. One's going to be faster to boot certainly.
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I don't use Acronis (or Windows for that matter).
You should be able to use any Windows backup software of course. Any decent backup utility should be able to restore what it has backed up (and if you boot off it, and you'd want a bootable backup), you could then reformat another drive and clone it back exactly like the backup.
A 'machine' should be able to boot from a HD or SSD. One's going to be faster to boot certainly.
Besides booting faster, will a full SSD drive be a lot faster to handle video creation and photo editing as done by Adobe Premiere and Photoshop? Is it something really noticeable?
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Besides booting faster, will a full SSD drive be a lot faster to handle video creation and photo editing as done by Adobe Premiere and Photoshop? Is it something really noticeable?
It might be; might. It depends on if Premiere uses a scratch disk. Photoshop can, if you run out of actual memory, then it hits scratch disk and yes, SSD would be much faster.
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Well thanks for spending the time giving me all this advice.
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This needs to be under Computers & such. The caching concept is a hack, it doesn't help in a wide selection of areas and it causes nothing but problems later on, especially if one of the devices has a problem. Just do the 2tb NVMe drive & see the full performance across the entire storage device, not just when Intel wants to get into the middle of it.
As to moving your existing computer over to the new hardware, you'll need to reinstall all your apps and transfer your data. Do not 'restore a backup' on the new computer. Not only is that bringing any issues you may not notice over - how many Windows 10 version upgrades & such have you done?
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This needs to be under Computers & such. The caching concept is a hack, it doesn't help in a wide selection of areas and it causes nothing but problems later on, especially if one of the devices has a problem. Just do the 2tb NVMe drive & see the full performance across the entire storage device, not just when Intel wants to get into the middle of it.
As to moving your existing computer over to the new hardware, you'll need to reinstall all your apps and transfer your data. Do not 'restore a backup' on the new computer. Not only is that bringing any issues you may not notice over - how many Windows 10 version upgrades & such have you done?
So you mean I should buy only the 2GB SSD with no boot drive? It's "safe" enough and will provide more speed overall?
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Yes, go with just the 2tb NVMe drive. Separating boot from data isn’t necessary anymore - having the larger drive gives you plenty to work with. If you need more space, adding a SATA SSD will keep the performance high.
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Alan, you may also want to look into this:
Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2021
https://hsctaimages.net/ctas/v2/public/cs/ci/?pg=6214cc41-2236-4e55-8ca9-0f06d4981c61&pid=2832298&ecid=ACsprvumvQkzi1c4zoSuEEKxfav2csVPHnTO34iAtOPP1104igJZ33-FutnUIdky7-ziohFt3zgU&hseid=146178803&hsic=false&utm_campaign=B1C%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=146178803&utm_rewrite=REWRITE_ALL&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-98ACN1ID0lcxKeT6NT8Y3DljsJ-YCW12DKrD2G0ef_NXj74tY7AbiCPa78iLKsA649_k0BTbj5MO6bqzzTIYF1jY0MXTIq4Yuc0eQChHbEKddMG70&utm_content=146178802&utm_source=hs_email