Question about SSD's

[walter.sk]

I use Photoshop CC and LR Classic on a 9 year old computer that Dell sent me after my original Dell turned out to be a total lemon.  Because it was a top of the line at the time but no longer in production Dell replaced it with a gaming computer, which I love:  It has an i7 930 liquid-cooled CPU, a 1500 watt power supply, only 12Gb RAM (maxed out), and now has the most advanced GPU compatible with it, nVidia GTX 1060 with 6Gb memory. After adding a USB3 adapter and changing the C drive to a Crucial SAT iii 1Tb SSD I'm happy again, with enough speed to be OK for photo work and web browsing. I use Windows 10 64-bit.

The monster computer has bays for 6 hard drives.  One is the SSD for my C drive, a 2nd is a clone of that drive (currently HDD).  The other 4 are used by 2 2Tb HDD's and 2 1Tb HDD's on which are my picture files.  I back those drives up onto external drives.

I would like to change one or more of the other hard drives to SSD's also.  The Crucial that I have now is a 2nd or 3rd generation, as later ones, I think, are not compatible. Here are the questions:

1) Are SSD's more reliable than the WD drives I'm currently using?
2) Would there be any speed advantage in processing pictures if my data drives were changed to SSD?
3) Do they run hotter than the HDD's so that I might have a problem if I replace anywhere from 1 to 5 more of the HDD's with SSD's?

While it may seem foolish to keep spending on this old computer, the SSD's would get life either as internal or backup drives when I eventually find I need a new computer.

Many thanks for any ideas.

[Joe Towner]

Hey Walter,

Oh the fun, technology that just keeps working. It's hard to replace something that isn't broke, right?

So here are the easy answer:

SATA is SATA, so any 2.5" SSD should work fine in your computer, all the way up to the 4tb models.

1) SSDs can be more reliable, especially in machines that are moved around.  As your desktop isn't that, I'd consider it equally reliable under normal use.   Hard drives have moving parts and they will fail. SSD's have chips that will wear out.  Both can be total jerks and die at any time.  Backups are important.

2) Yes, working with files on SSDs is much faster than working on HDDs - between loading and saving, or just large files, there is a noticeable difference.

3) SSDs tend to be less warm than HDDs since there isn't a motor spinning things around. 5400 rpm drives are cooler than 7200 rpm drives which are cooler than enterprise SSD's at 10,000 rpm.

The thing I would do is consolidate the drives in their current state into a single larger drive and a bigger backup drive.  Drives that are 1tb & 2tb are too small in my opinion in this day, and that moving to a single 6tb drive would be more efficient & reliable.  If you want to go a bit further get 2 and run a simple mirror for redundancy.  Your backups are important, but you should be best in 1 SSD for boot/Windows, 1 SSD for active photo projects, 1 HDD for photo archives. Toss in a set of backup drives and you'll be good for a while.

-Joe

[walter.sk]

Hey Walter,

Oh the fun, technology that just keeps working. It's hard to replace something that isn't broke, right?
...The thing I would do is consolidate the drives in their current state into a single larger drive and a bigger backup drive.  Drives that are 1tb & 2tb are too small in my opinion in this day, and that moving to a single 6tb drive would be more efficient & reliable.  If you want to go a bit further get 2 and run a simple mirror for redundancy.  Your backups are important, but you should be best in 1 SSD for boot/Windows, 1 SSD for active photo projects, 1 HDD for photo archives. Toss in a set of backup drives and you'll be good for a while.

-Joe

Thanks, Joe.  As simple as it is I hadn't thought of consolidating the drives.  I'm going to weigh the options and get the combination that seems most efficient for my workflow. 

[walter.sk]

Hey Walter,
It's hard to replace something that isn't broke, right?
-Joe

Would the age of my computer keep me from accessing drives larger than 2Tb?  Currently, all my drives are NTFS, and if my very limited technical knowledge is right, a 4Tb drive would have to be initialized as GPT.  If I just bought a 4Tb or larger drive, might my Bios or hardware prevent me from using it?  I looked at several websites explaining drive-size limitations, but how could I tell?  I do not want these for my boot drive, anyway, so would I run into a problem?

[Joe Towner]

As long as you're not booting from it, even if you needed to add a PCIe SATA card, you could do drives all the way up to 14tb.

[walter.sk]

As long as you're not booting from it, even if you needed to add a PCIe SATA card, you could do drives all the way up to 14tb.

Good to hear.  Thanks.

[Lightsmith]

If your computer can accommodate two SSD drives then I would go this route and have your operating system and applications on one drive and your data on the other drive. I find it easier to backups of the data when it is all on the same drive and if a Windows update hoses the computer I can still access the data drive and have full access to my files.

SSD drives come in two flavors and the much more expensive commercial grade ones have a larger pool of blocks so that as the primary ones fail they can be replaced. More of an issue in a multi-user environment than with a single user and their computer.

For serious backup of anything important it should be on some type of RAID whether it has two mirrored drives that have duplicates of the data or one with more drives for more efficient use of drive capacity.

 

[faberryman]

For serious backup of anything important it should be on some type of RAID whether it has two mirrored drives that have duplicates of the data or one with more drives for more efficient use of drive capacity.

RAID is not backup. If one drive is corrupted, the corruption is mirrored to the other drive.

[Peter McLennan]

RAID is not backup. If one drive is corrupted, the corruption is mirrored to the other drive.

True.  The question is: how many drive failures are mechanical (and not replicated in the mirror) and how many are software, and are replicated?

[faberryman]

True.  The question is: how many drive failures are mechanical (and not replicated in the mirror) and how many are software, and are replicated?

I had both and gave up on RAID. Now I just have a larger drive and backup. Unless you need massive amounts of storage, stick with something simple. Personally I think people keep too much stuff, mostly reject images. Do you take out your trash weekly or buy new trash cans when your current one is full, and keep all of it in the garage for years?

[Joe Towner]

Now I just have a larger drive and backup. Unless you need massive amounts of storage, stick with something simple.

Very true, simple is better and if you can work within a single drive it works.  It's what I love about the Thunderbay6 - 6 sata slots and a NVMe slot over TB3.

[armand]

Very true, simple is better and if you can work within a single drive it works.  It's what I love about the Thunderbay6 - 6 sata slots and a NVMe slot over TB3.

I thought that is Mac only but looks like things have changed and they do support Windows now. You can't however use their SoftRAID in Win, you'll have to use Storage Spaces/pools.