Solid State Hard Drives?

[JustJazzie]

We replaced the hard drive in our Imac earlier this year, and it is AWEFUL. Im not sure if it is defective or just a bad brand but its SLOOW, you can hear it writing from the next room over and I have had some issues with my photo libraries since we installed it. (DH replaced it himself, so we cant make apple fix it) Anyways, we are considering replacing it again in the relatively near future, before we loose everything.

So we thought we had settled on a solid state drive, but my husband read something about how SSD's aren't good for photo editing because the files are rewritten/moved around too much and using photo editing programs will inevitable cause the SSD to crash. I have no idea where he read this article, or if it was a legitimate source so I thought I would ask if any of you had heard of this issue? Do any of you use SSD's? Have you had an issue with it?

 

[Trever1t]

hopefully you have a backup system and not a single drive to be dependent on. Ihave never heard that about SSDs. I have a Drobo 5 bay and I back that up onto multiple external drives.

 

[Rick50]

Well, here is what I know. The remote USB hard drives use flash memory like the stuff on you camera plug in card. My experience that this memory does fail after a while and you will start to lose data. It is not nearly as dependable as a rotating disc hard drive normally found in a computer. Works great for back up purposes because then it doesn't get used so much.
So hubby read right and I am standing by it.

 

[TreeofLifeStairs]

It is true that solid state drives' biggest weakness is their longevity when it comes to writing and rewriting. Do some research on this because some brands/models are much better with this than others. I would recommend using a solid state drive but having a regular external hard disk drive for back up. I have a 250gb SSD that holds the OS and all my programs and then a larger HDD for the storage of my media.

 

[Light Guru]

It is true that solid state drives' biggest weakness is their longevity when it comes to writing and rewriting.

The rest of your computer hardware is going to become obsolete and unable to run current applications long before a SSD drive dies because files are written or rewritten on it too much.

The performance boost that you get from a SSD are well worth it.

 

[KmH]

It's my understanding the flash memory used in an SSD (NAND type flash memory) is faster and more reliable than the kind of flash memory used in USB thumb drives.

Large files on hard drives become fragmented and a routine hard drive maintenance procedure is defragmentation of the files on a drive. Since the hard drive has to rotate to put the various fragments under the read heads in a hard drive some time is wasted accessing a large fragmented file.
SSD's don't have any moving parts so fragmentation is not an issue and their is no additional time needed to access a large fragmented file.

While it is true all types of flash memory have a limited number of erase cycles, wear leveling that uses TRIM technology built into SSDs that dynamically optimizes read/write cycles, you're more likely to discard your computer for obsolescence before you start running into read/write errors. The possible exceptions are high-end multimedia users like video editors who read and write data constantly, but those users will need the larger capacities of hard drives anyway.

 

[Overread]

I would recommend using a solid state drive but having a regular external hard disk drive for back up. I have a 250gb SSD that holds the OS and all my programs and then a larger HDD for the storage of my media.

This is what I do, only I use internal drives instead of external as my first point of data storing. For photos if you're shooting RAW you really want to be getting 2TB hard-drives - 1TB at the least with most modern cameras. SSD drives are more expensive so sure you could get them in those sizes, but it will cost you lots. Get an SSD around the 250GB mark for hte primary drive and then a second drive for photos which is a regular hard-disk.

 

[The_Traveler]

Like most everyone else here, I use an ssd for system and a normal 7300 rpm internal HD for files.
I have two 2 USB3 external tb backup drives and use Syncback SE for backups.

Most SSDs come with software to move the system and programs over. It takes a good while but its a one-time, hands off process.
All my files get backed up every day at 4:30.
If I spend a huge amount of effort on some editing efforts, I have a profile to backup just my photo files that runs on demand.

 

[runnah]

I have a 250gb SSD that holds the OS and all my programs and then a larger HDD for the storage of my media.

Best way to do it. Make boot times and program speeds much faster.

 

[JustJazzie]

I'm pretty computer illerate so tell me if I got this. We want a smaller ssd drive to run programs. So I would put Photoshop and aperture on the ssd drive, but tell aperture to save the files on the other regular hard drive? Will my photo programs still run faster this way?? Or I'm supposed to put photos and photo programs on the regular drive and everything else on the ssd?

 

[qleak]

I'm pretty computer illerate so tell me if I got this. We want a smaller ssd drive to run programs. So I would put Photoshop and aperture on the ssd drive, but tell aperture to save the files on the other regular hard drive? Will my photo programs still run faster this way??

Yes and no, they will load more quickly and maybe memory page (when your computer uses the memory) more quickly. It will certainly boot a hell of a lot more quickly. If your computer has a blinking hard drive light, basically anything that involves that will be quicker.

However, since you'd be saving files on the conventional drive, and if you have adequate memory your computer won't need to do memory paging, this will not affect the active editing process speed much.

You could save some of your files that you're working with on the SSD for faster file load and save times, but this really isn't that bad even on 120MB 16bit 24mb png files.

I personally use an SSD for my programs and operating system but save my photos to a conventional drive.

 

[JustJazzie]

hopefully you have a backup system and not a single drive to be dependent on. Ihave never heard that about SSDs. I have a Drobo 5 bay and I back that up onto multiple external drives.

By the way, thanks for the reminder! I unhooked my backup drive 2 months ago to play a slideshow on my tv and forgot to hook it back up. Thanks to you, I spent the morning making sure its up to date!

 

[JimMcClain]

I don't know how my Windows 8.1 system relates to your situation, but I have 3 internal SSDs; one 128gb for the OS and programs, one 128gb for Adobe scratch file, system page file and all temp files and a 512gb drive for all user files (My Documents, My Pictures, etc.). I back up to an older 500gb external HDD, for now.

I read reviews and statistics and chose premium drives (Samsung 850 Pro). I may have to move my user files to a larger SSD, but not because it will "wear out" before a hard drive with moving parts and older technology. I believe, in the not too distant future, HDDs, as we know them today, will be phased out of all new manufactured computers.

Jim

 

[chuasam]

I have a 512GB SSD on my iMac. My most often used lightroom catalogues reside on my SSD. My source files sit on a regular 7200RPM drive connected to my computer by Thunderbolt. My backup is a second daisy chained drive.
I had a Drobo before but I found it really slow. Also, if I make a mistake on my file, now I can readily retrieve yesterday's backup.

 

[a_auger]

I recently upgraded my old Unibody Macbook that I use on deployment with a SSD. All my photos are on my 3TB external drive and my OS and LR runs on the SSD.

I can say that this computer is SLOW (it is 6 years old...) when it comes to using LR. The SSD made a significant difference in the load speeds of the program and the editing process went from very slow to fairly tolerable. A good SSD will breathe some new life into an older computer and I highly recommend the upgrade!