Hi, My main hard drive is a 500gb hybrid. I was thinking of getting a 60gb SSD solely to install Photoshop on and a couple of other applications. Can any one tell me if this is a good idea in terms of performance and using these applications? Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks John
Mmmmm... So you're after an effectively read only SSD just to load PS & numerous plug ins (+ a couple of apps) rather than for temp files or anything? if so, you should be fine with the cheapest sync nand (not async nand) 6Gb/s SF or M4 that you can find... ...for simplicity's sake, you may as well go for the M4 as there's a slightly lower chance of compatibility issues. Well, assuming you've got a reasonable amount of memory/are not overly using the pagefile, it certainly speed up the loading of PS & whatnot. i would, however, question what you're proposing to do as there will be gains both in PS (both with pagefile usage & for scratch folders) & with Windows more generally by going for a larger SSD to use as a boot drive as well. This would mean looking at a 120/128GB(+) SSD - &, based on the info, *ideally* one that's suited for a heavier i/o workload. Atm, the main options would be (best to worst - & generally most expensive first) - 1. Either the Samsung 830, the Corsair Performance Pro or a toggle nand SF... (all with nand rated for 5,000 cycles) 2. The Vertex 4 - this has a major f/w limitation atm with small low QD reads - when this is sorted it 'should' be the fastest consumer SSD. (nand rated for 3,000 cycles) 3. & then either the M4 or a sync nand SF. (nand rated for 3,000 cycles) * * * * * Now, just to be clear... (& although Harlequin will no doubt also post; typing "i hate OCZ... i hate SF... i hate them, i hate them", & nothing more, as that's seemingly his/her only joy in life) ...for some people there are compatibility issues with any 6Gb/s SF which cause bsod issues. if you get them (& they're non-resolvable after a bit of troubleshooting) you should return it for a refund & buy an alternative... ...but if you don't get the issue (which is most people), you get some major advantages with much lower write amplification (nand lasts longer), better garbage collection & raise (effectively the nand acts in R5 which allows a whole die to fail).
Hi, Thanks for your response. I've got a phenom 965 with 8gb DDR3. I thought seen as i have the hybrid already I could just get a smaller SSD for certain applications, but if you think the performance wouldn't be that beneficial then perhaps I should look at something else. Thanks
Unless you've got some *really* upscale model, whilst the nand cache on the hybid will help, it's nowhere near as good as having a proper SSD for the OS & whatnot... ...the amount of nand is typically too small on them to have enough of a real life effect... Then, having an AMD system, the chances of you having issues with a SF are greatly reduced... ...that's not to say that they don't ever happen, but it's far less common - & is 'a' reason why the general understanding is that some of the SF's issues are down to intel's disk controller. Anyway, i'm not saying that there wouldn't be an improvement from what you were suggesting - simply that you'd get *significantly* better results by going the whole hog & getting a bigger SSD that could cover at least the OS (plus a decent amount of free space for scratch folders) as well. &, of course, the 120/128GB 6Gb/s SSDs are significantly faster than the 60/64GB ones... ...& the 240/256GB ones are, generally, even better. (the 480/512GB ones tend to be both a bit better & a bit worse than the 240/256GB ones depending upon the metric used for testing) The other option, i guess, would be to look at a caching SSD - however there have been reports of issues with Nvelo's Dataplex software that's used, afaik, across the board. &, because they will tend to have a higher write load if you're using lots of different software, you'd really need to look at one with 128GB of nand - ie something akin to the 64GB Synapse which has a huge amount of over provisioning to maintain speeds & longevity (basically a 128GB async nand Agility with alt f/w) rather than something like the Crucial Adrenalin (effectively a 64GB M4 with alt f/w reducing to 50GB). imho, they're not great value for money though.
