# Move catalog to SSD?



## Evan (Sep 22, 2009)

I just upgraded my PC and have Lightroom installed on my SSD. I can't fit my photos on the SSD but is there any meaningful performance advantage to putting the catalog on the SSD? Is it worth the effort?

As a side note, Photoshop load time on the SSD is just amazing.


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## Mark Sirota (Sep 22, 2009)

Yes, there is probably a significant performance advantage for putting the catalog and previews on the SSD. Please lset us know if I'm right!


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## sizzlingbadger (Sep 22, 2009)

I'm very interested in your results... I used SSD quite a couple of years ago on a PC system and was disappointed but I think they have come a long way in the last couple of years and many of the original issues have been overcome.

I first used SSD in back in 1997 when we were trying to get very high transaction rates in an Oracle database, back then the disks were about $4',''' each and were only 8GB, this was actually quite successful as we were mainly writing / deleting to the disks in a rotational log pattern, updating was always the pain on SSD.

You could bring your new images in to LR on the SSD and then move them to other storage once you have done the hard part in the Dev module.


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## tpaschal (Oct 6, 2009)

Was just discussing this in another thread... http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=8'22.'

Again, I'm not positive but I believe that I've got good performance to dollar ratio keeping my catalog on the SSD and my images on the HDD. I base this primarily on flipping through previews... if they've already been cached to the SSD, very fast access. But if I'm viewing a group of images for the first time I always notice the HDD spin up to access the original image to create the preview. Following that spin-up, any delay is negligible to me, though.

All that said, I would really like to hear from others on this and see if anyone has experience trying both routes to compare apples to apples.


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## dj_paige (Oct 6, 2009)

Just so I can follow along ...

What is SSD?


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## Mark Sirota (Oct 6, 2009)

Solid State Disk (or Drive, or Device, depending what you read).


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## Denis Pagé (Oct 8, 2009)

And sometime ago or better say Once upon a time... they were Single Sided Disks (9'Kb) "for unlimited storage" they said in the ads!


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## hollis_f (Oct 12, 2009)

I keep my OS, Program Files, LR catalog and my current set of images on my SSD. When I've finished editing I transfer all the photos (within Lightroom) to my HDD. Just like what Nik suggests. The speed is most impressive.


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## Replytoken (Oct 12, 2009)

Just be sure to back up your catalogs off of the SSD. You might want to read this post to know why: http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php?topic=2'32.3'#msg24196 .

--Ken


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## Linh (Jun 26, 2010)

sorry to dig up an old thread, but has anyone put JUST the catalog and current set of files on the SSD? I want to keep my OS/Apps drive on a normal HDD and just put the LR catalog and whatever files I'm working on to the SSD. Then migrate finished work to another hdd when done of course.

Basically, I'd need a 128GB+ drive I think to do it all, and they are pricey for a good one. So I thought, why not half step and get a entry/mid range ~64GB drive for LR. Would it be worth it? Maybe put the cache there too (or a ram disk, if ~4GB is enough)


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 26, 2010)

I'd be concerned about what I could actually fit onto a 64GB SSD....I have a comparatively small master catalog which with previews is about 5'GB. Original picture files are approaching 1''GB, and I've taken advantage of the LR3 limit and set my ACR Cache max size to 2''GB. 

So obviously a 64GB SSD would only take my catalog and previews with little room to grow. I did look at the SSD option when I was sorting out the configuration for my new desktop a couple of months ago....given my budget contraints I decided in the end to stay with conventional HDDs but installed 4 of them so that I could achieve separation of Catalog/Previews, Cache, and master pictures. The 4th drive is for OS, Program Files etc. I'll maybe upgrade in the future when cost has come down and capacity has gone up....for now I can't see how to make it work on anything less than 2''GB drives which in the UK cost about £6'' each.  Another day I think!


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## Linh (Jun 27, 2010)

good point, I have about a 1'GB catalog... so 64 should suffice for most of my needs, I think. I'm not growing that fast, and hope SSD prices will take a tumble over the next year.  I also have 1:1 previews discarded after a month or something. 

And at most 4x4GB cards, rarely do I hit more (so far...) at any one given time. still leaves some room for a larger ACR cache than 1'GB (you have 2'', that's nuts! the default is 1... haha)

But again, really trying to find out if anyone else has done this to gauge how well (or not) it worked for them.


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## ukbrown (Jul 23, 2010)

Are SSD's that fast ?

Could you get a 15K SCSI disk and controller for the same price ?


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## johnbeardy (Jul 23, 2010)

See http://forums.adobe.com/message/2984748?tstart='#2984748 and the following post from Robert Frost.


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