# Thoughts on SSD for PC tower



## johnbeardy (Mar 22, 2016)

I'm toying with replacing my Windows 7 desktop computer's system drive with an SSD. Maybe it will give faster startup - though I only startup once a day - but I'm also hoping for faster performance generally. Has anyone experience of this?

John


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## Bxbche (Mar 22, 2016)

I replaced my 2010 laptop with a samsung 840 EVO SSD and liked the improvement about 1.5 years ago.  If your desktop is able to utilize the speed it should help on loading and cache (depends on type of SATA the pc supports on how much improvement you will see). I just built a PC and are using only SSDs. One for main drive and one for cache drive in photoshop.


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 22, 2016)

John, I did that a couple of years ago, replacing the system drive and a second internal (used for LR Catalogs) with a couple of Intel 530s. I liked the outcome very much, quicker system boot, much snappier opening apps, etc.

Oddly, since upgrading to Windows 10 I have been less pleased.....system boot is OK still but there's a definite lag in starting applications (Lightroom in particular). I have a feeling it may be something to do with the way internal drives are being handled, but I've not had time (or the enthusiasm) to investigate. If it was any worse, then I certainly would.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 22, 2016)

Yes, SSD's as a system drive (especially if that is also your scratch/temp area) can make a huge difference.  The later the software version (windows version that is) often the more help, as they improved SSD support intelligence with each version, but Windows 7 will run much faster generally with SSD.


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## johnbeardy (Mar 22, 2016)

"depends on type of SATA the pc supports"

You mean SATA6, don't you? I wonder how one can find that out! Digging around device manager doesn't seem to list it, but I can see the motherboard is an Asus and my build notes say I was planning to buy an "Asus P6X58D-E, Intel X58, 1366, 6DDR3, 3PCI-Ex16, CrossfireX/SLI, 8CHHD Sound, USB3 & SATA6 ATX". So that looks good, I think.

John


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## johnbeardy (Mar 22, 2016)

Thanks Jim / Linwood, I may progress this further then. Sorely tempted to push up the RAM too....


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 22, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> "depends on type of SATA the pc supports"
> 
> You mean SATA6, don't you? I wonder how one can find that out! Digging around device manager doesn't seem to list it, but I can see the motherboard is an Asus and my build notes say I was planning to buy an "Asus P6X58D-E, Intel X58, 1366, 6DDR3, 3PCI-Ex16, CrossfireX/SLI, 8CHHD Sound, USB3 & SATA6 ATX". So that looks good, I think.
> 
> John



That was one issue I faced, as my MB was a touch older than the one you went with, so only supports SATA3. In the end I decided not to bother with an MB upgrade....but even so I was still pleased with the outcome.


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## johnbeardy (Mar 22, 2016)

Back then I tried to think ahead, but it's pot luck, isn't it? I think I'll go for the SSD and push RAM up from 12 to 32, Windows 10 whenever. I'd like to install them separately to see where I get the bigger boost - but that's really of no more interest than figuring out if it was the beer or the whisky that caused the sore head!


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## Bxbche (Mar 22, 2016)

This program may be able to show you the model number of your motherboard and then you can check the MB website. 
CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID


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## Bxbche (Mar 22, 2016)

Also my 2010 laptop was also only SATA3 and I noticed a significant improvement with an SSD.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 23, 2016)

For lightroom alone I did not find more ram a big help above 8gb or so.  Panoramas in lightroom needed more. Photoshop on the other hand can use a LOT more memory, and of course if you have additional programs running at the same time as Lightroom more helps.

Don't mistake me -- I think 8gb is really small for today's systems, and more is better generally, just saying not to expect much magic as you get over that from Lightroom alone.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 23, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> Thanks Jim / Linwood, I may progress this further then. Sorely tempted to push up the RAM too....


John,

I also suggest an SSD for the same reasons that others already gave you.  I got my first SSD for my laptop, for reliability reasons, but I was so impressed that my desktop, my laptop and my wife's desktop all use SSDs.  A 512 GB drive will set you back less than US $200, not sure what you would pay at Maplins.

Phil


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## Bxbche (Mar 23, 2016)

_


Ferguson said:



			For lightroom alone I did not find more ram a big help above 8gb or so.  Panoramas in lightroom needed more. Photoshop on the other hand can use a LOT more memory, and of course if you have additional programs running at the same time as Lightroom more helps.

Don't mistake me -- I think 8gb is really small for today's systems, and more is better generally, just saying not to expect much magic as you get over that from Lightroom alone.
		
Click to expand...

_


I agree with Ferguson - the links below discuss lightroom does not use a lot of ram. I have 64gb of ram and rarely does it go over 5 GB.  However photoshop will use all the ram you can afford and stuff in your motherboard. 

Lightroom performance hints

What does Lightroom need:  CPU, RAM or GPU? - Ars Technica OpenForum


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## johnbeardy (Mar 23, 2016)

64gb makes me feel I've not pushed the boat out far enough! Yes, the RAM upgrade is really about Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects.



PhilBurton said:


> A 512 GB drive will set you back less than US $200



Over here it's £250 / $350 for a 1Tb, less than half that for 512, but I'm using 300gb on my existing current system drive which is currently pretty clean. Saying that, I've just been digging around appdata\temp which is 120Gb, and 100Gb seems to be AfterEffects and mostly "Disk Cache" subfolders. The biggest is dated 16 Feb 2016 - don't know why that's in "temp" when it was late March the last time I looked!

John


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## Bxbche (Mar 23, 2016)

keep in mind you need empty SSD space for cache for photoshop (depending on how much ram and what you are doing) so leave some empty space.


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## johnbeardy (Mar 23, 2016)

I do know this  and that's partly why I ordered a 1tb SSD. But I may only experiment with it for Photoshop's scratch disc as it's always been Adobe's advice to use another big internal drive. Interestingly though, Adobe seem to be changing their advice:

If your startup disk is a hard disk, as opposed to a solid-state disk (SSD), try using a different hard disk for your primary scratch disk. An SSD, on the other hand, performs well as both the primary startup and scratch disk. In fact, using an SSD is probably better than using a separate hard disk as your primary scratch disk
​


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 23, 2016)

I don't even know what that could mean -- are they trying to imply that if you have a system drive that is rotating, that a SSD is somehow then a more poor choice?   Or just that you already do so much harm with the rotating speed the faster temp drive on SSD makes no difference? 

By the way, while we are on the subject, don't ignore the fact SSD drives on SATA are inherently poor performing.  MUCH faster than rototating drives, but still slow.  If you are looking for optimal speed look at the new M.2 PCI card structures, which get the old-flavor disk controller out of the middle entirely, and are MUCH faster, if you have compatible motherboard and OS.   It won't be too many, I think, before we're talking about replacing our slow SSD with motherboard attached storage.  I keep thinking about swapping out my OS drive for one, then I look and see it's almost all CPU bound anyway when I run lightroom, so I sigh and just keep waiting... waiting...


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## johnbeardy (Mar 23, 2016)

It means if your discs are spinning, put the scratch disc on one that isn't the system disc - that's the traditional advice. But with an SSD system disc, it's "probably" better to use it as scratch too.


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## Bxbche (Mar 23, 2016)

Ferguson said:


> I don't even know what that could mean -- are they trying to imply that if you have a system drive that is rotating, that a SSD is somehow then a more poor choice?   Or just that you already do so much harm with the rotating speed the faster temp drive on SSD makes no difference?
> 
> By the way, while we are on the subject, don't ignore the fact SSD drives on SATA are inherently poor performing.  MUCH faster than rototating drives, but still slow.  If you are looking for optimal speed look at the new M.2 PCI card structures, which get the old-flavor disk controller out of the middle entirely, and are MUCH faster, if you have compatible motherboard and OS.   It won't be too many, I think, before we're talking about replacing our slow SSD with motherboard attached storage.  I keep thinking about swapping out my OS drive for one, then I look and see it's almost all CPU bound anyway when I run lightroom, so I sigh and just keep waiting... waiting...




Correct  I just upgraded and have two M.2 is RAID 0 and get about 3100 MB/S  versus 500 MB/S for SSD


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## Trenton (Apr 4, 2016)

I recently upgraded an older computer running Windows 7 from a mechanical harddrive to an SSD. Even with SATA2 I still noticed a significantly faster startup time and overall faster responsiveness while doing tasks. So upgrading to an SSD is definitely worth it in my opinion.
Btw, there are some comments in this thread about having 'only SATA3'. SATA3_ is_ 6Gbps and is the most widely used SATA standard today. Basically no SATA based SSD today are capable of faster speeds than what the SATA3 connection provides. My new computer has SATA3 and takes fully advantage of the 500-550MBps my Samsung 850 SSDs are rated for. If you want SSDs with even faster speeds you'd be looking at M.2 or PCI Express based ones, but those are usually really expensive and older motherboards rarely supports those standards anyway.


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