Does size really matter?

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I guess it depends on who you ask
Really, though I do have a question about SSD and size. It has been asked over and over but I have not seen any threads that really answer my question.
What size SSD would be the best option for me? I do your normal computer operation but do a lot of serious video work. I have many programs that I need to use for different things that I do. Several different things for video(large programs) office, programs that I have for home automation, hundreds of gb of music, hundreds of pictures, tb of video. Large programs for pictures. I know I won’t store any of the music, pics or video on the SSD.
I have read many, many, many conflicting reports on what to do with your SSD. My big question is will I get faster video rendering if the program is on the OS drive? Where is the best place to put my programs. On another drive or on the same partition as the OS? I want what will be best for video work.

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Most people who use SSDs these days use the SSDs only for the OS & programs. They use a “regular” disk for data. Especially if you have large graphics files (pics & video) you’ll max out the SSD quickly. A modern sata II disk drive with a large cache will serve you well for the large files and is much more cost effective right now.

IMO, the size of the SSD should be 80 – 120 GB depending on the number of programs you have.

Joe

--Joe

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You don’t say anything about your system hardware, but you may find Intel Smart Response Technology means that a small SSD will more than meet your needs.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325554.pdf

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My big question is will I get faster video rendering if the program is on the OS drive? Where is the best place to put my programs. On another drive or on the same partition as the OS? I want what will be best for video work.

Yes, use the SSD as your sole os drive and install all your programs on it, but save or store the finished video editing product on other internal drive(s).
For advanced video and photo manipulation get at least the 120 GB SSD and don’t worry about “wasted space”.
If you are doing professional manipulation with several large file sizes greater than 1 or 2 GB you will need that extra space.

Count on copying back and forth the files you are working on between your drives. Utilizing the faster drive for the actual work does make a difference.
(Work on the video from the SSD and not from any other drive)
Don’t purchase the cheapest drive you can find as they are not all created equal, so do your homework and research what you are buying.

I do alot of video and photo manipulations on my SSD and have noticed a decent performance gain. But due to the cost of many of these SSD’s, storage is not practical. Unless you can afford 4 or 5 more large capacity SSD’s as storage drives to install on your motherboard’s other internal SATA ports, it’s not worth the money going all SSD.

1TB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$2,864^{.99 as of this post date.}

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I should also add that the high capacity mechanical drives in the 1-2 TB range and higher, are the most ideal for storing large files
greater than 1-2 GB. This is what these drive were made and intended for. Do not use these drives as a bootable os drive if you can at all help it.

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I see that the new SATA III drives are hitting the store shelves now.
They are twice as fast as SATA II and four times faster than the original SATA I drives.
I think I’d rather go that route, rather than the new and VERY expensive SSD drive.

My next HD will definitely be a SATA III, even if I have to buy a controller card to run it. *

I ran my first SATA HD on a controller card for almost two years, till I could afford to buy
a new motherboard with SATA ports, on-board.

* A short Google search led me to this neat little controller card and at a good price too.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=pci+to+sata+iii+controller+card&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=2934887506352919487&sa=X&ei=pepHTtfIJca70AG02-yFCA&ved=0CH8Q8gIwBQ

Even at Walmart!
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Vantec-2-1-SATA-6G-And-PATA-PCI-E-Combo-Host-Card-w-RAID/15751817?sourceid=1500000000000003142050&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=15751817

Cheers Mate!
The Doctor 😎

PS: When doing any kind of Video work, be sure to MAX out your RAM.

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DrWho, you needed to realize that the SATAIII hard drives are mechanically limited even when they plug into a faster port. They can’t compete (speed wise) with the SSD.

ingeborgdot, one point to add to the good discussion is that size does matter to the speed of the SSD. The speeds quoted by most manufacturers are for their 250G SSDs. As size goes down, so does speed. This is caused by the number of NANDs chips they use internally and that relates to the number of read/write channels they have (it is a parallel process). Asynchronous versus synchronous NANDs also matter.

A good source for info (more than you want to know) can be found at http://www.anandtech.com/tag/storage.

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DrWho, you needed to realize that the SATAIII hard drives are mechanically limited even when they plug into a faster port. They can’t compete (speed wise) with the SSD.

While it is true SATA III cannot compete with the speed of SSD drives, until the prices of SSD drives comes down, SATA III drives are an attractive offering, even for system drives, and really have all the performance necessary for fast data storage.

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I certainly won’t argue the bang-for-the-buck point. Each one gets to make their own decision.

I’m just saying that because it plugs into SATAIII doesn’t mean you get those speeds. The best SATAIII SSDs don’t even reach the max speeds the ports “might” provide. I myself have no plans to replace my hard drives where I store data any time soon.

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While it is true SATA III cannot compete with the speed of SSD drives, until the prices of SSD drives comes down, SATA III drives are an attractive offering, even for system drives, and really have all the performance necessary for fast data storage.

I have Sata III and USB 3.0 ports on my mb. My SSD is “only” Sata II, but it boots into Win 7 in less than 15 seconds, and my programs are so much faster than when the OS and Progs were on a fast WD Black Edition. If I could afford another SSD, it would be Sata III as it would make a difference. If I had to buy a new spinner HD, though, I’ll take a Sata II 7200rpm with 64mb cache over a Sata III 7200rpm with 32mb cache. The cache is more important than the port speed with mechanical drives, as others have noted.

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There is an infinitessimal speed increase between Sata-II and Sata-III hard drives because of the mechanical limitations of the drives.

OTOH, SSDs are able to reap the benefits of Sata-III and are usually more than twice as fast for both read and write.

However, PCIe SSDs are even faster that Sata-III SSDs, so I think that the Sata-III bus has already met its limit.

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However, PCIe SSDs are even faster that Sata-III SSDs, so I think that the Sata-III bus has already met its limit.

I would love one but their cost is pretty high. I just don’t need that performance level for what I’m doing right now.

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Yes, for clarity the discussion should split off SATA II and III controller speeds, and mechanical and solid state drives.
I use my SSDs to run a second OS in VM…speeds between the host OS and the VM are very comparable, whereas when the VM was on a mechanical drive, it was unuseably slower. Running on a 6 core Thurban means I get the performance of two systems in one…sweet.

Sizewise, 120 gigs is pretty good, without breaking the piggy bank, though I’m running perfectly fine on a 60 gig as well but there is no additional room left for restore points and large recycle bins or previous version restoration…all things I don’t need with a VM, but you might want.

Also running several video rendering programs, one has to figure out all the temporary file storage locations and any proxy file creation locations that they are using and move them or limit their creation so those “hidden” files don’t fill up your SSD in no time flat. Once those maintenance items are taken care of the OS will remain pretty stable give or take a gig or two and only change significantly if you add a large program.

Speedwise it doesn’t help render any faster though, that’s dependent on your CPU and possibly your GPU if taken advantage of. The program itself though will open much quicker. 🙂

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