What applications benefit most from SSD?

micrometers · 08-07-2012, 07:05 PM

I'm guessing that for SSD it's best to put your OS on there for responsiveness purposes but what else benefits? Photos? documents?

I'm going to guess photos because with photos you tend to flip through 10 mb files and only spend seconds on them.

Denithor · 08-07-2012, 10:10 PM

Photos & documents are actually the last things you want on an SSD. How long does it take you to open a photo on your current HDD? It's just not an issue, they open almost immediately already.

SSDs are more suited to programs that feature lots of reads from/writes to the drive while in use. A good example would be a very large database application, perhaps with multiple users. Searching for info in the database, updating large blocks of info, etc - these are the kinds of things that an SSD accelerates nicely. An SSD also helps with opening large programs quickly. On a HDD, AutoCAD can take a minute or more to open and multiple minutes to load a large 3D rendering. On an SSD you will likely have the project open in less time than it takes to just start up the program on the HDD.

Rifter · 08-07-2012, 10:44 PM

OS, as it draws alot of small files at bootup.

Anything that accesses alot of small files(OS, database) will see most benifit from a SSD, a program that only uses a few files will not see as large of a boost.

maxxpower18 · 08-07-2012, 11:19 PM

What about audio workstations, or Matlab?

hhhd1 · 08-08-2012, 07:28 AM

All different applications loading and saving and closing and file browsing, all involves dealing with many small reads and writes to files and registry.

ShintaiDK · 08-08-2012, 07:42 AM

Any with random I/O.

Soundmanred · 08-08-2012, 07:49 AM

Photoshop CS5 will launch in 2 seconds,, other apps,, 1 secon or 0 seconds. boot up 20 seconds

leonlee · 08-08-2012, 09:34 AM

The fast write speeds of an SSD can also significantly improve frame rates of screen-recording programs like FRAPS and Dxtory.

KingFatty · 08-08-2012, 09:37 AM

Hmmm I kind of like the idea of having photos and videos on an SSD.

Currently I view my family photos and videos on the living room TV using a "slideshow" mode of Picasa that flips through the pictures and videos. It can be annoying and break the sense of immersion when you have to sit and wait on a black screen while the video loads up (my videos are 1080p MP4 from a Samsung compact camera). Also, if I want to flip through the pictures manually, I'm constrained by the speed of the hard drive.

I guess my point is that when you are viewing a slideshow of family photos/videos, I could see that an SSD could actually improve the experience because it should keep the immersion up and avoid waiting on blank screens, and also improve the ability to "flip through" lots of photos quickly.

Has anyone tried this? I plan to migrate my current desktop SSD to my TV's laptop for this purpose, but not yet as I'm waiting for lower prices on 256GB SSDs to do the swap.

exdeath · 08-08-2012, 10:29 AM

Everything.

If you don't want to spend the money on a large enough SSD for everything, then put your media on 16+ GB SD cards or USB sticks.

Say no to mechanical media of all forms unless you are nostalgic for the 1950s and enjoy measuring accesses in kilobytes. Wait.. what's a kilobyte?

thelastjuju · 08-08-2012, 11:05 AM

Wherever there are load times... wherever you have medium - long load times on an HDD, they vanish into thin air when they are placed on an SSD..

Quote:

Originally Posted by exdeath

Everything.

If you don't want to spend the money on a large enough SSD for everything, then put your media on 16+ GB SD cards or USB sticks.

Say no to mechanical media of all forms unless you are nostalgic for the 1950s and enjoy measuring accesses in kilobytes. Wait.. what's a kilobyte?

Not for HTPC or media PC usage.. audio and video files will not warrant an SSD what-so-ever. Surely you don't think an SSD is going to launch an MP3 or AVI file any faster than an HDD.. they already launch instantaneously.

jhansman · 08-08-2012, 11:10 AM

Whether one app or another benefits from an SSD, IMO the more important factor is the user experience. While only my important applications are on the SSD, I love that Word or Firefox pop up in 3 sec. (or less), Photoshop in 10; it makes my system much more enjoyable to use. I don't care if my audio editing program or PDF reader take 45 sec. to load from my D drive spinner.

nk215 · 08-08-2012, 11:11 AM

I have pictures (those are raw pictures taking from 5DmkII - very large file) and the Photoshop bridge cache on SSD.

It's not about what will take the most benefit but rather what I use the most often.

thelastjuju · 08-08-2012, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhansman

Whether one app or another benefits from an SSD, IMO the more important factor is the user experience. While only my important applications are on the SSD, I love that Word or Firefox pop up in 3 sec. (or less), Photoshop in 10; it makes my system much more enjoyable to use. I don't care if my audio editing program or PDF reader take 45 sec. to load from my D drive spinner.

MS Word literally launches in a split millisecond for me .. Firefox, in about 1 second.. on a mechanical HDD that is... these are the exact types of lightweight apps that do not warrant being launched off an SSD what-so-ever. Photoshop will indeed though, so will any audio editing programs.

KingFatty · 08-08-2012, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thelastjuju

MS Word literally launches in a split millisecond for me .. Firefox, in about 1 second.. on a mechanical HDD that is... these are the exact types of lightweight apps that do not warrant being launched off an SSD what-so-ever. Photoshop will indeed though, so will any audio editing programs.

Are you sure they aren't already pre-cached into memory to give you those good speeds? Windows can pre-cache stuff and make the HDD-installed apps feel faster than they normally would be if freshly launched from the HDD.

micrometers · 08-08-2012, 12:06 PM

So basically, productivity applications.

I'm going to guess that Source games also would get a nice improvement (they stutter so much)

thelastjuju · 08-08-2012, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingFatty

Are you sure they aren't already pre-cached into memory to give you those good speeds? Windows can pre-cache stuff and make the HDD-installed apps feel faster than they normally would be if freshly launched from the HDD.

Not that I know of. On multiple computers, the MS Office suite launches without the slightest bit of hesitation after I click its icon, and firefox is never more than a 1-2 second delay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by karmypolitics

So basically, productivity applications.

I'm going to guess that Source games also would get a nice improvement (they stutter so much)

Not at all with IN GAME performance.. if you're seeing stuttering while in game, its either the CPU or GPU holding you back.

It will indeed help with LOAD TIMES though, quite dramatically actually. I have an intensely modded game which would take up to EIGHT minutes just to load (on the HDD) and when I got the SSD it takes only about thirty SECONDS till its up and running. A rarer case of course, but you get the idea.