SSD Choice: Vertex 3, Intel 510 or keep G2? For Photoshop and Lightroom

[emironov]

I can't come to a final conclusion so I'm asking opinions.

I run a photography business and do lots of work with Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5. I have a working drive which contains all of the pictures and tiff files. I have an Intel 80gb G2 drive acting as my boot drive, program drive, and lightroom catalog storage location. I believe the lightroom 3 catalog files are SQL Light 2005 based.

I have three choices.
1. Keep the 80gb Intel G2 drive I have as my boot and catalog drive.
2. Get a 120gb Intel 510 drive for my boot and catalog drive.
3. Get a 120gb Vertex 3 drive for my boot and catalog drive.

Reliability is important, but I have a strong backup system already in place, so I am not that worried. The more I look, the less I can decided. These are the questions I am trying to answer:

For my use will I be able to notice any difference between the G2 drive and the Vertex 3/Intel 510? Between the Vertex 3 and Intel 510, which one would be faster? I do understand that the 510 will be more reliable, but is the performance far enough below the Vertex 3 to make it worth it?

In around a year my Intel 80gb G2 drive has around 3.2TB of writes. (From the Intel SSD toolbox.)

Other relevant info:
Current system:
i3 Laptop
80gb Intel G2 Drive
4gb ram
Primary working drive Raid 1 2tb green drives.

New System:
Intel i7 2600k
16gb Ram
??SSD??
Primary working drive 8TB raid 5 sans digital tower.

 

[996GT2]

I really doubt you'll notice much of a real-world performance difference between the G2 and a Vertex 3 or 510, but if you had to choose between 510 and Vertex 3, then the Vertex 3 is the easy winner between those 2. Make sure you get a motherboard with SATA 6 Gb/s ports to take full advantage, though.

Photoshop and Lightroom are also heavily RAM-dependent, so if you have enough RAM then Photoshop won't even use the scratch disks. Unless you're working with really huge files (e.g. Phase One P65+ files), then I think the G2 should be fine.

I'm also a photographer and process a ton of photos every time I shoot an event. My 80GB G2 has been perfectly fine and Photoshop CS5 runs super quick.

 

[Voo]

Photoshop is one of those apps where sequential write will make a difference for certain situations, although I doubt most are interesting for the average user (well at least some of the filters Anand used for that test I didn't even know they existed..).

Personally I also have a G2 and don't think that the upgrade is worth it.

 

[curlysir]

I recently upgraded to a Vertex 3 MAX IOPS from a Vertex LE and other then the bench marks being higher I really can't tell any difference. I also have the G2 80GB in another almost identical system and in real world performance I really can't tell the difference between the Vertex 3 and the G2. The difference between a HDD and a SSD is very noticeable, but the difference between a 3GB drive and a 6GB is not that much. At least to me!

 

[996GT2]

I recently upgraded to a Vertex 3 MAX IOPS from a Vertex LE and other then the bench marks being higher I really can't tell any difference. I also have the G2 80GB in another almost identical system and in real world performance I really can't tell the difference between the Vertex 3 and the G2. The difference between a HDD and a SSD is very noticeable, but the difference between a 3GB drive and a 6GB is not that much. At least to me!

Exactly. It's very had to tell the difference between a fast SSD (an Intel G2) and a faster SSD (Vertex 3) unless your workloads are very heavy server-like workloads.

 

[rootaxs]

I think i have to agree, there's little measurable difference to be had by swapping around between current generation drives.

Although, i would likely vote you get a larger drive for the catalogs and full-preview thumbnails (if you have that enabled).

I utilize full-preview thumbs which really helps especially with the frequent "archive digs" i have to perform in LR, but it does take its toll on drive space. As much as i dislike doing it, i've had to trim down the preview folders just to regain limited SSD space.

However, either way, just moving catalogs/scratch disks and perhaps even the app files themselves into SSD drives is one of the smartest moves anyone in this industry can make.

 

[COPOHawk]

OP: You are running all this on an i3 laptop? The difference between that and a 2600K is like between a Vega and a new Z06 Corvette.

I would get a new SSD in the new system and keep the 80GB for scratch/apps drive. 3 TB of writes seems like a lot for a year of use...so relegate the G2 to a non-OS capacity.

 

[DirkGently1]

Either keep the G2 or buy a larger capacity 320, which are good value for money.

 

[getafix]

OP: I know you didn't ask for this and my apologies for thread hijacking.

I see that you are planning on using RAID 5 for your backups. RAID 5 arrays don't always rebuild successfully after a failure. Have you considered RAID 1+0?

Now back to SSD discussion...

 

[taltamir]

OP: I know you didn't ask for this and my apologies for thread hijacking.

I see that you are planning on using RAID 5 for your backups. RAID 5 arrays don't always rebuild successfully after a failure. Have you considered RAID 1+0?

Now back to SSD discussion...

agreed, and people need to be warned

 

[Voo]

OP: I know you didn't ask for this and my apologies for thread hijacking.

I see that you are planning on using RAID 5 for your backups. RAID 5 arrays don't always rebuild successfully after a failure. Have you considered RAID 1+0?

Raid is no backup, raid is no backup, yeah and so on.

While Raid5 is especially problematic with current gen xtb drives, no RAID is immune to all problems, so you better backup your data if you value it. That said RAID5 is still not especially great from a performance point of view.

 

[sequoia464]

Back to the SSD decision - Corsair yesterday announced their new Sandforce drives. The 120 gb is going to retail at $220 with better IOPS than the Vertex 2 MAX IOPS - supposedly. I just returned a couple of M4's that were not even close to read specs (on my system anyway), waiting now to see how the Corsair actually performs. They are supposed to be released this month. Do a google search if you're interested in them.

Corsair Force 3 ... http://www.corsair.com/solid-state-drives/force-series-3.html

 

[RobDickinson]

Not sure the OP is relying on the raid san as backup anyhow, didnt sound like it.

 

[emironov]

Not sure the OP is relying on the raid san as backup anyhow, didnt sound like it.

Thanks for all the responses. I decided to keep the G2 as the primary drive for now.

I'm not relying on RAID 5 for backups, just capacity/speed and continuity of working. My backup process is a follows: SSD for catalog files, and RAD5 for working raw files. On shutdown ssd and raid 5 are backed up to a raid 1 setup on a server. Then once a week the server raid 1 is backed up to a single hard drive. Then once a month that single hard drive is swapped out and taken offsite.

It isn't totally perfect, but this solution keeps costs under control and it is a very manageable solution.