Ultimate Photoshop build: Hard drive strategy?

[Sportsshooter]

I am building a new “Ultimate” Photoshop PC now that the system I built just over three years ago is showing its age. I haven’t been following the advancements in PC technology until now but with a couple Nikon D4’s, a need to proccess hundreds of large NEF and TIFF files at a time, plus beginning to do more video, I am looking for ways to speed up my workflow. I have the system designed but am looking for suggestions on hard drive allocation.

I have upgraded to Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and also use a number of additional editing and workflow programs including Nikon Capture NX2 and Photo Mechanic.

My initial research indicates I need a few fast drives and lots of storage. With the following hard drives, what would be the optimal configuration strategy? Which drive on which SATA port?

My ASUS LGA 2011 Intel X79 based motherboard supports:

Intel® X79 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), black
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller :
2 x eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), red


1 ea. SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC512D/AM 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD

2 ea. SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD

2 ea. Western Digital RE WD4000FYYZ 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
1 ea. Western Digital RE4 WD2003FYYS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA Hard Drive

Thank you.

George

Below are two articles I found at the top of a Google search;


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/b...p-cs6-pc/19985

A Photoshop system needs masses of storage. This is not just because the application itself is huge, or because the output can be massive. It's because in order to get the best from Photoshop you need multiple drives, with each one dedicated to handling a specific task.

Ideally, you need four drives. One for the OS, one for the application, one for your output files, and one to act as a "scratch disk." A "scratch disk" is what Adobe calls using a portion of a hard drive as virtual memory. You can get away with fewer disks, for example two disks -- one for Windows and the applications, the other to ask as storage and a "scratch disk" -- but it's far ideal. Trying to run everything on a single disk is best avoided as it's going to create a significant performance bottlenecks.

Since this is an "Ultimate" system, I'm going to recommend that you use four disks. You'll need two large hard disk drives (HDD), and two fast solid state drives (SSD). You'll install Windows onto one of the hard disk drives, and Photoshop onto the other hard drive. Then you'll use the one of the solid state drives for your output files, and the other as a "scratch disk." This setup gives you the best possible storage performance, eliminating a number of potential bottlenecks.

It's worth noting that you don't need big solid state drives for this build because they're only used for short-term storage. Once you're done with a project, it's a good idea to move the files to a hard disk drive where the cost-per-gigabyte is much lower.


http://robertoblake.com/blog/2011/07...-cs5-computer/

Super Photoshop Hard Drives….
You are going to need at least 3 “Hard Drive Leves”, here is how I’ve broken it down:
■Application Level > Windows OS, Photoshop, Other Applications: 1x 1TB Hard Drive (2 Partitions)
■Storage Level> All files and data from applications: 2x 1.5TB Hard Drives
■Scratch Disk Level> Dedicated Scratch Disk: 1x 9 GB Solid State Drive
So why are we using 3 Hard Drive levels and 4 Hard Dives (minimum)? Photoshop performs faster when it multitask across these different drives and use their separate bandwidth. So having your application, files, and temporary files, all on separate disk using separate resources is essential to maximum Photoshop Performance. Solid State Drives for the scratch disk take that performance to a whole new level. Also if you are doing major work like we talked about you know that it is possible to get a 1GB or larger Photoshop file, the max file size for PSD is 2GB, you can exceed that in a PSB, not that I would want to…

 

[JAG87]

Wow, simply the fact that he recommends installing OS and applications on mechanical hard drives discredits his whole article.

Here's some real advice: put heaps and heaps of RAM into the system. Photoshop benefits mostly from RAM, not all this scratch disk BS. Depending on what you're working with (resolutions and file sizes), I'd recommend at least 32GB of RAM.

You can just as easily work with:
1x SSD (the 256GB Samsung you picked is perfect)
2x large HDDs (the WD 4TB RE drives you picked are perfect)

You dump all your RAW stuff into one HDD, and save (or render in case of video) to the other HDD. OS, Photoshop, and scratch disk, can all run from one SSD. It will not bottleneck.

As far as your sata ports, try to plug all your drives into the X79, not the ASmedia. Use 1/2 6Gb port for the SSD, and 2/4 3Gb ports for the HDDs. The HDD's won't be bottle necked by the 3Gb ports anyways.

Cheers and good luck with your build.

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, I agree with Jag87, OS + APPs on one SSD, and lots of RAM is good.
Then you can use another SSD for frequently accessed files.
Then you use the HDs as primary storage, and maybe RAID them, depending on how fast you need them.
I would also have a good backup strategy as well, it would really suck to lose 4TB+ of data if/when the HD (or SSD) go belly up.

 

[martixy]

Agree.

A 3 tier system with lots of RAM is best.

If you want the ultimate for SSD get the new intel S3700s, otherwise one of the other regular choices would be just fine. And the RE4's are perfect here as well.

Two separate SSD's are overkill(one's got enough performance for all your app needs).
On the other side any applications on anything that's not SSD is just silly.

In fact, I've got that same setup and I can attest to it's speed(16gb ram and RE3's).

 

[exdeath]

Lol spindles. What is this 1980?

 

[Soundmanred]

Lol spindles. What is this 1980?

We get it, you HATE "spindles".
If you read the thread instead of going into a blind rage every time someone mentions non-SSD drives you would have seen
"hundreds of large NEF and TIFF"
You don't realize how much space things actually take up, and the ongoing need for "spindles".
GROW UP.

 

[Kippa]

I work with TIFFs on my rig, going at 100mb a photograph they suck storage space quicker than a geek at an eat all you can for free pizza bar.

 

[tweakboy]

Wow, simply the fact that he recommends installing OS and applications on mechanical hard drives discredits his whole article.

Here's some real advice: put heaps and heaps of RAM into the system. Photoshop benefits mostly from RAM, not all this scratch disk BS. Depending on what you're working with (resolutions and file sizes), I'd recommend at least 32GB of RAM.

You can just as easily work with:
1x SSD (the 256GB Samsung you picked is perfect)
2x large HDDs (the WD 4TB RE drives you picked are perfect)

You dump all your RAW stuff into one HDD, and save (or render in case of video) to the other HDD. OS, Photoshop, and scratch disk, can all run from one SSD. It will not bottleneck.

As far as your sata ports, try to plug all your drives into the X79, not the ASmedia. Use 1/2 6Gb port for the SSD, and 2/4 3Gb ports for the HDDs. The HDD's won't be bottle necked by the 3Gb ports anyways.

Cheers and good luck with your build.

I agree. Dude all you need is a 512GB Samsung 840. Then a mechanical backup hard drive where all your stuff goes and stuff you would erase from SSD and save on hard drive or external hard drive. Also PS CS5 or CS6 uses your GPU video card for the work you do which makes me much faster and smoother. So you need a powerful video card. As long as your not doing video editing,, I suggest a 660 Ti as your photoshop card. It will use OpenGL and things will be fast. gl

 

[ronbo613]

SSD boot/applications drive(I have a Samsung 830). "Work" drive; for scratch discs and project saves(WD RE4), onboard storage for immediate backups(9TB WD RE4, Samsung 204UI), plenty of RAM(I have 16G, never used it all), all the backups you can get(Synology NAS 4TB, external enclosures 10TB).
I use Photoshop daily and work with scanned slides/negs that are over 400MB each.

 

[Mark R]

Wow, simply the fact that he recommends installing OS and applications on mechanical hard drives discredits his whole article.

Not at all. In fact, this is Adobe's recommendation!

Think of how a pro photoshop workstation is used. You boot up and load photoshop and other apps; they then stay loaded all day until you shut down. Once booted and apps loaded, they won't need to touch the drive (esp not on w7 with superfetch, etc.), so this particular work pattern shows minimal benefit from SSD. An SSD for OS/apps will help but value for money would be minimal, unless the workstation sees extensive general purpose use.

A photoshop workstation needs lots of RAM, and the fastest scratch disk you can get (pref SSD). If working with lots of files in a batch workflow, I would also suggest a separate SSD for "current project" files. Finally, you need bulk, lower speed storage for non-current files' archiving, etc.

 

[yefi]

Not at all. In fact, this is Adobe's recommendation!

Why wouldn't you just install the OS and PS on the same disk you use for scratch? That way you get the benefit of the SSD for boot and application start-up, and don't need to buy yet another HDD.

 

[bigi]

Just worked on 35MP images from D800. My 16GB was not enough.

Upgrading to 32GB because my MB will not take more.

If this is an ULTIMATE PS machine, I'd look into dual socket server mobo with 128GB of RAM and Fast 2xCPU.

SSDs will help, but nothing can match as much as possible RAM with Photoshop.

 

[Sportsshooter]

Thanks for all the input. I attempted to narrow the scope of this thread exclusively around hard drive configuration strategy. I agree lots of RAM and archive back-up are important, in fact a given, but adding options for MB’s, RAM, CPU’s, etc. tend to result in a thread branching out in too many directions. I listed the MB specs because I want to consider optimal use of the available SATA ports.

I already have the drives so at this point I am considering which SSD’s to put where. At a minimum I plan on using an SSD for the scratch drive and a separate SSD for the OS. Applications will likely go on the boot dive too. These two SSD’s would be connected to the two 6GB Intel SATA ports. I may use the third SSD in my previous system that will become my wife’s PC as well as one of my redundant storage systems. I’m not sure she will benefit from an SSD so the other options are to find a place for it in my new build or upgrade the SSD in the MacBook Pro I use in the field for editing, captioning and submittal. I could then put the old SSD in my wife's computer if it is supported.

The two 4TB data drives are 6GB but I’m not sure there would be a benefit in connecting them to the two ASMedia 6GB SATA ports or just plug them into two of the Intel 3GB SATA ports.

The 2TB drive is coming from my prior build and will be almost full with a copy of my most important archived images. This will connect to a 3GB Intel SATA port.

My current build uses a WD VelociRaptor 300GB 10000k and I tended to fill it up occasionally which is why I was considering using the 830 512 for the OS and apps. With a little better housecleaning I’m sure the 840 Pro 256 would be more than large enough.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I just powered up the new system and everything is working beautifully; now I just need to make the final decision on the configuration before installing the OS and apps.

 

[MrBighouse]

I am also a sports shooter and never once went into photoshop to do editing. It is simply too slow and computer intensive. Nikon capture NX is such a pain to use as well, yuck!

For me it's Adobe Lightroom, properly tag all my images for quick access later. I've recently upgraded to an SSD and importing images into LR has doubled in speed. Anyways I know this isn't what you asked but maybe it's time you re-examine your workflow. I'd couldn't see myself load up photoshop to only have to adjust exposure, sharpness and contrast on a 100 images. Being a photojournalist if I spend more than 30 seconds to a minute editing an image I'd never meet my deadlines.

Regarding your HD setup I would install my OS and apps on your main SSD. Scratch disk could go an second SSD disk but I think I would rather have the images that are being edited on that second SSD. That way you have quick access to your files. Scratch disk and photoshop can run on the same SSD and won't bottleneck. For the 3rd spinning hard drive I would have it setup that it copies your pictures folder from the 2nd SSD everynight or twice a day depending how busy you are so you have identical copies of your edited work that is on the 2nd SSD on your spinner higher capacity HD. Once a project is done you can delete the files from your 2nd SSD and of course make sure that the files on the 3rd spinning HD are backed up on another drive and/or the cloud.

Marc

 

[Sportsshooter]

I am also a sports shooter and never once went into photoshop to do editing. It is simply too slow and computer intensive. Nikon capture NX is such a pain to use as well, yuck!

For me it's Adobe Lightroom, properly tag all my images for quick access later. I've recently upgraded to an SSD and importing images into LR has doubled in speed. Anyways I know this isn't what you asked but maybe it's time you re-examine your workflow. I'd couldn't see myself load up photoshop to only have to adjust exposure, sharpness and contrast on a 100 images. Being a photojournalist if I spend more than 30 seconds to a minute editing an image I'd never meet my deadlines.

Regarding your HD setup I would install my OS and apps on your main SSD. Scratch disk could go an second SSD disk but I think I would rather have the images that are being edited on that second SSD. That way you have quick access to your files. Scratch disk and photoshop can run on the same SSD and won't bottleneck. For the 3rd spinning hard drive I would have it setup that it copies your pictures folder from the 2nd SSD everynight or twice a day depending how busy you are so you have identical copies of your edited work that is on the 2nd SSD on your spinner higher capacity HD. Once a project is done you can delete the files from your 2nd SSD and of course make sure that the files on the 3rd spinning HD are backed up on another drive and/or the cloud.

Marc

Thanks Marc.

Are you suggesting I install the Photoshop application on the Samsung 840 Pro 256 scratch drive?

I’m with you on time sensitive submittals. I do most of those on site with a MacBook Pro, try and get it right in camera, use the jpg files, and only use Photoshop to crop. Everything else is with Photo Mechanic. One of these days I plan on cropping in PM but I am so used to Photoshop that part goes quickly.

At home on the other hand I have time to archive images after making optimal edits. I also do other types of Photography where speed isn’t the concern it is with submitting on deadline. Nikon Capture NX2 is still the best NEF RAW processor for critical edits in my opinion, at least with D3S and D4 files.

Regards

 

[kbp]

I like my setup in signature below. Work flow and back-ups are flawless. Secondary backup to networked USB caddy.

 

[jhansman]

Just a note of caution. If you happen to be a user of NIK's excellent add-ins, it will slow your CS6 startup significantly while it loads; I run PS from my SSD and this add-in adds about 10 seconds or so to the program's startup; not a big deal, but you'll notice it.You can turn off the NIK Selective tool (which is what slows the start up) by using the File->Automate->NIK Selective Tool, and change its settings to not autostart.

 

[kbp]

Just a note of caution. If you happen to be a user of NIK's excellent add-ins, it will slow your CS6 startup significantly while it loads; I run PS from my SSD and this add-in adds about 10 seconds or so to the program's startup; not a big deal, but you'll notice it.You can turn off the NIK Selective tool (which is what slows the start up) by using the File->Automate->NIK Selective Tool, and change its settings to not autostart.

I was wondering why it was taking a bit longer to load. THANKS....
Photomatix Pro with the plug in does not slow it down any. Wonder whats up with that...

 

[MrBighouse]

I would put photoshop on the main drive. It used to be good practice to have a separate drive for your scratch drive but with the fast access times of SSD drives I don't see the need anymore. I would however put all my images on a second SSD drive. Since you already have the computer up and working try it out for yourself and put the scratch drive on your main SSD work with it on large files then move your scratch disk to your 2nd SSD and see if you can notice a difference in speeds. I get what you are saying about photo mechanics, my dad uses it religiously and I've been tempted to move over to it but just can't make the jump lol! Had a few people say that about Capture NX about processing RAW images. I simply don't see the difference but it doesn't mean they are not there.

Hope you find the right setup for your new pc.

Marc

Are you suggesting I install the Photoshop application on the Samsung 840 Pro 256 scratch drive?

Regards

 

[jhansman]

I was wondering why it was taking a bit longer to load. THANKS....
Photomatix Pro with the plug in does not slow it down any. Wonder whats up with that...

The odd thing is that on my system (which I've been tinkering with and may have screwed something up) still stalls with the Selective tool autostart turned off. Probably going to do a reinstall of Win7 anyway, so hopefully this feature will work as it should afterwards. And, yes, Photomatix doesn't slow PS on my system either, but I think it's a bit less integrated than the NIK add-ins.

 

[groberts101]

nothing but.. raid.. raid.. raid.. on my workstation.

R0 the 840's in the Intel 6G chip.

largest ramdisk you can afford to configure as a scratch volume(16 gigs minimum, IMO)

Single SSD partitioned as a SECONDARY scratch..AND redundant OS/app drive.

raid the HDD's(4 would be better and I use 8) for increased storage transfer performance

more HDD's for data redundancy(despite what some will say.. I still use R0 here too)

Another option to increase workflow speeds and free up the bandwidth bottlenecks created by running too many fast drives off the same Intel sata chip(that 6G/3G pie is only so big regardless of how you decide to divy it up).. is to get a raidcard for the raided storage volume. That allows you to split off some of the required bandwidth to the PCIE and increases overall performance.. especially when doing many simultanious things/transfers.

Works for me.