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Version 10 or an SSD?

Talk about computer software/hardware problems, related to digital video or otherwise.

Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby Kitwn » Tue Sep 27, 2011 12:42 am

I've just been catching up on Muvipix and discovered that PRE v10 will run as a 64 bit app on my 64bit W7 PC. With 1GB of RAM now being about the same price as a Devonshire tea, I was considering upgrading from v7 and doubling up my existing 4GB.

However, I'm happy with v7 and with the upgrade price as it is I could buy a 120GB solid state hard drive instead. If I put my project files, scratch files and Windows swop file on that would I get the same, or a better, performance improvement? Has anybody got any experience with using a SSD with v7?

Kit
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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby John 'twosheds' McDonald » Tue Sep 27, 2011 2:49 am

SSDs are improving all of the time and are becoming cheaper. Having said that I wouldn't consider them for at least another year as standard HDDs are so much cheaper per Gb and are a tried and tested technology. But don't let me influence you.... :lol:
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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby Peru » Tue Sep 27, 2011 7:52 am

The general opinion of this on the Adobe Hardware Forum suggests that SSDs will boost boot time slightly, but have no noticeable effect on video editing (at least those SSDs available now).

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3935425#3935425

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2757935#2757935
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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby Kitwn » Tue Sep 27, 2011 10:37 pm

Peru,
Thanks very much for those links, just goes to show that a little knowledge can lead you up an expensive path to nothing useful.

Part of the discussions in one of those links mentioned the use of a 'RAM disk'. For those who (like me until a few minutes ago) don't know what this is, you can get software which makes some available RAM look like a disk drive. This can then be used as very fast access storage for temporary files that usually end up on the hard drive. This only appears to makes sense if you are using a 64bit OS and 32bit applications and have more than 4GB of RAM installed.
All data so saved will be lost on power-off so it really has to be only those files that are used short term.

One forum recommends the following software which has a free version allowing you to create a RAM disk of up to 4GB. Brief reading suggests it has the option to back up saved data to the HDD as well.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and- ... re/ramdisk

I'm off to search Muvipix and the Adobe website for a reminder of how PRE uses temporary files and scratch disks and then decide if it's worth the trouble.

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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby Chris B » Wed Sep 28, 2011 2:06 am

SSDs provide very rapid read and write speeds with very short access times (compared to Hard drives - slow compared to ram). The question is when this is helpful - and when it's not.

Things that typically are very fast on SSDs are when you disk "thrashes" - for example loading programs like Elements or booting the system. Storing frequently used programs on them will improve the system's perceived responsiveness. - So SSDs improve "Disk bound" operations where the processor is waiting for the drive. BUT - they are much smaller than regular drives (unless you're looking at buying creative suite or an SSD ;) )- so after you've got your system and programs on them there's usually not much space left for anything. If you were to use them for video there would be a lot of shifting of files on to them and off of them.

You can get an idea of how disk bound operations are buy running the resource monitor in windows 7 and looking at the disk tab. When Elements loads or imports and indexes video files you should see the "worst case" usage. I would imaging that your peak usage will be about 75-100MB/second. You can then do some edit operations (scroll around the timeline, export stuff, apply effects, render etc.) and see how the usage compares. In my experience Elements is rarely disk bound (unless you do something like put your video files on an external USB2 drive) - it's far more likely to need more processor grunt so I doubt you'd see significant improvements in general use.

A final point to remember is that modern SSDs are faster than SATA-2 (SATA 300) connections on motherboards so you need SATA 3 (SATA 600) to gain most benefit.

I've got an older SSD (see sig) and I think it's great - my system was and still feels very responsive 2 years after install. Firefox and most programs starts in under a second. PE8 in around 13. As the old phrase goes - Your Mileage May Vary...

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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby George Tyndall » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:24 pm

Kitwn wrote:I've just been catching up on Muvipix and discovered that PRE v10 will run as a 64 bit app on my 64bit W7 PC. With 1GB of RAM now being about the same price as a Devonshire tea, I was considering upgrading from v7 and doubling up my existing 4GB.

However, I'm happy with v7....


The PRE/PSE7 bundle is IMO Adobe's best yet, up to an including 9 (I haven't tried 10). You don't say what processor your have with your WIN7 64-bit, but you do say that you have only 4GB RAM.

If you have a fast processor and you increase your RAM to 8GB, then you will have a system like the one in my signature, with which I am extremely happy.

I do slide shows, and I have had as many as 498 HD stills, plus a 50MB WAV audio track on a 1-hour un-rendered timeline, and PRE7 handled editing and playback without so much as a hiccup.
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Re: Version 10 or an SSD?

Postby Kitwn » Mon Oct 03, 2011 6:07 am

Chris,

I've looked at CPU, memory and network activity before but I seem to have overlooked the disk information. It's surprising how busy it is even during simple tasks like writing this reply. Thaks for your comments re PRE not 'being prone to getting 'disk bound' anyway. My video files are on an external eSATA connected drive which allows me to go walkabout with my laptop and still do some editing.

The links Peru gave to articles about the real benefits, or lack thereof, of SSDs for video editing were very informative and show the importance of looking beyond the headlines. I've been too busy tearing walls down in the laundry to actually persue any research on RAM disks!

George,

I'm also pleased with v7, I rarely have any crashes compared to earlier versions, though whether this is to Adobe's credit or is due to the more powerful hardware and upgrade to 64bit W7 that came around the same time I cant say. I'm using an AMD Athlon II X4 620 processor on an ASUS M4N68T motherboard. An ATI Radion HD 4500 series graphics card replaces the on-board VGA output with dual monitor outputs to a 21.5 inch BenQ widescreen HD monitor (HDMI) and a rather older 4:3 VGA dispaly alongside. Video files have their own HDD as noted above.

These components are all at the bottom of everybodys price list now (for those companies who still stock them at all) with the CPU and MOBO being available for about $60 Australian each. Performance is pretty good, I'm currently editing a widescreen PAL SD video of our local ArtWear show. This has a 75 minute continuous video track on the timeline plus an additional full length audio track and loads of clips from other camera angles on several other tracks. It's holding up very well though I have turned off timeline scrolling as it was taking a while to catch up after I hit 'pause'.
This is also the machine I used to edit my recent timelapse video derived from 14Mpixel JPEG images. I was surprised how well it coped, though the render times were a bit long on occasions.

If I stick with 32 bit v7 of PRE I'm not sure what advantage I will get from upgrading to 8GB of RAM unless I have other programs open at the same time. Which takes me back to the start of this thread!

Thanks for all your replies. As usual the MuviPixies have been a huge help.

Regards

Kit
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