*Geek* A Question *Geek*

Giraffe (He/Him) · 12-03-2021, 11:09am

I'm getting really to purchase a new desktop computer. I'd say 80% of my use is photo editing (Lightroom, Photoshop and Topaz) including some video editing although not a great deal.

I understand the basic differences between SSD and HDD drives. What I'm not clear on is a dual-drive configuration. I understand for example a computer may have one 1TB SSD and one 1TB HDD for a total of 2TB.

What does this mean for me as a user? For example when I edit 20 photos do I have to select which drive is saves to or is this an automatic thing?

Which drive holds the operating system?

Which drive holds the application?

If one drive fails is the other inoperable?

Is dual-drive a good thing or is it more of a cost saving measure as SSD storage space is more expensive?

TIA

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 11:22am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giraffe

I'm getting really to purchase a new desktop computer. I'd say 80% of my use is photo editing (Lightroom, Photoshop and Topaz) including some video editing although not a great deal.

I understand the basic differences between SSD and HDD drives. What I'm not clear on is a dual-drive configuration. I understand for example a computer may have one 1TB SSD and one 1TB HDD for a total of 2TB.

What does this mean for me as a user? For example when I edit 20 photos do I have to select which drive is saves to or is this an automatic thing?

Which drive holds the operating system?

Which drive holds the application?

If one drive fails is the other inoperable?

Is dual-drive a good thing or is it more of a cost saving measure as SSD storage space is more expensive?

TIA

You should consider SSD's (the faster the better) as your operating system drive (c:\), and you can consider SATA HDD's for long term storage. You should have a working folder on the SSD for the current project to manipulate the pictures. When you are done, move them to long term storage drives.

You should also consider more than one storage drive, and replicate your long term storage to both of them. As eventually, ALL drives fail, you should consider a long term storage strategy like what I do.

In the attached picture, the Local Disk C: is an extremely fast SSD. All of the other drives are rather large SATA drives. I spread my VM backups across all of the drives. My VM is over 500 GB, and about weekly at a minimum I make a copy to the other drives in rotation. I also have a TON of video files from racing and they are huge too.

The last thing I do is once a year I buy two brand new big drives and retire the (still working) smallest two drives. I copy the data from old to new, and always increase the capacity. I just did the 12 TB drives a month ago. In about 6 more months I'm going to get 2 18 TB drives. Then, I have a storage shelf where i put the retired working drives and put a label on them with the drive's content. At any point in the future, if I needed to reference those drives in an emergency, I could easily connect them as an external drive and get the files I need.

Giraffe (He/Him) · 12-03-2021, 1:25pm

Thanks Data

I'm leaning -and will probably go with- the SSD drive in the new computer. I do have a couple external drives, both are of the HDD variety. One is 8TB the other 1TB. I have been considering a back up to the backup as external HDD drives aren't *too* expensive.

About every four months I backup my computer to the 8TB external. I probably should do it more often I know.

Just for shits and giggles here's some file sizes from my Canon R5;

One photo in RAW format is 60MB.
Video in 8K can be up to 2600Mbps.

My previous camera was 30MP and 'only' shot 4K video which I was able to edit although not particularly well. The R5 is 45MP and I am unable to edit 4K video from this camera. Forget about 8K.

I don't do a lot of video however but I would like to be able to manage it periodically. Forget 8K.

ZipZap · 12-03-2021, 2:13pm

I had to get a 1Tb drive just to log my friend requests

73sbVert · 12-03-2021, 2:17pm

Sideline question for Craig:
I've stayed away from Seagate drives because they seem to fail spectacularly and catastrophically although their innovation is good.
Usually relied on WD HDDs for my backups.

Getting ready to get a couple of 1-2 TB drives as storage, backup, personal cloud, etc.

Which drives do you recommend most for reliability, and backup software ease of use?

Also, what mirror software is best in your opinion?

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 2:20pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giraffe

Thanks Data

I'm leaning -and will probably go with- the SSD drive in the new computer. I do have a couple external drives, both are of the HDD variety. One is 8TB the other 1TB. I have been considering a back up to the backup as external HDD drives aren't *too* expensive.

About every four months I backup my computer to the 8TB external. I probably should do it more often I know.

Just for shits and giggles here's some file sizes from my Canon R5;

One photo in RAW format is 60MB.
Video in 8K can be up to 2600Mbps.

My previous camera was 30MP and 'only' shot 4K video which I was able to edit although not particularly well. The R5 is 45MP and I am unable to edit 4K video from this camera. Forget about 8K.

I don't do a lot of video however but I would like to be able to manage it periodically. Forget 8K.

External is fine too, just be aware that the copy times to external drives are SIGNIFICANTLY longer than internal drives.

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 2:26pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by 73sbVert

Sideline question for Craig:
I've stayed away from Seagate drives because they seem to fail spectacularly and catastrophically although their innovation is good.
Usually relied on WD HDDs for my backups.

Getting ready to get a couple of 1-2 TB drives as storage, backup, personal cloud, etc.

Which drives do you recommend most for reliability, and backup software ease of use?

Also, what mirror software is best in your opinion?

I use both, but when I get either, I get the enterprise grade versions. For backup software, I personally use Acronis True Image. Get an annual subscription for "I think" $99 and you can use it on more than one computer. Not only will it do daily backups of your machine, it can ALSO clone your operating system drive. About every 3 years, I either clone my OS drive, or build one from scratch. Other than "Documents" and "Downloads", my OS drive is programs only. Rest of storage is on other drives. I exclusively use Samsung top end SSDs, and will likely be rebuilding this tower soon. I will retire the existing OS drive, but make it available to the system. I will do a new motherboard, CPU and memory, and those $8k video cards I want, but this tower is on it's 2nd OS drive, and I did a fresh install on a new drive. Again, bigger drive, and a fresh OS is always nice.

JetMechZ16 · 12-03-2021, 2:26pm

Boring!!!!

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 2:27pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetMechZ16

I don't understand a fucking thing you said!!!!

JetMechZ16 · 12-03-2021, 2:29pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by datawiz

More like I didn't read a thing you said.

Ol Timer · 12-03-2021, 3:05pm

Thomas - I use Lightroom as my main library organizer. Edits in Photoshop get saved in Lightroom and I have Lightroom save on exit every time to my external SATA drive banks. It is a minor PITA to backup on exit, but if I don’t, I’ll likely never remember to.

Giraffe (He/Him) · 12-03-2021, 3:20pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ol' Timer

Thomas - I use Lightroom as my main library organizer. Edits in Photoshop get saved in Lightroom and I have Lightroom save on exit every time to my external SATA drive banks. It is a minor PITA to backup on exit, but if I don’t, I’ll likely never remember to.

Could you explain that a little further please?

When you import photos from your card, LR creates a folder for those imports. When you exit LR you’ve set it up to copy that folder to an external drive?

Ol Timer · 12-03-2021, 3:32pm

I have my photo library on an external drive to be sure I always have adequate capacity. LR imports to the library on the external drive and backs up on exit every time. I then have dupe drives arrayed so that I have all my images on 3 separate drives.

Torqaholic · 12-03-2021, 4:24pm

I use SSD for storage/operating system and HDD as a working drive (opposite of datawiz). Reason being SSD life is supposedly shortened by overwriting of data. HDD is slower but I'd rather not have to replace my SSD every other year just for the convenience factor. It's a tradeoff I've chosen for myself and a choice you need to make for yourself.

Have considered going with 2 SSD and nixing the HDD altogether. It's not like I can't afford a new one every other year, I just don't want to dissect my equipment on a regular basis.

Giraffe (He/Him) · 12-03-2021, 5:32pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torqaholic

I use SSD for storage/operating system and HDD as a working drive (opposite of datawiz). Reason being SSD life is supposedly shortened by overwriting of data..

Would this matter if the drive was large enough? In other words, new data is going to be written to an empty space on the drive. If it's big enough, theoretically you'd never over-write data?

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 6:07pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giraffe

Would this matter if the drive was large enough? In other words, new data is going to be written to an empty space on the drive. If it's big enough, theoretically you'd never over-write data?

SSD technology has changed a LOT in the last 8 years. The (read/write) degredation and ability of the drive to function properly has pretty much gone away. Some SSD's are better at heavy write functions than others. SSD's always excel at read functions, as there is no longevity penalty. Having said all of that, and SSD is also perfectly OK for a storage drive. WAY more expensive than a SATA drive, but perfectly acceptable...and faster.

So much so, I just ordered an 8 TB Samsung SSD to replace my 2 TB SATA drive in my monster notebook. I will still have 3 drives in the notebook (2 M.2 chip drives), but now I will have 10 TB of storage capacity on a NOTEBOOK. That's an insane amount of storage space.

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 6:13pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torqaholic

I use SSD for storage/operating system and HDD as a working drive (opposite of datawiz). Reason being SSD life is supposedly shortened by overwriting of data. HDD is slower but I'd rather not have to replace my SSD every other year just for the convenience factor. It's a tradeoff I've chosen for myself and a choice you need to make for yourself.

Have considered going with 2 SSD and nixing the HDD altogether. It's not like I can't afford a new one every other year, I just don't want to dissect my equipment on a regular basis.

My OS drive on this tower is over 3 years old, the tower is nearly 6 years old, and it's still a monster. As I indicated, I routinely rotate in fresh hardware to mitigate any shortcomings of any of the drives, including the SSD's. For me, tech is just a write off expense. The value of having my work be on an SSD for absolute performance is worth way more than worrying about when a drive will fail.

73sbVert · 12-03-2021, 6:18pm

I just looked on Amazon for Samsung SSDs and holee crap, so many styles and models to choose from! How can you tell what you really need?
I'm thinking I'll stick with two 2TB drives, just trying to figure out which ones! LOL!

Datawiz · 12-03-2021, 6:20pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by 73sbVert

I just looked on Amazon for Samsung SSDs and holee crap, so many styles and models to choose from! How can you tell what you really need?
I'm thinking I'll stick with two 2TB drives, just trying to figure out which ones! LOL!

In that storage size, stick to the PRO series for Samsung. About $100 more per drive than the regular ones for the same capacity, but WAY worth it.

https://www.newegg.com/samsung-860-p...82E16820147680

They are LIGHTYEARS faster than the regular drives.