SSD scratch/render disc - any point for me?

pilsburypie wrote on 5/23/2014, 4:10 PM

My Crucial M4 128GB SSD I use soley for OS and programs is becoming nearly full (8GB left). I have all of the programs I want for now, but reading some arguements for and against extra space needed on a SSD to aid performance and the thought of future proofing when I do want to add programs, I'm thinking of getting a 240GB SSD and using that as my OS drive.

Apart from this OS drive I just have a 3TB HDD for data, raw footage, renders, photos etc etc.

Would I as purely a keen amateur user see any real benefit for using the old 128GB SSD for a scratch disc - say to render to? Basically having a SSD OS drive, a HDD data drive and a SSD render drive.

I'm kind of wondering if this will have any real world benefit to me. I have 16GB RAM and don't really have much idea how much of that is used during Vegas projects or renders. In addition, with my 1080 50p footage and the host of effects added, I'm sure my renders are only limited by the speed of my CPU and GPU. Surely the read and write times can't be the bottle neck?

You thoughts appreciated.

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 5/23/2014, 4:26 PM

You are correct in seeking to understand where bottlenecks can appear in your workflow and system design.
1) CPU power will be the most important to processing (that is, decoding timeline and rendering to a codec)
2) GPU power will have some effect (not a lot) depending on the codec chosen
3) Conventional spinning harddrives or even SSD media will have little effect on any typical workflows at the amatuer level. Most importantly to note SSD media will have no real affect as a rendering destination.
4) NOTE SSD media in conventional single drive and in (special) raid 0 configurations can have special value for multi-stream workflows and/or capture system -IF you are working with sources of uncompressed video, or video at 4.2.2 spec. This assumes the dedication of the SSD media as source filing system - not a render to destination. The effectiveness of this approach will also be tempered by the motherboard, processor, and on-board chipset.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/23/2014, 4:32 PM

Yes, rendering to a different drive then your source file will speed up render times, I can attest to it, especially with 1080 50p. Here is what I would do:
1 SSD for OS
1 HDD for storage of raw files, project and final renders
1 SSD for project files

I have a similar setup and I import all raw material to my spinning disks (RAID 1) copy all my files and images I need for the project to my SSD drive (RAID 0) and work from there. Once done I make sure that all project related material is back on my HDD (RAID 1) for archiving. Whether or not you have a RAID, this way you will get faster project and render times.

john_dennis wrote on 5/23/2014, 5:01 PM

The subject of hard drive performance on editing and rendering was covered ad nauseum in this thread.

pilsburypie wrote on 5/24/2014, 8:02 AM

John. A quote from you in that linked thread "For compressed output with compressed input files, disk speed for modern disks has little to no effect on throughput." Suggests to me there ain't much point for me. I record in AVCHD and render to mp4.

VideoITguy. Your point 3 seems relevant.

Old smoke. Having my project files on the ssd isn't going to be possible (assuming you mean all the raw footage for that particular project) my projects are my own family video which covers the entire year. That equates to over the ssd storage.

john_dennis wrote on 5/24/2014, 8:11 AM

I use spinning disks for source and destination. The SSDs that I use for boot disks are just because I'm too old to wait for yet another computer to load the same programs I've loaded thousands of times.

If I used multiple cameras or shot raw or [I]someone started paying me[/I], I'd use whatever made sense.