Which SSD for film work

Hello, I recently purchased a G751 and I'm waiting for it to get delivered. I bought the SSD boot drive separately. I purchased a Samsung 840 Evo 250gb and 850 Pro 256 gb. I've read a lot of debate between the two and was wondering which would be better for the professional work I do. There will also be a 1tb drive for mass storage and work drive.

I use my laptops or three things. There's footage transfer/storage onto the 1tb drive, there's editing in Premiere Pro, and there's color work in Davinci Resolve. Work can be done off of the 1tb drive or from external drives. I'm not sure if all this info is needed, but it would be great to get some advice for which to keep and which to return. Thanks!

 

You want as much RAM as possible in your system first.

For storage, having 3 discreet drives and using them optimally would be the best.

Drive one: O/S and Programs (OP'd by 30%).

Drive two: Current Working Files (OP'd by 30%).

Drive three: Scratch/Temp disk (all of it; OP'd by 50%).

External Drive (Or NAS): To Move Finished Projects to.



None of the drives you currently have are suitable for the above, except maybe the 256GB PRO for a Scratch/Temp disk use, but even then I'd recommend at least 480/500/512GB or larger drives as projects never get smaller; they only get larger.

The EVO... get rid of while you can.

The mechanical HDD - no need for it on a properly setup mobile system. Especially one intended for a professional workflow.

 

Thanks for the reply. My next purchase is more RAM for sure. I need to build up some cash again to buy some more drives. For now I have to stick with my SDD and 2 1tb HDDs, but what do recommend as an optimal setup? Thank you for your help.

 

An optimal setup with the hardware you have?

The 850 Pro as the O/S, Program and Scratch Disk/Temp drive OP'd by 30%.

This will give you a drive with a usable/real capacity of ~165GB total. This is why I'm suggesting a much larger SSD (using a small capacity SSD with no OP'ing is like driving a Ferarri on WalMart tires).

The two 1TB HDD can be used any way you want (though I would have the first ~200GB partitions on each for WIP on one and my most commonly used 'static files on the other drive) - they won't make a significant difference (good or bad) on a primarily RAM limited workflow like video editing.

 

Awesome, thanks. Should my next drive purchase be a larger SSD and then move my 256gb as a scratch disk?

 

In order of importance:

O/S - The latest is usually the greatest (under the hood at least) - this means keep your eyes open for Win10x64Pro...

CPU - True QC or higher CPU at the highest clocks (without OC'ing) you can afford.

RAM - Largest Capacity your platform can support. With the highest performing/spec's you can afford.

Programs - Always look out and compare/contrast new programs for your workflows as they appear.

Storage - Largest Capacity you can afford (assuming all the above have been maxed on your platform already). OP'd by 30% or more and running the largest process, MLC or higher (meaning SLC, not TLC) nand you can afford.



Notice that the SSD/Storage Subsystem is the least important 'upgrade' you want to do...

... This assumes you have Productivity as your Goal and not simply 'snappiness'.


Good luck.

 

Or just get the Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB which has built in OP and has no need for any extra Oping...

 

I have not seen an SSD that did not improve in responsiveness with OP'ing.

Built in OP'ing to me is the manufacturer ensuring the nand doesn't burn out before warranty is over at the specs they quote.

My ~30% OP'ing is ensuring the SSD is ready for my input, not doing GC or whatnot while I'm waiting for it.

 

I don't know about Oping improving reponsiveness but for me, I rather have the space then waste it in a sense.. Even without Oping, the SSD is plenty fast if you ask me and that's what matters!

 

But if you're not using the space what is the difference, why wouldn't you OP? It is easy enough to shrink/expand the outer partition. It is also easy enough to create/format/delete a partition to kick start the TRIM routine.
General consensus is that it is not ideal to buy too small an SSD and then fill it to capacity. I get that consumers don't always tax their storage systems other than to fill them, but most professionals or those with demanding workloads know that OP is an important factor when choosing an SSD.

The gist of what I'm saying here is that just because you're a consumer application doesn't mean that best practices shouldn't be learned and followed. Someday OP may not be concern, but for now it is.

 

Agree. Regarding longetivity:

For consumer workloads, OP is an unnecessary chore in my opinion. So what if the lifespan of my SSD increases slightly? With or without OP, I'll have upgraded to a new SSD or computer long before it fails. Even if it does fail prematurely, RMA it, and make use of your regular backups (importance cannot be stressed enough).

 

So the discussion should be over, it's all about opinions that don't really matter ! Just useless reading.

But wait... people who don't care about this stuff don't come here looking for info about it... and they're none the worse for it.

Only those that do care and are looking for answers come here... and I'll suggest it is not flippant answers they are looking for.

Scrolls of pages have been written on the subject... not exclusively about longevity.

 

im stuck on a single 7200rpm HDD. with a killer cpu, gpu, and 32 gb of ram, my bottleneck is deff my hard drive. i see it hit 100 percent all the time with slow responsiveness in after effects, sometimes premiere pro.

would it be better to use different drive like you mentioned above, or to do what i'm thinking of doing- getting two 1tb samsung 850 pros and just putting them in raid 0?

 

Phase,

If you're also doing video editing (especially large files in RAW format), then RAID0 will help - especially when transferring to your main storage device(s) from the RAID array. Depending on your connectivity though, you may already by saturating your main methods (1GBe LAN port or (ugh) USB3) with a single SSD and a large GB sized file.

Myself? I have had enough of RAID0 and it's follies. I would use such a content creation setup as so:

• First 1TB Drive; O/S + Programs
  • OP'd by 30% giving ~650GB of user capacity
  • Partitioned to ~150GB for C:\ Drive (O/S & Programs)
  • Data E:\ Drive ~500GB for static data and finished projects that need to be moved to my final storage subsystems (NAS').
• Second 1TB Drive;
  • OP'd by 30%
  • D:\ Drive Partitioned to ~100GB (or to taste, depending on your projects) for Scratch Disk/Temp disk usage.
  • F:\ Partitioned to ~550GB (or remainder of D:\ Drive, after OP'ing) as WIP
    • WIP=Work in Progress

With the above setup, you will have the most responsive, reliable and dependable system possible.

Oh, I wouldn't recommend the Samsung 850 Pro's at this time either. Samsung is currently tying OCZ/SF for SSD manufacturer to be wary of in 2015...

Hope this helps.

 

so should i get 850 evos or pros in raid 0 then?