On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:35:35 -0400, "Rita Berkowitz"
<ritaberk2008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Ron Hunter wrote:
>
>>> Ron, that's what I've been saying. Our boy -hh has some serious I/O
>>> problems. Had he been using a decent SCSI RAID array he would be
>>> offloading
>>> out of the old scratch disc so fast he'd barely break a GB of used
>>> memory. And yes, I also suggested SMP. It's only the people that
>>> are using substandard hardware and don't have a clue are the ones
>>> blindly and clueless
>>> recommending throwing more memory at the problem.
>>
>> Adding RAM is not really very expensive these days, at least not
>> compared to SCSI RAID arrays.
>
>BINGO! We are going in circles chasing Adobe's propaganda tail. Thank
you
>for admitting that it is cheaper and easier adding a pacifier than it is
to
>do it right and suck up the added expense of correcting disk I/O and SMP
>issues. You're just saying the same things I've been saying, just in
your
>own sweet little way.
But you definitely get the best bang for the buck if you add ram to a
system that doesn't have enough or the right type than adding a fast
SCSI raid array to a system that just has a regular disk drive.
It also depends a lot on what the program is doing. For instance, if
you're using photoshop just as a photo viewer (open file, look at
file, open the next) then boosting your disk access speed will make a
noticable difference. But if you're using it for complex filters on
high MP count images, then disk access speed won't make much
difference if you have enough ram so it doesn't have to swap.
Just to add some real life numbers to the mix, I did little
experiments when I upgraded my system. Unfortunately I don't use
photoshop. But I did take some measurements with Nikon
PictureProject.
First upgrade was the disk drive. My laptop came standard with an
80GB 5400rpm drive. I upgraded it to a 100GB 7200rpm drive. Both are
the same SATA interface but the 7200rpm has faster access, lower
latency, etc. While overall the system seemed "snappier", the time to
convert 10 NEF images from my D200 to jpegs while also doing
brightness, contrast, sharpness, rotation, crop, etc., didn't change
enough to be measurable. I already did an upgrade to 1.5GB of main
memory so there was enough that it didn't have to swap. Maybe if it
did have to swap, the faster hard drive might have made a difference.
But it also would have been over much slower.
Second upgrade was the main memory. As stated above, I had 1.5GB of
memory. However, it was arranged poorly. I just added a 1GB memory
stick to the 512MB stick that the laptop came with. The 512MB was
PC4300 DDR533 memory and the 1GB stick was PC5400 DDR667 memory. But
because the slower speed memory was in there, they 1GB was downgraded
to 533MHz. Also, because they were not matched, the memory operated
in single channel mode. The upgrade was to pull out the 512MB stick
and replace it with a matched 1G PC5400 DDR667 stick. So now I have
2GB of dual channel 667MHz memory instead of 1.5GB of single channel
533MHz memory. With that upgrade, the time to convert the same 10 NEF
images from my D200 to jpegs with brightness, contrast, sharpening,
rotation, cropping, etc., dropped from 3:44 to 3:20.
So here's a case where faster disk I/O = no difference but faster RAM
= 12% increase in speed. But if there wasn't enough RAM in the first
place, then faster disk I/O would have made a difference but overall
would have been much slower than having sufficient RAM.
So the real answer as to what upgrades make the biggest performance
difference is "it depends." It depends on what the needs of your
program are and also in what way your system is currently defficient.
For photo editing in particular, if you have enough ram that your
program isn't using swap space, then the only thing you might notice
by adding a super fast disk raid array is that programs and files will
load a little faster. Actually doing the editing (applying filters,
corrections, etc.) isn't going to go any faster. But if you don't
have enough ram and your photo editor is using swap space, the best
upgrade you can make is add more ram. Adding a high I/O bandwidth
disk array to such a system will make a difference. But a much higher
cost and lower performance than adding ram. And add it in a smart way
so that your system can take best advantage of it. I.e., highest
speed your system will allow, and in matched pairs if your system
sup****ts dual channel.
Steve
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