ot: ssd

[Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net]

I'm lost in the reviews and specs of SSD's :-O

1. it seemed that crucial was the best price/performance
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001304.html

2. then yesterday, intel released a firmware upgrade for their 160gb (NOT
the 80gb which is slow and nasty already, it seems) which makes it write
about 25% faster.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/26/intels-ssd-toolbox-firmware-update-promise-boost-in-performan/

3. also, i'm a bit confused. i want ssd's for my desktop not notebook. but
it seems all ssd's are 2.5" not 3.5" - so you simply use a 2.5 - 3.5
adapter, or what?

4. finally, is 4 ssd's in raid 0 overkill? or would it saturate the raid
card and be a waste of money? does it require a constant backup the way a
mechanical raid0 does, or is it not such a big deal (note: backups are
ALWAYS necessary - but you know what I mean, I hope....) is 2 ssd raid0
enough?

(as for usage, I would like this more for gigapixel work (stitching in ptgui
and editing in photoshop) than fisheye sphericals - those already stitch
"fast enough" in RAM.)


help, aaaachh! :-)))



Jeffrey Martin
www.360cities.net - The World in Virtual Reality
tel. [phone] / skype jeffrey.s.martin


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[luca vascon-3]

http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/

:-)
And then.,,, sata drives have the same cable format. You can buy supermicro
and chieftec backplanes holding till 7 of those 2.5" format.
Remember to  put them in a vented place...

2009/10/27 Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net <[hidden email]>

> I'm lost in the reviews and specs of SSD's :-O
>
> 1. it seemed that crucial was the best price/performance
> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001304.html
>
> 2. then yesterday, intel released a firmware upgrade for their 160gb (NOT
> the 80gb which is slow and nasty already, it seems) which makes it write
> about 25% faster.
>
> http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/26/intels-ssd-toolbox-firmware-update-promise-boost-in-performan/
>
> 3. also, i'm a bit confused. i want ssd's for my desktop not notebook. but
> it seems all ssd's are 2.5" not 3.5" - so you simply use a 2.5 - 3.5
> adapter, or what?
>
> 4. finally, is 4 ssd's in raid 0 overkill? or would it saturate the raid
> card and be a waste of money? does it require a constant backup the way a
> mechanical raid0 does, or is it not such a big deal (note: backups are
> ALWAYS necessary - but you know what I mean, I hope....) is 2 ssd raid0
> enough?
>
> (as for usage, I would like this more for gigapixel work (stitching in
> ptgui
> and editing in photoshop) than fisheye sphericals - those already stitch
> "fast enough" in RAM.)
>
>
> help, aaaachh! :-)))
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Martin
> www.360cities.net - The World in Virtual Reality
> tel. [phone] / skype jeffrey.s.martin
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> --
>
>
>
>

--
Luca Vascon.

www.canalview.it
www.officinepanottiche.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Robert Harshman]

--- In [hidden email], "Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net" <360cities@...> wrote:
>
 
> 2. then yesterday, intel released a firmware upgrade for their 160gb (NOT the 80gb which is slow and nasty already, it seems) which makes it write about 25% faster.

Update and toolkit are noted for all intel SSDs, even first gen. However, the firmware patch seems to have been pulled already, perhaps a nasty bug was found. Too bad been waiting for this as it should keep these devices humming.


> 3. also, i'm a bit confused. i want ssd's for my desktop not notebook. but it seems all ssd's are 2.5" not 3.5" - so you simply use a 2.5 - 3.5 adapter,

YES

> 4. finally, is 4 ssd's in raid 0 overkill? or would it saturate the raid card and be a waste of money?

doubt if it would, depends on the setup/card obviously.

> (as for usage, I would like this more for gigapixel work (stitching in ptgui

Not sure if SSD's really help much now that PTGui 8.3 has come along. With the change to large writes, Joost has changed the way stitching performance is impacted by SSD's. I think RAID 0 has now become the key factor for sustained large write speed. the biggest benefit from SSD's is in the bascially .1 ms random reads - typically a factor of 10 times faster than any HDD yet.

For megapixel or really large stitching I think there is more to come from optimization in PTGUI. The input file size in Pixels seems to be a real bottle neck of some sort. At least I've seen my system blaze through the gigapixel test - about 20 minutes- (using the 6 megapixel files provided) and then choke so to speak on a 11,000 by 5,500 EQ output produced from 32 15 megapixel files - takes 35 minutes. A gigapixel project with input files this large results in hours to stitch.

So, are relatively inexpensive midrange SSD's worth it, absolutely for the system and program drive(s). For swap, maybe for many applications, but with PTgui 8.3, I'm not sure anymore. Raid 0 with traditional HDD's may be just about as good and a heck of a lot cheaper.  

note, the really expensive SSD's will make a huge difference as noted months ago by someone, but those are still thousands of $.

Regards,

Robert

[Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net]

thanks luca,

i looked at hyperos but i'm not so hot on the idea. seems a bit volatile for
my taste.  also,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134835
4gb ram is $120 so i'm not really into spending $12000 on 400gb ram disk.
although that would be pretty kick-ass ;-)))

Thanks Robert harshman for the info about ptgui 8.3 - I wonder if joost or
anyone else has more concrete info on this very interesting development. The
difference between a 4 or even 8 disk raid0 and ssd raid0 is staggering, and
truth be told my future computer configurations depend largely on the
performance of ptgui, much more than even photoshop.

still it seems that an SSD for the OS - windows 7 with TRIM seems to have a
huge advantage over any other os (mac included? correct me if i'm wrong)

thanks,
Jeffrey



Jeffrey Martin
www.360cities.net - The World in Virtual Reality
tel. [phone] / skype jeffrey.s.martin


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[luca vascon-3]

You can convince OS to page file on ram HD and ptgui to use it as
scratchdisk.
No need to leave things on that.
I'd add a simple script to remove immediately the final file and put it on a
raid1 array ;-)
So you copy image to bie stitched in ramdisk, run ptgui, and remove final
image.
Ramdisk will be always empty...

2009/10/29 Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net <[hidden email]>

> thanks luca,
>
> i looked at hyperos but i'm not so hot on the idea. seems a bit volatile
> for
> my taste.  also,
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134835
> 4gb<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134835%0A4gb>ram is $120 so i'm not really into spending $12000 on 400gb ram disk.
> although that would be pretty kick-ass ;-)))
>
> Thanks Robert harshman for the info about ptgui 8.3 - I wonder if joost or
> anyone else has more concrete info on this very interesting development.
> The
> difference between a 4 or even 8 disk raid0 and ssd raid0 is staggering,
> and
> truth be told my future computer configurations depend largely on the
> performance of ptgui, much more than even photoshop.
>
> still it seems that an SSD for the OS - windows 7 with TRIM seems to have a
> huge advantage over any other os (mac included? correct me if i'm wrong)
>
> thanks,
> Jeffrey
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Martin
> www.360cities.net - The World in Virtual Reality
> tel. [phone] / skype jeffrey.s.martin
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> --
>
>
>
>

--
Luca Vascon.

www.canalview.it
www.officinepanottiche.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Joergen Geerds-2]

hi jeffrey,
barefeats has usually pretty good numbers on performance:http://www.barefeats.com/hard128.html

i am still not 100% convinced about SSDs, while they give you an awfully nice performance, they don't seems to last really long yet (at least for the money we're paying for them).
the recent ptgui updates should give you already a much faster throughput.
joergen
--- On Thu, 10/29/09, Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Jeffrey Martin | 360Cities.net <[hidden email]>
Subject: [PanoToolsNG] Re: ot: ssd
To: "panotoolsng" <[hidden email]>
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 4:57 AM












 
 




   
                  thanks luca,



i looked at hyperos but i'm not so hot on the idea. seems a bit volatile for

my taste.  also,

http://www.newegg. com/Product/ Product.aspx? Item=N82E1682013 4835

4gb ram is $120 so i'm not really into spending $12000 on 400gb ram disk.

although that would be pretty kick-ass ;-)))



Thanks Robert harshman for the info about ptgui 8.3 - I wonder if joost or

anyone else has more concrete info on this very interesting development. The

difference between a 4 or even 8 disk raid0 and ssd raid0 is staggering, and

truth be told my future computer configurations depend largely on the

performance of ptgui, much more than even photoshop.



still it seems that an SSD for the OS - windows 7 with TRIM seems to have a

huge advantage over any other os (mac included? correct me if i'm wrong)



thanks,

Jeffrey



Jeffrey Martin

www.360cities. net - The World in Virtual Reality

tel. [phone] / skype jeffrey.s.martin



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




 

     

   
   
       
         
       
       




       




       
       


       
       
       




     

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