Skip to main content

⚠️ Please note that this topic or post has been archived. The information contained here may no longer be accurate or up-to-date. ⚠️

Are solid state drives helpful?

Steve Karr Teching
Hi everyone,
So I am seconds from upgrading my MBP to a new i7 model. I was wondering if anyone has experience with SSD? Are they faster for tethered shooting? I would think the slowdown is in the tether cable not the drives, but if it is speeder then the extra $$ may be worth it. Also is the 4 gig to 8 gig upgrade good for C1 or is that more a Photoshop thing ?

Thanks!
Steve
0

Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • Paul Steunebrink
    From a MBP /w 3 GB + CO5 + Photoshop user, I would recommend a SSD if you can afford it. I have one in a Windows 7 - Core i7 machine (with CO5 + Photoshop) and I really like it a lot. The extra RAM would be very attractive as well. I frequently run out of RAM on my Mac.
    0
  • Ralph Eisenberg
    You might try getting information on Lloyd Chambers' site, and specifically check out the Mac Performance guide.

    His tests certainly suggest, as Paul indicates as well, the utility of these drives in terms of enhanced performance. I recall that the OWC drives were highly regarded and the performance improvement is appreciable.
    0
  • Gideon Marshall
    Yes, they are the best possible way to see an instant performance boost on any Mac, even more so than upgrading RAM. Your system will start up almost instantly and programs will open as quickly. Not sure if it will be any faster for tethered shooting though, although obviously the write speed will be much higher as new images come in so maybe. You will notice a performance boost for everything else though.

    However they are very pricy at the moment, I have just got a new 17" i7 Macbook Pro and went down the route of a 7200 rpm 500Gb drive. My thinking is that I can wait a few months until SSD come down a bit more in price then swop out the 500Gb drive with one and stick the 500Gb into a housing to use as a portable drive. If you get a SSD built in directly from Apple then you end up paying a bit of a premium and lose the value of the standard type of hard drive.

    By the way the i7 with a 7200rpm drive is pretty tasty for capturing tethered anyway.
    0
  • dale11833
    Is anyone here using a solid state drive while shooting tethered in CO5P? If so, are the captures coming in faster, and drawing to full resolution faster, than when you were using a 7200 rpm drive?
    0
  • Daniel Goldwasser
    I'll post tether speed test results when the new machine & SSD drive arrives next week.
    Mac Pro 6 core 3.33
    24GB RAM
    480GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD vs standard 7200RPM Hard drive.

    ***Update***
    OWC just called to say the 480GB SSD drives will be delayed at least 2 weeks, bummer.
    0
  • dmanbaby
    Hi Daniel,

    Did you ever do the SSD test? I'm wondering if it'll speed up tether capture with a Canon 1dsIII (which I think you use as well). I'm guessing that the USB bus would be the slowest component and would mitigate any SSD advantage.

    If you did any testing, I'd love to hear what your findings were.

    Cheers,

    D
    0
  • Daniel Goldwasser
    No, I ended up canceling my order for the SSD. I'd be curious to know though if anyone has the ability to do a side by side tether speed test with standard drive vs. SSD.
    0
  • Nitton74
    Hi, yes the SSD is helping alot. We did the change last week and its much faster now
    0
  • Daniel Goldwasser
    Hi Nitton74,
    Any way to tell if you are able to actually capture more frames per minute? Or is the speed up mostly related to OS & Application responsiveness.

    What cameras are you using? In other-words does it tether via USB or FW400/800

    I'm still on the fence, would love to see actual tether speed increase with SSD drives.

    thanks,
    daniel
    0

Post is closed for comments.