SSD Drive inquiry

[dine79]

Hi CGA users... I am looking at a new Sumsung 1TB SSD Hard drive and trying to get my head around the fact that they are way faster and how that could affect render times. They are getting somewhat affordable and but on the other hand hesitant to pay a few 100$ to find out if it's worth the investment in the end (render time saved).

 

I've been reading that the speed increase in system performance could be up to 10x faster than a 7200rpm SATA. So does that now make your cpu(s) the weakest link in the system? Do your render times improve having everything on the same SSD drive (ie maps, proxies, etc..)? Curious to get advice from the pros out here.

[beestee]

Hi CGA users... I am looking at a new Sumsung 1TB SSD Hard drive and trying to get my head around the fact that they are way faster and how that could affect render times. They are getting somewhat affordable and but on the other hand hesitant to pay a few 100$ to find out if it's worth the investment in the end (render time saved).

 

I've been reading that the speed increase in system performance could be up to 10x faster than a 7200rpm SATA. So does that now make your cpu(s) the weakest link in the system? Do your render times improve having everything on the same SSD drive (ie maps, proxies, etc..)? Curious to get advice from the pros out here.

 

 

Yes, render times will improve but not even close to the order of magnitude that a processor or RAM upgrade would yield. Also if you have assets on the network, the network itself can be a major bottleneck. I do not think the cost of an SSD is worth it just for rendering unless you can go for the smaller ones and be certain that the most commonly used assets will all fit on there along with all of the other necessities.

 

 

If this is a workstation you are talking about, then the improvement in system responsiveness is generally worth the extra cost of the SSD. In a render node, probably not yet.

[Nic H]

its not going to make a difference to rendering.

save your money and get a 512SSD and put the money towards a better CPU - or another render node.

[RyderSK]

If this is a workstation you are talking about, then the improvement in system responsiveness is generally worth the extra cost of the SSD. In a render node, probably not yet.

 

This. The SSD investment is well worth the radical improvement in overal comfort while working on workstation (switching PC-on, starting 3dsMax,etc..), but there is close to no improvement in rendering times. And you can't even imagine the silent feeling, if there's one thing I hated always, it's the ridicously ugly noise of 7200rpm harddisks. I would say 256GB is sweat-spot to buy in workstation and keep the rest of the files on network. Autosaving will be fast because it will happen on local SSD but assets are much smaller and will do just fine being on network. It's flexible and fast

[Dimitris Tolios]

This. The SSD investment is well worth the radical improvement in overal comfort while working on workstation (switching PC-on, starting 3dsMax,etc..), but there is close to no improvement in rendering times. And you can't even imagine the silent feeling, if there's one thing I hated always, it's the ridicously ugly noise of 7200rpm harddisks. I would say 256GB is sweat-spot to buy in workstation and keep the rest of the files on network. Autosaving will be fast because it will happen on local SSD but assets are much smaller and will do just fine being on network. It's flexible and fast

 

^This.

Any benefits in rendering will be limited to the time it takes to deploy files in 3DS/VRay's temporary caching before the rendering actually starts. Past that it is an almost 100% CPU limited process (very little to do with RAM, nothing to do with GPU, almost nothing with HDD/SSD).

 

The 1TB is not needed, unless you want to replace your HDD completely.

Recently I've switched from a 256 M4 to a 500 840 EVO, as I got spoiled and wanted more on the SSD, but 256 is more than manageable if you have a spin drive (i.e. HDD) for general storage. 128GB SSDs are considered small for DCC/CG work, as after OS and a couple of software suites space starts to run low.

 

Regardless, the SSD will benefit your overall system response quite a bit. It is a game changer in many ways, just not with rendering