Is there a point to have an SSD for boot drive, and SSD for Home Folder?

[theunderseaclub]

Hi guys,

I have a 2009 Mac Pro (upgraded to 5.1, 6-core, 3.33ghz), and I've been running a Crucial M4 128gb for boot drive, and redirecting the home folder to a 2TB hard drive.

I'm about to pull the trigger for a Samsung Evo 850 1TB SSD (can't afford blades...), and will use it with the Apricorn Velocity Duo X2. Or I might get 2x Evo 850 512gb and software Raid 0 them in OS X, or do it in Windows for even faster boot drive.

My question is, would there be any speed advantage to using a small SSD for the boot drive, and then use the 1tb EVO for the home folder? Or will things be faster enough already with just the 1tb SSD that I won't notice a difference?

I'll be using CS6, Sketchup, Aperture, FCP,etc. Video and photo files for FCP and Aperture is on a two 4TB HDD RAID 0, but CS6 (mostly photoshop and illustrator) and Sketchup files will be stored on the Home Folder (SSD).

Thanks!

 

[AidenShaw]

Hi guys,

I have a 2009 Mac Pro (upgraded to 5.1, 6-core, 3.33ghz), and I've been running a Crucial M4 128gb for boot drive, and redirecting the home folder to a 2TB hard drive.

I'm about to pull the trigger for a Samsung Evo 850 1TB SSD (can't afford blades...), and will use it with the Apricorn Velocity Duo X2. Or I might get 2x Evo 850 512gb and software Raid 0 them in OS X, or do it in Windows for even faster boot drive.

My question is, would there be any speed advantage to using a small SSD for the boot drive, and then use the 1tb EVO for the home folder? Or will things be faster enough already with just the 1tb SSD that I won't notice a difference?

I'll be using CS6, Sketchup, Aperture, FCP,etc. Video and photo files for FCP and Aperture is on a two 4TB HDD RAID 0, but CS6 (mostly photoshop and illustrator) and Sketchup files will be stored on the Home Folder (SSD).

Thanks!

Get rid of the M4, or use it for scratch or odd things. Put boot and home on the Evo.

The 850 Evo reads at up to 540 MB/s, writes at up to 520 MB/s.
The Crucial reads at up to 415 MB/s, writes at up to 175 MB/s.

 

[theunderseaclub]

Get rid of the M4, or use it for scratch or odd things. Put boot and home on the Evo.

The 850 Evo reads at up to 540 MB/s, writes at up to 520 MB/s.
The Crucial reads at up to 415 MB/s, writes at up to 175 MB/s.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

Another question, should I just get 2x Evo 512gb and Raid 0 them with the Apricon Duo X2 card? So that I'll get ~800 MB/s speeds?

On the other hand, if I just get a 1tb EVO, I can get another 1tb EVO and RAID 0 them together as a big boot drive, I can also put my video editing files on there as well.

I'll have a good back up program, plus, all of my important files are stored on my Dropbox Business account, so I'm not really worried about an SSD failing.

I would love some sm951 pcie ssds... but they're just too expensive for me right now, and not much help to me since I can only afford 512gb. It'd be overkill as a boot drive right?

 

[DPUser]

I'd like the strategy of separate boot/home and video data drives. I work with audio, and use an analogous approach, boot/home and audio data drives, plus separate VI SSDs. Spinners for backup only.

 

[AidenShaw]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

Another question, should I just get 2x Evo 512gb and Raid 0 them with the Apricon Duo X2 card? So that I'll get ~800 MB/s speeds?

On the other hand, if I just get a 1tb EVO, I can get another 1tb EVO and RAID 0 them together as a big boot drive, I can also put my video editing files on there as well.

I'll have a good back up program, plus, all of my important files are stored on my Dropbox Business account, so I'm not really worried about an SSD failing.

I would love some sm951 pcie ssds... but they're just too expensive for me right now, and not much help to me since I can only afford 512gb. It'd be overkill as a boot drive right?

Look at your workflow, and ask yourself "how often am I waiting for big files to copy?".

If the answer is "not very often", then you probably wouldn't notice that the RAID is faster.

A 2GB file takes 4 seconds to copy at 500 MB/s, and 2.5 seconds at 800 MB/s. Will that 1.5 sec be significant? For a 2MB file, it's a 1.5 millisecond difference.

I'd avoid the RAID myself - more points of failure. (2 drives and the RAID software).

In addition, many RAID setups do not support TRIM, which means that the write performance of the array can drop over time.

I'd like the strategy of separate boot/home and video data drives. I work with audio, and use an analogous approach, boot/home and audio data drives, plus separate VI SSDs. Spinners for backup only.

I agree with segregating different classes of data, but with SSDs using separate partitions on the same drive is almost as good most of the time.

 

[theunderseaclub]

Look at your workflow, and ask yourself "how often am I waiting for big files to copy?".

If the answer is "not very often", then you probably wouldn't notice that the RAID is faster.

A 2GB file takes 4 seconds to copy at 500 MB/s, and 2.5 seconds at 800 MB/s. Will that 1.5 sec be significant? For a 2MB file, it's a 1.5 millisecond difference.

I'd avoid the RAID myself - more points of failure. (2 drives and the RAID software).

In addition, many RAID setups do not support TRIM, which means that the write performance of the array can drop over time.


I agree with segregating different classes of data, but with SSDs using separate partitions on the same drive is almost as good most of the time.

Thanks guys, that made it very clear for me, I don't need a raid 0 boot drive. I'll stick with the 1tb evo, and one day upgrade to PCIE SSD. (long live the Classic Mac Pros!)

I appreciate it!