single SDD faster than dual HDD?

[rawdawg]

I'm curious if getting a mac mini with a single SDD is comparable to having the server version with 2x HDDs in it. I do heavy Lightroom / After Effects exports and before anyone recommends a MacPro or greater for my needs let me say what I do is so processor heavy and the fact that these programs can't take advantage of multiple cores effectively enough at this point makes me interested in purchasing Mac Mini's as a sort of render farm (I'll start with one for now).

I'm curious if Apple next year will create a Mac Mini without a superdrive and with a SSD in a smaller package similar to a Atv? -- These would work great as render farms if in fact a single SSD would be good in that situation.

Comments?

 

[rawdawg]

To clarify I would not go the mac mini server route with 2x SSDs because I would rather save up for another regular mac mini. A whole other computer is worth more processor wise to me.

See my sig for my current setup. Thanks

 

[Transporteur]

"Better" in which way?
Faster? Oh yes!
More storage? Certainly not.

Will the speed make a difference as a render node? Certainly not.
You say that your applications are heavily CPU based, so the hard drive in a render node won't make any difference at all.

To be honest, I really don't understand this kind of setup with your requirements.

 

[rawdawg]

You can't read my mind? Yeah, better = faster in my case. I have plenty of storage available in external drives.

I wouldn't use this as a render node for AE mostly cause I don't know how to do it. But I think you're right in that case a MacPro would make more sense. But I do think it would be easy in FCP to take advantage of multiple computers using qMaster (go Mac).

But the REAL use of this is---- I do HUGE lightroom exports. 3 to 4 batches of 10,000 raw files at a time. Each batch of 10,000 maxes out my current MBP CPU but more importantly even if I have more cores LR wouldn't make use of it. But if I have MacMinis i could have two computers crunching it out at once.

Make sense?

 

[Transporteur]

I wouldn't use this as a render node for AE mostly cause I don't know how to do it. But I think you're right in that case a MacPro would make more sense. But I do think it would be easy in FCP to take advantage of multiple computers using qMaster (go Mac).

But the REAL use of this is---- I do HUGE lightroom exports. 3 to 4 batches of 10,000 raw files at a time. Each batch of 10,000 maxes out my current MBP CPU but more importantly even if I have more cores LR wouldn't make use of it. But if I have MacMinis i could have two computers crunching it out at once.

Make sense?

I understand, if that makes sense is another question.

But yes, I see where you are going with this. If Lightroom really can't utilise more than two cores, a computer with more cores wouldn't make much sense, that's correct and if you're fine with manually splitting up your projects (I don't think that Lightroom is supported by Apple's quadministrator), than that might indeed be a viable option.

 

[rawdawg]

Thanks for your response.

It would be very easy to split up my projects. In fact half the time my CPU is being used rendering items that would Otherwise be easy to split up.

I knew my idea was a little funky but seems to make more sense in my case than buying even a 2 year old MacPro--I could get 3 minis!

Whether my idea pans out or not, that's why I was asking that question. Would a mini be 'faster' with a single SSD (OS and media) or with two HDDs (one for OS and one for media) because that figures in for cost of either man mini or mini server

 

[Transporteur]

No matter which mechanical HDD's you've got in mind, a single SSD will always be considerably faster.