SSD Hard Drives help

[beavereater]

In my previous posting about HD issues the idea of getting a SSD was proposed. I didn't (And really still don't know) how they function to help. I'm wanting to speed up video transcoding times. If I were to get a SSD would I have to install the applications that on that drive as well as put all relevant data (video files) on that drive to take advantage of it? Anyone use SSD's with their systems?

[hech54]

Beav....I didn't realize that you you in the earlier thread. We were looking for you after the earthquake to see if you were OK. Glad you are ok.

[beavereater]

Beav....I didn't realize that you you in the earlier thread. We were looking for you after the earthquake to see if you were OK. Glad you are ok.

Yup...still alive. I live far enough away where the quake was felt, but barely. Didn't realize how bad it was until I got home later that night.

[RabidDog]

SSD have very little effect on Transcoding times. ABout 1% in fact. SO that would be money badly spent, if transcoding was your only priority. SSD's are very good for systems in general tho, making them much more "usable". For transcoding only four things matter
Core1
Core2
core3
and how much ram you have, 4gb+

It depends on which software you are using too, and whether it prefers more than 1 or 2 cores, or just faster Mhz ... normally the more of both the better.

And (quality) software will start taking advantage of APU's, GPU's and inbuilt CPU video hardware. The last time I tried using any of the CUDA related software the quality of the end product wasnt there. What settings you use can have dramatic effects also. try changing the motion estimation from 1 to max .. ETA will go from 1x to 1000x ... M/E over certain values yields tiny increase in quality/compression for vast increase in processing time ... read up, and ask.

Ask yourself also. why compress in the first place? ... storage is cheap (on desktop PC)

[TBoneit]

Using a SSD to improve windows startup times = Good
Using a SSD to improve program load times = good
Using a SSD for files that are always changing, being added and deleted = poor choice since SSD drives only have so many write cycles to a memory location.
Your encoding times are most likely CPU limited for speed.

Do I use SSD drives? Yes for Windows and Programs only. Everything else goes on a 7200RPM data drive.

I built my Brother a computer to last for a while. SSD boot drive and for programs, 1Tb Data drive for everything else.

The computer is very fast booting and working with video, The video speed is due to it being a i7-2600 CPU and having a video card that supports Cuda. I did that since he isn't a fussy viewer and it works good with Freemake Video Converter.

Good Luck