rdrechsler Loc: Channel Islands Harbor, CA

Hi have an HP Pavilion computer and a pretty good one (12Mb RAM, 1Tb Hard Drive and an Intel i5-7400 processor), however, when I got the Nikon D850 and started dealing with huge (50Mb+) files, Focus Shifting with 50 or more images, etc., it just didn't work. I could start a Merge Layers process and go downstairs to watch TV for a half hour before it was done. Something had to give and no way I could afford $3000 - $5000 for a high end computer to speed up my workflow. So I went to Fry's, a local SoCal electronics store chain, and worked out an upgrade plan. Here's what I did:

1) Upgraded the processor from the Intel i5 to an Intel i7-7700K.
2) Swapped out the old cooling unit for a low profile Thermaltake Engine 27 cooler.
3) Bypassed the 1Tb mechanical hard drive with two 500Gb Samsung SSD drives.
4) Added more RAM using Samsung boards to bring the total to 32 Gb.

The total cost was just under $1400 (including $250 of labor). The result is miraculous. Most large processing projects in Photoshop are completely seamless with instantaneous results. When using stacking functions the processes run in seconds instead of many, many minutes. It wasn't the cheapest thing to accomplish, but far less than buying a comparable (if you can find it) computer from scratch and WELL WORTH the money!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I think you still want a mechanical HD.

SSDs are nice for fast response but they do have limited write cycles (something like 1000?). For that reason they're great for the root drive, which holds all the programs and constant data, but they are not appropriate for ephemeral data. Keep your programs on the SSD and your data on the mechanical HD.

rdrechsler Loc: Channel Islands Harbor, CA

That was the original plan, but unfortunately the mother board wouldn't talk to the mechanical drive and the SSD drive, so this was the fallback position. However, I also do contemporaneous back-ups of my data on an external 1Tb Western Digital drive and the really good stuff gets stored in iCloud, on my laptop and my iPhone, as well, not to mention the ones I print, so it's unlikely that I'll be losing any images in the near future...LOL.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Seems odd that the motherboard (I assume OEM HP?) won't recognize both the SSD and the mech HD. Could there be some simple BIOS tweak to overcome that, and allow you to use your mech HD as well? Please take no offense, but I'm curious why you didn't upgrade the MB at the same time?

I haven't used an off-the-shelf 'brand name' computer in over 20 years. Cheaper to build what I wanted by selecting components that did what I wanted them to do rather than what some computer-seller figured I might want to do. Present build is ancient now, being 4-5 years old. Top of the line (then) ASUS board running an 8 Core AMD 4.5Ghz processor; water cooled; 64 Mb RAM; 250 Gb SSD for OS and programs; two 1.5 TB mech HDs for work files, etc. Cost maybe $600 or thereabouts at the time; an equivalent off-the-shelf machine would probably have run 2-3 times that or more. Its pretty much an image machine only; a couple other networked (older, but still fairly 'hot') quad-core machines take care of the lesser mundane tasks.

rdrechsler Loc: Channel Islands Harbor, CA

[quote=Cany143]Seems odd that the motherboard (I assume OEM HP?) won't recognize both the SSD and the mech HD. Could there be some simple BIOS tweak to overcome that, and allow you to use your mech HD as well? Please take no offense, but I'm curious why you didn't upgrade the MB at the same time? [quote]

Quite the set up you’ve got. Technology has surpassed whatever expertise I once had in the old days, but the tech staff at Fry’s is very knowledgeable. They tried all the obvious fixes to the incompatibility problem without success. In hindsight, I probably should have upgraded the mother board at the same time, but I didn’t think it would be necessary when I started the project. If and when one of the SSD Drive fails (one for data and one for programs), I’ll change out the motherboard and connect the old or upgrade the mechanical hard drive at the same time.

But I’m with you. Based on this experience I’ll never buy another computer. I’ll keep upgrading this one and build a new one when this one becomes too archaic to work with.

Thanks for your input.

sgtpreston Loc: El Paso, Texas

love my mac

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

They do have limited write cycles, but when you actually calculate the amount of data written per day to exceed the specified life of the drive, especially considering modern wear leveling techniques, you’ll find that it’s rarely a limiting factor in real world use use - it’s the cost per TB that limits their use for very large repositories of data. One of my Intel SSDs (I have a total of 8 which are approaching 5 years of operation without a failure), has had in excess of 20,000 files written to it over that time. This ap note spells out the considerations: https://blog.westerndigital.com/ssd-endurance-speeds-feeds-needs/ But as with any storage device, multiple copies of your data with one off-site copy is good practice.

Congratulations on your upgrade - one of the (large) advantages of s desktop windows machine is the ability to cost-effectively upgrade performance rather then considering a computer as a disposable commodity.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Sounds like a good upgrade, especially the RAM. The D850 files can stress lesser computers.

Skiextreme2 Loc: Northwest MA

[quote=rdrechsler][quote=Cany143]Seems odd that the motherboard (I assume OEM HP?) won't recognize both the SSD and the mech HD. Could there be some simple BIOS tweak to overcome that, and allow you to use your mech HD as well? Please take no offense, but I'm curious why you didn't upgrade the MB at the same time?

Are you comfortable going into; Control panel - System and Security - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management? If you're using a drive from the older version, the drive name (letter) may be the same as the newer one and have to be changed. If using a new drive, it will have to be formatted before the system recognizes it. If the Fry's tech did not check these things, that may be your problem.

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

One thing that might limit your ability to upgrade is that major pc manufacturers often use custom form factor motherboards, precluding the ability to populate the case with a new mobo. If that's not true with your HP you should be good to go for many years to come.

Another consideration is the power supply may end up being marginal as you populate the pc with higher performance components. I am in the build your own population and have been since the early days.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I think you can get an iMac for around that. Yes, it will perform also.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/all-desktops/apple-imacs-minis-mac-pros/pcmcat268200050003.c?id=pcmcat268200050003&ref=30&loc=KW-4322&gclid=CPnHiOWP09oCFUTsDQodO-gJlw&gclsrc=ds

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

That is for an i5 with 8GB. He had better than that before his upgrade. He is now a i7 32GB 1T HD and 1T SSD

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

According to this research, it isn't likely to ever be a problem. Most fears about rewrite capacity is overflown these days.

As the article shows, even the cheapest drive lasted 1000 TB of write cycles, but most went over 1.1 PB, as in penta bytes. If my math is correct, a 250gig drive at 46 mega per photo could store over 500,000 photos and handle 21,200,000 changes (rewrites). Assuming 10,000 images a month, it would take 4 years to fill and allow (rewrites) at 300 a day per photo for 181 years. If I missed a decimal, only 18 years. Plenty of space left for the OP to process work.

Even if my rough math is way off, those dives are gonna last a long time! Anyway, good article worth a read.

https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Agree - just not an issue in normal use. Now if you’re running a transactional server in a business environment, then that’s a different matter. Btw, it’s peta bytes 😎.

Cheers