Speeding Up PS and PSE: This has probably been touched on before, but, just thought I would mention it. I just finished converting my Dell desktop from the standard SATA HDD hard drive...

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

This has probably been touched on before, but, just thought I would mention it. I just finished converting my Dell desktop from the standard SATA HDD hard drive to an SSD. The Samsung 1TB 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2, to be exact. FEDEX dropped it off yesterday. Took about 10min to install, cloning the original hard drive was quick and easy using the Samsung data migration tool, and in no time at all I was up and running. Everything works faster. Bootup, opening files, loading programs, etc. Apps that were a bit balky before work smoothly. My PS and PSE programs load quicker and just seem faster overall. Good upgrade. Wish I had done it sooner!
Bought the drive from B&H. Mounts on the motherboard, provided you have an M.2 NVME slot. If not, there are options. Laptop or desktop, the conversion is quick and easy if you are comfortable going inside your computer. For under $200 and less then 2hr time I am very happy.

Ourspolair

That, adding RAM and a good video card are the best ways to speed up your processing. Some people are wary of SSDs, but I have been using them for several years. Stay well and keep on posting!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

LFingar wrote:

This has probably been touched on before, but, jus... (show quote)

M.2 is nice - and amazingly small compared with a conventional hard drive. You have to be careful, though. When I got mine in 2016, I think there was one kind. Now there are several, all distinguished by capital letters - NVME, for example. I recently got a $10 card that goes into a computer slot and will let me attach an M.2 to it. I haven't tried it yet.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

jerryc41 wrote:

M.2 is nice - and amazingly small compared with a conventional hard drive. You have to be careful, though. When I got mine in 2016, I think there was one kind. Now there are several, all distinguished by capital letters - NVME, for example. I recently got a $10 card that goes into a computer slot and will let me attach an M.2 to it. I haven't tried it yet.

Small is an understatement! The box the drive came in is huge compared to the drive and that box is almost exactly the same size as the 3.5" hard drive I replaced!
Quite true about being careful. Unless you have an M.2 slot or adapter like yours then a SATA SSD is the way to go. All the current ones seem to be 2.5" so in a desktop you also need an adapter bracket. Still easy and relatively cheap for everything. I was going to use my old SATA hard drive for internal storage but I think I will put it on the shelf (just in case) and install a SATA SSD after seeing how fast they are.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

LFingar wrote:

Small is an understatement! The box the drive came... (show quote)

I like the idea of an SSD because I can remove it and use it like a regular dive. The price difference between an HDD and an SSD is to great for me to stop using a hard drive.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

jerryc41 wrote:

I like the idea of an SSD because I can remove it and use it like a regular dive. The price difference between an HDD and an SSD is to great for me to stop using a hard drive.

You can also use HDD hard drives as external drives for storage. They are just a bit bulkier. I have a SATA HDD dock on my desk that I use, along with a stack of HDD hard drives I have accumulated, for back-up storage of photos and so forth.

CaptainPhoto

Very interesting. I have an HP laptop I am interested in upgrading. This just might work. BTW I just checked the B&H site and the drive is now down to $179.
Thanks for sharing this.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

CaptainPhoto wrote:

Very interesting. I have an HP laptop I am interested in upgrading. This just might work. BTW I just checked the B&H site and the drive is now down to $179.
Thanks for sharing this.

$179 is what I paid.
I don't think the drive I used will work in your laptop. Could be wrong, of course. Check out the video that is on both B&H and Samsung site that shows upgrading a laptop using a SATA SSD. Quite simple and the drive is even less expensive I believe.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

CaptainPhoto wrote:

Very interesting. I have an HP laptop I am interested in upgrading. This just might work. BTW I just checked the B&H site and the drive is now down to $179.
Thanks for sharing this.

You can typically convert a laptop, but choose an SSD of the correct physical size and connector. Just Google something like: “SSD conversion for model xxxx HP laptop”. It will typically come with migration SW to allow you to simply move everything to the new SSD. You will be pleased (and maybe even amazed) with the new performance of your laptop.

rck281 Loc: Overland Park, KS

Don't forget that NVMe is a form factor. The identical NVMe drive may use either SATA or PCIe interface depending on the motherboard. If using a SATA connection, NVMe doesn't really do you any good over a regular SSD. Then, there are 2 speeds of NVMe PCIe drives/processors. You have PCIe3.0 and PCIe4.0 which is now implemented in some AMD Ryzen processors with compatible motherboards and SSD.
Everything always changes.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

rck281 wrote:

Don't forget that NVMe is a form factor. The identical NVMe drive may use either SATA or PCIe interface depending on the motherboard. If using a SATA connection, NVMe doesn't really do you any good over a regular SSD. Then, there are 2 speeds of NVMe PCIe drives/processors. You have PCIe3.0 and PCIe4.0 which is now implemented in some AMD Ryzen processors with compatible motherboards and SSD.
Everything always changes.

Just to clarify, m.2 is a form factor while NVME also defines a bus structure/interface that allows substantially higher speed and lower latency than the SATA interface. You can buy an m.2 adapter that will plug into a PCIe slot and support either SATA or NVME drives. Assuming the MB has SATA connections, an m.2 to SATA adapter has no advantage over the onboard SATA interface because the speed is limited by the SATA interface. What you want is an NVME Drive with an m.2 (or a direct PCIe) interface. If your relatively new MB has m.2 slots, then you can plug the m.2 NVME drive directly onto the MB. If it doesn’t, but you have an open PCIe slot, then a simple PCIe to m.2 adapter (which are in the $10 to $15 range) plus an NVME m.2 drive will provide the max performance and the cleanest installation (no SATA or power cables). And the benchmarks I have seen show no measurable degradation in NVME performance when using the m.2 adapter.

rck281 Loc: Overland Park, KS

TriX wrote:

Just to clarify, m.2 is a form factor while NVME a... (show quote)

Much better and thorough explanation.

markwilliam1

LFingar wrote:

This has probably been touched on before, but, jus... (show quote)

That’s Exactly the SSD drive I just installed Incredible! Boot time is only seconds. LR and Photoshop load and run Much faster! So Happy!

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

markwilliam1 wrote:

That’s Exactly the SSD drive I just installed Incredible! Boot time is only seconds. LR and Photoshop load and run Much faster! So Happy!

I also ordered a Samsung 1TB T7 SSD portable drive for backup to replace the hard drives and other devices I have been using up till now. Should have it tomorrow. After that I plan to mount a SATA SSD in my tower as internal backup. That way I will have two backups in addition to what is on the hard drive.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

TriX wrote:

Just to clarify, m.2 is a form factor while NVME a... (show quote)

To add to that, anyone thinking of upgrading using the M.2 slot on their mother board should check their computer's specs. Usually downloadable from the manufacturer. I went with NVME because I saw that the slot on mine supported both SATA and NVME. I don't know if that is the case for every manufacturer. Some may only support one or the other. Best to check first.