How much will SSD improve video editing performance?

hopkins802 · #1 03-25-2016, 09:34 AM

Hi everyone!

Currently upgrading my PC right now to improve 4K editing abilities and I have a couple questions about SSD's. I know that there are many (expensive) things that I should do to create the absolute perfect machine, but I don't have the kind of budget to upgrade everything right now.

I know that Intel is the go-to for video editing, but about a year ago I bought a custom built Asus gaming PC, with the intention of slowly upgrading / customizing it for editing.

Brief run down of specs:

A88x-pro motherboard
GeForce GTX-760 gfx card
32gb 1866 MHz RAM

It performs pretty well, but could be better when editing 4k, and I believe my hard drives are the issue. My Adobe Suite is installed on slower SATA drive, and my footage and scratch disk is a 4tb Seagate USB 3.0 HD.

If I purchase a 250gb SSD and use it as my scratch disk, and a separate 60 - 120gb SSD to re-install my Adobe Suite on, is this going to make a significant difference? Or is there going to be bottlenecking because all of my footage is on a standard external HD (with usb 3.0).

Thanks!

lordsmurf · #2 03-27-2016, 01:28 AM

You'd like to think it's a lot, but it's not.

I thought it would myself, but it has saved me any time at all. At most, maybe 1fps? A quality 4tb SATA Seagate (APM disabled) is just as fast as an SSD. The reason? The i/o isn't the bottleneck, the CPU is. I have a Skylake system with SATA3, using an Asrock boards, so perhaps if you have a non-new system it may help.

I have 16gb RAM, and it doesn't even use 1/10th of it. Photoshop eats it, but that's about it. Even Premiere doesn't care.

The scratch disk aspect may be helped by SSD. I never really hit mine hard, so I'm not affected.

Installing the Adobe software, and using the SSD as the boot/OS/programs drive will vastly help. But that's just general computing to me, not really anything "editing" specific. But net/overall, yeah, SSD as boot/OS/software probably will help your editing.

I have a 1tb Samsung EVO 850. Stay with Samsung, buy from Newegg or Amazon.

hopkins802 · #3 03-27-2016, 10:52 AM

Thanks. Sounds like it's at least worth a try to get editing programs installed on an SSD. As for scratch, it's very important for Premiere to have a fast drive to cache to, so I think an SSD will help.

How would I switch where Windows 7 is installed now, to be on an SSD? Sorry, kind of new at this whole customized PC thing.

Thanks,
Dan

lordsmurf · #4 03-27-2016, 02:28 PM

For Windows systems, using the special SSD-to-USB adapter (about $10), and the special Samsung software, your entire drive transfers to the new drive.

- If the source drive is physically larger than the new SSD, you have to perform some shrink processes.
- If the source drive is smaller, you simply copy it to the new SSD.

It's not hard to to.

It's Linux and Mac that are big PITA.

hopkins802 · #5 03-27-2016, 07:27 PM

That's great, thanks! Would you recommend having Windows 7 on it's own SSD, and then my editing programs on another SSD, and then another for my scratch disk?

VideoTechMan · #6 03-27-2016, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

For Windows systems, using the special SSD-to-USB adapter (about $10), and the special Samsung software, your entire drive transfers to the new drive.

- If the source drive is physically larger than the new SSD, you have to perform some shrink processes.
- If the source drive is smaller, you simply copy it to the new SSD.

It's not hard to to.

It's Linux and Mac that are big PITA.

I've done this when I transfered the contents of my DAW OS drive that was on a spinner drive to SSD using the cloning software of the SSD. Worked like a charm and haven't lost anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hopkins802

That's great, thanks! Would you recommend having Windows 7 on it's own SSD, and then my editing programs on another SSD, and then another for my scratch disk?

Windows 7 and your programs can reside on one SSD, that's usually the standard. Once the program loads into memory it starts quickly when you exit out. You could use a second SSD for scratch and a cache drive.

lordsmurf · #7 03-27-2016, 10:39 PM

I'd rather see a single SSD than two small ones.

sanlyn · #8 03-28-2016, 03:39 AM

The experience of many PC builders is that SSD speeds up initial random seek and read. But has no effect on processing, which is a CPU and system bus matter. Opening your encoder app and finding a file might be faster, but not much will change after that.

hopkins802 · #9 03-28-2016, 08:15 AM

Good to know thanks. I'm not too worried about how fast programs start up, which I know the SSD's will help with anyway.

But I guess I should have included this in my initial post, I'm really trying to increase how smoothly 4k footage plays back in Premiere Pro. It was my thought that if it's able to cache to a faster disk, then it will playback smoother and perform better in general. Is this thought correct / on the right track?

Thanks

lordsmurf · #10 04-26-2016, 01:19 AM

After months of use: SSD sometimes makes a difference, sometimes not.

When an export has I/O as the bottleneck, not CPU, the SSD is probably 4x faster. But that's usually for something simple, such as "direct stream copy" (simple cut, no re-encode) exports from VirtualDub. That's to be expected, of course.

The bigger advantage is to properly set software to use all cores and buffer more in RAM.

Video rendering (preview, not encoding) has to go through the CPU as well, so SSD may not help.