Can SSDs improve Adobe Lightroom performance?
- Transfer
It seems that not a single week has passed without another question about using SSDs to improve Lightroom's performance. Similar questions also regularly appear on the Lightroom user forum on the Adobe website. Unfortunately, this question cannot be answered unequivocally. This article will help to reveal some aspects affecting productivity. In the end, I compare the overall performance of Lightroom on a regular hard drive and SSD.
First, pay attention to the operating system. Adobe's minimum system requirements for the Windows platform suggest that for normal use a simple laptop with Windows XP and 2GB of RAM installed will be enough. In fact, things are not so rosy. First of all, Windows XP has been around for more than 10 years, and it can only handle 4GB of RAM (and each individual application only with 2GB), and it came out long before the time when multiprocessor / multi-core CPUs became the norm. In addition, if you use the / 3GB option (allows applications to use more than 2GB of RAM), then there is a fairly common memory fragmentation problem. On the other hand, Lightroom is fully compatible with computers based on multiprocessor / multi-core CPUs, and can run as a 64-bit application in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Windows Vista 64 and Windows 7 64. The main advantage of 64-bit operating systems is that a correctly written application is no longer limited to 4GB of RAM. Lightroom is one of such applications, so it works faster with a lot of system memory, especially if all other applications run in the background.
Secondly, let's look at the processor. Lightroom is extremely demanding on the CPU. In particular, in the case of rendering and loading the image into the Develop module with simultaneous suppression of luminance and color noise, sharpening, and correction of geometric distortion of the lens. In this case, the performance of Lightroom will increase significantly if Intel Core i5 or i7 processors are used, especially in conjunction with 4 or more gigabytes of RAM.
Apple MacBook Pro early 2011
It is worth noting that the use of the latest generation Core i5 and i7 processors (Sandy Bridge) gives a significant increase in performance when creating a preview compared to last year's Intel processors, and an even more significant increase compared to 2009 Intel Core 2 Duo. For example, I personally launched Lightroom 3.4 on the MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (mid-2009 model) and MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 (early 2011 model). The figures show the average time of three launches spent importing 300 photos (Canon 5D Mk II, RAW format) from a regular disk and to create a 1: 1 preview. The import was done in the Library module, and the photos were not subjected to any changes before or during the import.
MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 8GB ram = 32 min 10 sec
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 4 GB ram = 19 min 40 sec
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 8GB ram = 15 min 17 sec
The figures show that the Core i7 Quad, used in the 15 "and 17" MacBook Pro models of the beginning of 2011, creates a 1: 1 preview twice as fast as The Core 2 Duo is a 15 "MacBook Pro. Also, even with 4GB, the Core i7 Quad is significantly faster than the Core 2 Duo with 8GB of RAM. Both computers used a Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm internal hard drive. I believe computers of this configuration but with Windows Vista 64 or Windows 7 64 installed would have shown a similar performance improvement.
Users often complain about exporting photos from Lightroom. This aspect is also worthy of comparison on the three above configurations. This test involved the same 300 photographs taken by Canon 5D Mk II, exported to JPEG (100% size and 80% quality). In this case, various settings were applied to the photos - local filters, gradient filters, noise reduction and correction of optical distortion of the lenses.
MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 8GB ram = 36 min 26 sec (7.3s)
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 4GB ram = 22 min (4.4 sec)
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 8GB ram = 16 min (3.2 sec) )
(The numbers in parentheses indicate the average time taken to export one photograph)
And again, as in the case of importing and creating previews, it can be seen that using the new Core i7 Quad processor can reduce the time spent on exporting photos by more than 2 times, compared to Core 2 Duo.
Obviously, the combined use of Quad Core, Hyperthreading and Turbo Boost technologies in the new Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processors gives a significant increase in performance compared to earlier MacBook Pros. And in order to emphasize this increase, it is worth mentioning that the new 2.3 GHz i7 Quad-core MacBook Pro creates a preview a little faster than my desktop eight-core Mac Pro 3.0 GHz with 16GB of RAM (model of the beginning of 2008). It seems that the key to increased productivity lies in Turbo Boost technology. It allows the processor to operate at an increased frequency (for example, 3.4 GHz instead of 2.3 GHz) when it (the processor) operates within acceptable limits in terms of power and temperature.
If you want to know more about the MacBook Quad, I recommend reading the comprehensive review written by Lloyd Chambers for Mac Performance Guide . I will allow myself one quote from the review: “In short, if your work depends on the performance of the MacBook Pro, throw away your old model and run head over heels for the 2011 MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz (15” or 17 ")"
Here you can ask a question - why do I only talk about processors and RAM? What about SSD? In fact, CPUs and RAM are the only components that have a significant impact on the time taken to create a preview in the Library and Develop modules. And given that this is the most costly action in terms of time, you can safely ignore other things that affect performance. However, despite the above, I would like to check whether using SSD has any performance impact. To do this, instead of the original 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, I installed one of the most proven SSDs on my computer - the 240GB OWC Mercury Extreme. I placed the hard drive in the slot for the optical drive, which allowed me to choose which drive to boot from.
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
So it's time to see if the installed SSD improves the time it takes to create a preview in the Library module. To do this, I conducted a series of tests with Lightroom, catalogs and previews, a RAW image cache, and photos located on an SSD / hard drive, and distributed on both drives. Spreading the application, photos, and cache onto different disks allows you to avoid read / write collisions and reduces CPU load. Therefore, we can see some good points for a dual-drive configuration. This test also used the familiar 300 photographs taken with the Canon 5D Mk II in RAW format. Test results shown below. As a basic result, the time of work with all components located on a regular 7200rpm hard drive was used.
* Import and preview time * 1: 1 for 300 photos (Canon 5D MkII, RAW format)
* The total import time ranged from 6-7 seconds, and the time in brackets indicates the average import and preview time for one photo.
the table above shows that despite the location of the catalog, previews, and photo caches, the total time spent importing photos and creating previews fluctuates very weakly (26 seconds of the difference between the best and worst results). Based on the results, it is recommended to transfer the application itself, Camera Raw cache, catalog and preview to SSD, and place the photos themselves on a regular hard drive (3). And even this configuration is only slightly faster than the one when everything is located on the hard drive (5). It can also be seen that using SSDs reduces the time it takes to create a preview when photos are posted to SSDs. Although to be honest, it is unlikely that an SSD can act as a storage for photographs, at least until more capacious and less expensive solid state drives appear on the market.
And what if it is impossible to install two internal drives in a computer? Most laptops and desktop systems have ports for connecting external drives. If we consider the MacBook Pro, then the external drive can be connected via Firewire 800. The following table contains the results obtained using an external hard drive (G-Drive mobile 500GB) connected via Firewire 800 instead of the internal additional SATA 300.
Time * for creating a preview 1: 1 for 300 photos (Canon 5D MkII, RAW format)
It is seen that performance degradation in comparison with two internal SATA 300 drives practically does not occur. So, we can safely say that all doubts about the use of an external drive connected via Firewire 800 are unfounded. Theoretically, the drive can also be connected via USB 2.0, but I found that it was not possible to achieve the same performance as when using the Firewire 800.
The above applies only to the Library module. The Develop module uses these previews only at the very beginning, subsequently loading their own previews from the Camera Raw cache, generating them from the original photos in the background. Although this is not well documented, the availability of this cache can significantly reduce the time it takes to upload a photo to the Develop module. And, depending on the filters applied to the photo, the loading time can be reduced from fractions of a second to several seconds. The above results are compared as the different location of the catalog, preview, cache and photos affects the time the photos are loaded into the Develop module. As mentioned earlier, no filters were applied to the photos, so the results show the best possible time.
Upload time of 300 photos to the Develop module
To get these results, I used a script that automatically loaded each photo into a module, and switched to the next one only after the “Loading” inscription disappeared. Using this script, you can automatically iterate over all the photos located in a specific folder. The time indicated in parentheses shows the time during which the photo was fully displayed in the Develop module. This is the average time required for the inscription “Loading” to disappear. As in the case of the Library module, the fastest load occurred when everything was stored on the SSD (4) and slower when everything was located on a regular hard drive (5). A trade-off between download speed and disk space was reached in configuration 3, when the application, catalog, preview, and Camera Raw cache were on the SSD, and the photos themselves were on the hard drive.
As in the case of the Library module, I decided to check whether the loading time for photos would increase when using an external drive connected via Firewire 800. These results are shown in the following table.
Upload time of 300 photos to the Develop module
The table shows that a noticeable increase in upload time occurs only when everything, except the application itself, is located on the external drive. In the remaining two configurations, the speed is comparable to the internal SATA 300 drives.
Develop module - “Loading” label
This reminded me of another poorly documented aspect of Camera Raw. It consists in the fact that the size of its cache was sufficient to store a reasonable amount of images. By default, this size is set to 1 GB, which is naturally extremely small for any real application (in this case, from 60 to 100 photos taken by Canon 5D MkII are placed in the cache). And the maximum size of 200 GB is too large for any SSD. In general, I believe that 20 GB is enough for comfortable work on a laptop. The screenshot shows the Lightroom settings window, where you can change the size and location of the Camera Raw cache.
Camera Raw Cache - Location and Size Settings
Thus, it was found that the use of SSD gives minimal performance improvement when creating previews in the Library module and uploading photos to the Develop module. Yes, but Lightroom is not limited to creating previews and uploading photos to the visual editor of the Develop module. Lightroom is based on the SQLite database, and the minimum access time that is provided using the SSD means reading metadata from the directory, searching the directory, etc. can run much faster than regular hard drives. Similarly, scrolling through small versions and full-fledged previews in the Library module is noticeably faster and smoother. Using SSDs also reduces application startup time and computer startup time. In general, installing Lightroom (including catalog, preview, Camera Raw cache on the SSD creates the feeling of a more responsive application than installing on a hard drive. Nevertheless, it can be seen from the above tests that one would not like to believe in it, SSDs are not a magic wand.
First, pay attention to the operating system. Adobe's minimum system requirements for the Windows platform suggest that for normal use a simple laptop with Windows XP and 2GB of RAM installed will be enough. In fact, things are not so rosy. First of all, Windows XP has been around for more than 10 years, and it can only handle 4GB of RAM (and each individual application only with 2GB), and it came out long before the time when multiprocessor / multi-core CPUs became the norm. In addition, if you use the / 3GB option (allows applications to use more than 2GB of RAM), then there is a fairly common memory fragmentation problem. On the other hand, Lightroom is fully compatible with computers based on multiprocessor / multi-core CPUs, and can run as a 64-bit application in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Windows Vista 64 and Windows 7 64. The main advantage of 64-bit operating systems is that a correctly written application is no longer limited to 4GB of RAM. Lightroom is one of such applications, so it works faster with a lot of system memory, especially if all other applications run in the background.
Secondly, let's look at the processor. Lightroom is extremely demanding on the CPU. In particular, in the case of rendering and loading the image into the Develop module with simultaneous suppression of luminance and color noise, sharpening, and correction of geometric distortion of the lens. In this case, the performance of Lightroom will increase significantly if Intel Core i5 or i7 processors are used, especially in conjunction with 4 or more gigabytes of RAM.
Apple MacBook Pro early 2011
It is worth noting that the use of the latest generation Core i5 and i7 processors (Sandy Bridge) gives a significant increase in performance when creating a preview compared to last year's Intel processors, and an even more significant increase compared to 2009 Intel Core 2 Duo. For example, I personally launched Lightroom 3.4 on the MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (mid-2009 model) and MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 (early 2011 model). The figures show the average time of three launches spent importing 300 photos (Canon 5D Mk II, RAW format) from a regular disk and to create a 1: 1 preview. The import was done in the Library module, and the photos were not subjected to any changes before or during the import.
MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 8GB ram = 32 min 10 sec
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 4 GB ram = 19 min 40 sec
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 8GB ram = 15 min 17 sec
The figures show that the Core i7 Quad, used in the 15 "and 17" MacBook Pro models of the beginning of 2011, creates a 1: 1 preview twice as fast as The Core 2 Duo is a 15 "MacBook Pro. Also, even with 4GB, the Core i7 Quad is significantly faster than the Core 2 Duo with 8GB of RAM. Both computers used a Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm internal hard drive. I believe computers of this configuration but with Windows Vista 64 or Windows 7 64 installed would have shown a similar performance improvement.
Users often complain about exporting photos from Lightroom. This aspect is also worthy of comparison on the three above configurations. This test involved the same 300 photographs taken by Canon 5D Mk II, exported to JPEG (100% size and 80% quality). In this case, various settings were applied to the photos - local filters, gradient filters, noise reduction and correction of optical distortion of the lenses.
MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 8GB ram = 36 min 26 sec (7.3s)
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 4GB ram = 22 min (4.4 sec)
MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core i7 with 8GB ram = 16 min (3.2 sec) )
(The numbers in parentheses indicate the average time taken to export one photograph)
And again, as in the case of importing and creating previews, it can be seen that using the new Core i7 Quad processor can reduce the time spent on exporting photos by more than 2 times, compared to Core 2 Duo.
Obviously, the combined use of Quad Core, Hyperthreading and Turbo Boost technologies in the new Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processors gives a significant increase in performance compared to earlier MacBook Pros. And in order to emphasize this increase, it is worth mentioning that the new 2.3 GHz i7 Quad-core MacBook Pro creates a preview a little faster than my desktop eight-core Mac Pro 3.0 GHz with 16GB of RAM (model of the beginning of 2008). It seems that the key to increased productivity lies in Turbo Boost technology. It allows the processor to operate at an increased frequency (for example, 3.4 GHz instead of 2.3 GHz) when it (the processor) operates within acceptable limits in terms of power and temperature.
If you want to know more about the MacBook Quad, I recommend reading the comprehensive review written by Lloyd Chambers for Mac Performance Guide . I will allow myself one quote from the review: “In short, if your work depends on the performance of the MacBook Pro, throw away your old model and run head over heels for the 2011 MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz (15” or 17 ")"
Here you can ask a question - why do I only talk about processors and RAM? What about SSD? In fact, CPUs and RAM are the only components that have a significant impact on the time taken to create a preview in the Library and Develop modules. And given that this is the most costly action in terms of time, you can safely ignore other things that affect performance. However, despite the above, I would like to check whether using SSD has any performance impact. To do this, instead of the original 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, I installed one of the most proven SSDs on my computer - the 240GB OWC Mercury Extreme. I placed the hard drive in the slot for the optical drive, which allowed me to choose which drive to boot from.
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
So it's time to see if the installed SSD improves the time it takes to create a preview in the Library module. To do this, I conducted a series of tests with Lightroom, catalogs and previews, a RAW image cache, and photos located on an SSD / hard drive, and distributed on both drives. Spreading the application, photos, and cache onto different disks allows you to avoid read / write collisions and reduces CPU load. Therefore, we can see some good points for a dual-drive configuration. This test also used the familiar 300 photographs taken with the Canon 5D Mk II in RAW format. Test results shown below. As a basic result, the time of work with all components located on a regular 7200rpm hard drive was used.
* Import and preview time * 1: 1 for 300 photos (Canon 5D MkII, RAW format)
* The total import time ranged from 6-7 seconds, and the time in brackets indicates the average import and preview time for one photo.
the table above shows that despite the location of the catalog, previews, and photo caches, the total time spent importing photos and creating previews fluctuates very weakly (26 seconds of the difference between the best and worst results). Based on the results, it is recommended to transfer the application itself, Camera Raw cache, catalog and preview to SSD, and place the photos themselves on a regular hard drive (3). And even this configuration is only slightly faster than the one when everything is located on the hard drive (5). It can also be seen that using SSDs reduces the time it takes to create a preview when photos are posted to SSDs. Although to be honest, it is unlikely that an SSD can act as a storage for photographs, at least until more capacious and less expensive solid state drives appear on the market.
And what if it is impossible to install two internal drives in a computer? Most laptops and desktop systems have ports for connecting external drives. If we consider the MacBook Pro, then the external drive can be connected via Firewire 800. The following table contains the results obtained using an external hard drive (G-Drive mobile 500GB) connected via Firewire 800 instead of the internal additional SATA 300.
Time * for creating a preview 1: 1 for 300 photos (Canon 5D MkII, RAW format)
It is seen that performance degradation in comparison with two internal SATA 300 drives practically does not occur. So, we can safely say that all doubts about the use of an external drive connected via Firewire 800 are unfounded. Theoretically, the drive can also be connected via USB 2.0, but I found that it was not possible to achieve the same performance as when using the Firewire 800.
The above applies only to the Library module. The Develop module uses these previews only at the very beginning, subsequently loading their own previews from the Camera Raw cache, generating them from the original photos in the background. Although this is not well documented, the availability of this cache can significantly reduce the time it takes to upload a photo to the Develop module. And, depending on the filters applied to the photo, the loading time can be reduced from fractions of a second to several seconds. The above results are compared as the different location of the catalog, preview, cache and photos affects the time the photos are loaded into the Develop module. As mentioned earlier, no filters were applied to the photos, so the results show the best possible time.
Upload time of 300 photos to the Develop module
To get these results, I used a script that automatically loaded each photo into a module, and switched to the next one only after the “Loading” inscription disappeared. Using this script, you can automatically iterate over all the photos located in a specific folder. The time indicated in parentheses shows the time during which the photo was fully displayed in the Develop module. This is the average time required for the inscription “Loading” to disappear. As in the case of the Library module, the fastest load occurred when everything was stored on the SSD (4) and slower when everything was located on a regular hard drive (5). A trade-off between download speed and disk space was reached in configuration 3, when the application, catalog, preview, and Camera Raw cache were on the SSD, and the photos themselves were on the hard drive.
As in the case of the Library module, I decided to check whether the loading time for photos would increase when using an external drive connected via Firewire 800. These results are shown in the following table.
Upload time of 300 photos to the Develop module
The table shows that a noticeable increase in upload time occurs only when everything, except the application itself, is located on the external drive. In the remaining two configurations, the speed is comparable to the internal SATA 300 drives.
Develop module - “Loading” label
This reminded me of another poorly documented aspect of Camera Raw. It consists in the fact that the size of its cache was sufficient to store a reasonable amount of images. By default, this size is set to 1 GB, which is naturally extremely small for any real application (in this case, from 60 to 100 photos taken by Canon 5D MkII are placed in the cache). And the maximum size of 200 GB is too large for any SSD. In general, I believe that 20 GB is enough for comfortable work on a laptop. The screenshot shows the Lightroom settings window, where you can change the size and location of the Camera Raw cache.
Camera Raw Cache - Location and Size Settings
Thus, it was found that the use of SSD gives minimal performance improvement when creating previews in the Library module and uploading photos to the Develop module. Yes, but Lightroom is not limited to creating previews and uploading photos to the visual editor of the Develop module. Lightroom is based on the SQLite database, and the minimum access time that is provided using the SSD means reading metadata from the directory, searching the directory, etc. can run much faster than regular hard drives. Similarly, scrolling through small versions and full-fledged previews in the Library module is noticeably faster and smoother. Using SSDs also reduces application startup time and computer startup time. In general, installing Lightroom (including catalog, preview, Camera Raw cache on the SSD creates the feeling of a more responsive application than installing on a hard drive. Nevertheless, it can be seen from the above tests that one would not like to believe in it, SSDs are not a magic wand.