Has anyone seen quantitative evidence supporting the use of a SSD (solid state drive) in an ESRI ArcGIS Desktop workstation? Or any GIS workstation for that matter?
I keep reading that SSDs can be a huge performance boost but I have not seen any numbers to support the claim. I have a feeling that the productivity increase could be comparable to a switch from single to dual monitor setup.
Answer
I have an 80GB Intel SSD in my desktop. While it has lowered the time it takes to start programs and speeds up many I/O-heavy tasks, there has only been one situation where having an SSD made a fundamental difference in my workflow.
I was using ENVI, and I had to convert a couple 5000x5000x250 binary rasters from BSQ interleave to BIP. Using a traditional magnetic hard drive, it took about 8 hours to process each one. When I tried using my SSD, it took only about 40 minutes.
My opinion is that if you already have a pretty decent workstation and money to burn, upgrading to an SSD will deliver a noticeable performance boost. However, it is not a must-have--it is a luxury (though this will depend on your specific workflows, which may be more I/O heavy).
No comments:
Post a Comment