The fact that the IMatch 5 database needs the best read/write speeds possible has been discussed often. Most often the recommendation has been to put the IMatch database on a SSD (Solid State Drive) or, second best, a FAST USB-3 thumb drive. All well and good if the user can do one or the other but not everyone can do so. That leaves the option of putting the database on the fastest Hard Disk Drive available.
Any Hard disk is susceptible to becoming fragmented.
From Windows 7 Help:
Quote
Improve performance by defragmenting your hard disk
Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on a schedule, but you can also analyze and defragment your disks and drives manually. To do this, follow these steps:
Picture of a Play buttonGo to the Windows website to watch the video. (1:03)
To defragment your hard disk
Click to open Disk Defragmenter.
Under Current status, select the disk you want to defragment.
To determine if the disk needs to be defragmented or not, click Analyze disk. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Once Windows is finished analyzing the disk, you can check the percentage of fragmentation on the disk in the Last Run column. If the number is above 10%, you should defragment the disk.
Click Defragment disk. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Disk Defragmenter might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard disk. You can still use your computer during the defragmentation process.
Notes
If the disk is already in exclusive use by another program or is formatted using a file system other than NTFS file system, FAT, or FAT32, it can't be defragmented.
Network locations can't be defragmented.
If a disk that you're expecting to see under Current status is not showing up there, it might be because it contains an error. Try to repair the disk first, then return to Disk Defragmenter to try again. See Check a drive for errors for more information.
This leads me to a question and I hope that some of our gurus can help me here. Let's say that I have a 100 GB hard drive that is only 1% fragmented per Windows. Let's also say none of the files on the hard drive are fragmented at all - except for my IMatch database. That means that my database must be highly fragmented. Mario has that problem covered.
Quote from: Mario on August 11, 2013, 07:56:56 AM
The compact/optimize step is part of the diagnosis because it accesses every part of the database while producing a new, compacted database as output. It is very likely that any physical damage in the database is detected by this step, including damage in spare ranges of the file, index structures, unused segments and the like. I consider this an important step because the other analysis steps will not reveal such problems.
phase.
Once IMatch has compacted and optimized the database, the database will no longer be fragmented. However, I do wonder what Windows will do with the now compact file. Will it write the file to sequential blocks on the HD or will it put bits and pieces into any open blocks and thus fragment what was just defragmented?
I believe one sure way to keep IMatch databases in tip top shape would be to put them in their own partition to ensure that they are always together.
I would appreciate input from those who know and understand hard disks and file allocation better than I do.
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 04:53:02 PM
I would appreciate input from those who know and understand hard disks and file allocation better than I do.
This is a very good point, Richard, thanks for this.
I am also interested into some answers from "our gurus" ;)
I do not know, if you allow in this context to ask: how can I best find out, what harddisk is the fastes on my system? I can see for example, that both of my HardDisks (HD) has 7200 rotations, so means this, that both HDs are equal fast? If you do not like this additional question (what I would fully understand), please simply delete it (I believe, you can do this :D )
QuoteIf you do not like this additional question (what I would fully understand), please simply delete it (I believe, you can do this (http://community.photoolsweb.com/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif) )
Yes I could delete it but your question certainly pertains to what I am attempting to learn. Namely: what should users do to get top performance from their IMatch database? Picking the fastest hard drive is part of it.
Quote from: sinus on October 12, 2014, 05:14:00 PM
I do not know, if you allow in this context to ask: how can I best find out, what harddisk is the fastes on my system? I can see for example, that both of my HardDisks (HD) has 7200 rotations, so means this, that both HDs are equal fast?
There are several hard disk benchmark programs available, e.g., CrystalDiskMark and HDTune. See https://www.raymond.cc/blog/measure-actual-hard-disk-perfomance-under-windows/ for a description of several of these.
!! Be careful when downloading/installing programs like this: Some will by default install 'extra' (unwanted) programs, like OpenCandy. You need to exercise care to be sure you are installing only what you really want. !!
Quote!! Be careful when downloading/installing programs like this: Some will by default install 'extra' (unwanted) programs
Oh how I hate that. One must read everything to ensure that other applications are not installed.
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 05:59:47 PM
Quote!! Be careful when downloading/installing programs like this: Some will by default install 'extra' (unwanted) programs
Oh how I hate that. One must read everything to ensure that other applications are not installed.
Use this link (http://sourceforge.jp/projects/crystaldiskmark/downloads/46482/CrystalDiskMark3_0_3b-en.exe/?use_mirror=jaist) for CrystalDiskMark - use the link to the upper right. No AddWare.
Quote from: joel23 on October 12, 2014, 06:54:26 PM
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 05:59:47 PM
Quote!! Be careful when downloading/installing programs like this: Some will by default install 'extra' (unwanted) programs
Oh how I hate that. One must read everything to ensure that other applications are not installed.
Use this link (http://sourceforge.jp/projects/crystaldiskmark/downloads/46482/CrystalDiskMark3_0_3b-en.exe/?use_mirror=jaist) for CrystalDiskMark - use the link to the upper right. No AddWare.
Not quite!: Clicking on that link starts a download with no options for choosing which install (at least without stopping the automatic download first?). The downloaded program offers to install Tuneup Utilities 2014,
unless you click Custom Install and
then unclick 'Install Tuneup Utilities 2014'!
To paraphrase a famous quote, eternal vigilance is the price of keeping your computer free of crapware...
Quote from: jch2103 on October 12, 2014, 07:48:07 PM
Quote from: joel23 on October 12, 2014, 06:54:26 PM
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 05:59:47 PM
Quote!! Be careful when downloading/installing programs like this: Some will by default install 'extra' (unwanted) programs
Oh how I hate that. One must read everything to ensure that other applications are not installed.
Use this link (http://sourceforge.jp/projects/crystaldiskmark/downloads/46482/CrystalDiskMark3_0_3b-en.exe/?use_mirror=jaist) for CrystalDiskMark - use the link to the upper right. No AddWare.
Not quite!: Clicking on that link starts a download with no options for choosing which install (at least without stopping the automatic download first?). The downloaded program offers to install Tuneup Utilities 2014, unless you click Custom Install and then unclick 'Install Tuneup Utilities 2014'!
To paraphrase a famous quote, eternal vigilance is the price of keeping your computer free of crapware...
Upps - to bad. Sorry.
I can't remember anymore if it was there when I installed CDM or if I used Custom Install. But I don't have those Tuneup Utilities here.
I haven't manually defragmented a disk in probably about 10 years. And I might be wrong but I awhile back I seem to recall Mario saying something to the effect that newer versions of Windows defragment the hard drives automatically in the background, or can be configured to do so.
So just now I went to Computer > D:\ drive (my data drive) and clicked Properties > Tools > Defragment. Sure enough it's set to auto-defrag and said my hard drive was 0% fragmented (screenshot attached).
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: JohnZeman on October 12, 2014, 08:41:06 PM
I haven't manually defragmented a disk in probably about 10 years. And I might be wrong but I awhile back I seem to recall Mario saying something to the effect that newer versions of Windows defragment the hard drives automatically in the background, or can be configured to do so.
So just now I went to Computer > D:\ drive (my data drive) and clicked Properties > Tools > Defragment. Sure enough it's set to auto-defrag and said my hard drive was 0% fragmented (screenshot attached).
Yes, this is true. When you left some idle time to the defrager. It usually runs at night (1:00AM in your case) or when the computer is idle. If some shuts down his computer every night and - when booted - contiguous works on it and/or the computer is highly fragmented, he never will reach the 0% state.
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 04:53:02 PM
The fact that the IMatch 5 database needs the best read/write speeds possible has been discussed often. Most often the recommendation has been to put the IMatch database on a SSD (Solid State Drive) or, second best, a FAST USB-3 thumb drive.
Hm, why do you believe USB3 is the second best choice? ;)
I read this again and again, but... Of course this is true when some needs to use an external disk.
A fast SATA-III disk directly connected by a SATA-III port is the fastest some can use - this is of course so, because the USB overhead is missing.
Even when in external USB3 cases fast SATA-III HDDs are built in (usually cheap desktop HDDs are used), USB always had a very high overhead and unlike with USB1/2, USB3 comes (like SATA) whit an additional 8b10b-encoding ("when 8 bit data have to be read, transport 10 bits" = -20%) with reduces the nominal 5Gb/s speed down to an effective of 4Gb/s. And the the overall overhead brings it down to real ~340MB/s.
Even when this is enough to feed ONE SATA-III disk, is USB shared per controller, so with two real fast disks connected to two ports on one controller, some might reach the edge. I even see NAS put on the market with three or more disks been propagated for using it as fast RAID 0, connected by an USB3 connection. LOL.
Quote
This leads me to a question and I hope that some of our gurus can help me here. Let's say that I have a 100 GB hard drive that is only 1% fragmented per Windows. Let's also say none of the files on the hard drive are fragmented at all - except for my IMatch database. That means that my database must be highly fragmented. Mario has that problem covered.
Once IMatch has compacted and optimized the database, the database will no longer be fragmented. However, I do wonder what Windows will do with the now compact file. Will it write the file to sequential blocks on the HD or will it put bits and pieces into any open blocks and thus fragment what was just defragmented?
When Mario talks about DB fragmentation, I am not sure if he means internal fragmentation (eliminating holes within the DB) or external, rearranging the file on disk. Of course: if the DB was shrinked it might take contiguous clusters on the disk (if there are one free), but I believe IMatch does not try to rearrange cluster on the disk to
make produce a contiguous file
space. Otherwise a compact would take several (half) hours on disks which are highly fragmented AND have a high fill-grade.
I might be wrong here because my disk never have a fragmentation rate higher than 10% (except the SSD) - will do some test later with a new DB.
Some general matters to think about:
For large files a
HDD partition should be formatted with the larges possible Allocation Unit Size. Windows use 4KB per default - the largest possible AUS size is 16 times larger (64KB). A larger AUS means, that even when the disk is highly fragmented, always 64KB (16 times more) of data
contiguous is read in once before the read/write head has to move to the next cluster.
For Example: a file large as 100.000KB hast 25.000 cluster a' 4KB, but only 1566 cluster a' 64KB (always a full cluster is used, even when only some bytes are written to it, that's why 1566 instead of 1565 cluster)
So let's assume the small DB of 100MB is not fragmented. As soon 1 Byte (say a small keyword) is written to it, another cluster of 4KB is used somewhere on the disk. Might be on the other end of it. In case of 64KB cluster size, this 1 Byte is written to the last cluster already used, since there is some space left.
The down side of large AUS size: every file <64Kb also exclusively takes exactly one cluster. So every 8KB XMP sidecar wastes 56KB - but this is something I can live with. On the other hand the XMP is large enough to get fragmented over two 4KB clusters otherwise. See the 1# attachment (size on disk)
Another down side is: 64KB cluster disk IMHO can't be defragmented by W7 means a standalone defragmentation utility has to be used.
Additional fill-grade matters, also for SSD. All my disk a not filled more than 77%.
But the DB is IMHO not the real problem.
Since Exiftool has the unpleasant characteristic to store a temp-file as big as the original for every file which was changed in the same directory, fragmentation is done every time when metadata is changed. Even when only a single keyword has been changed.
Subsequently, after writing the new (temp-)file, the original is deleted and the temp-file is renamed to the name of the original file. The new file now is a bit larger and fills totally different clusters and in the end the disk looks like a Swiss cheese.
For me adding one (!) keyword to 1,000 PSD means writing an average of 200GB on temp-files. Which is a different number than the few MB which are written to the DB at the same time (peanuts). This may vary with more files and a larger DB, but well...
See attachment #2, the disk after 15GB (22 PSD) have been written to it.
Attachment #3 when one keyword has been written to each of the 22 files.
Attachment #4 when all keywords were again removed.
One block = 128 or more 64KB cluster. If using a different scale in the GUI, fragmentation looks worse.
See attachment #5 which is the same as #4 but at a different scale. The contiguous blue boxes to the left represents my DB.
No performance impact yet, but let the fill-grade be 85% and a cluster size of 4KB and imagine the OS have written other files criss cross
in mean time (OS temp-file, IMatchs' temp-file, etc.) as it is on notebooks with usually one HDD and one partition, C: always formatted with 4KB AUS.
For my pretty small DB of 2.8GB (22.400 files) it needs 7 seconds to load from my fastest HDD (CrystalDiskMark says 144MB/s r/w) and almost the same when loaded from SSD or from a 4GB RAM-Disk.
So more important IMHO is where the image files resists, which should be the fastest disk, but not necessary a SSD.
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 04:53:02 PM
Once IMatch has compacted and optimized the database, the database will no longer be fragmented. However, I do wonder what Windows will do with the now compact file. Will it write the file to sequential blocks on the HD or will it put bits and pieces into any open blocks and thus fragment what was just defragmented?
So Richard, I made my tests about DB fragmentation (external, on disk). I deliberately fragmented my DB to 500 fragments on disk (there are tools for it) and after that compact and optimized it. The red boxes in the attachments.
Aside that it took one minute longer, it is as I thought: same 500 fragments.
[attachment deleted by admin]
For file fragmentation, I've found Windows own defragmenter to be conservative and not removing all fragmentation. For many years I have used PerfectDisk. The version that I'm using currently has a minimal defrag for SSDs, which a good SSD should be able to tolerate occasionally.
The problem with full defragmentation is that it increases the size of backups created by software that does incremental, sector-based backups. Hence I only do it when I am about to start a new external backup disk.
Quote from: JohnZeman on October 12, 2014, 08:41:06 PM
So just now I went to Computer > D:\ drive (my data drive) and clicked Properties > Tools > Defragment. Sure enough it's set to auto-defrag and said my hard drive was 0% fragmented (screenshot attached).
Earlier today I also checked and it showed 0 % but just out of curiosity I ran defrag anyway. Not once but four times and every time it found work to do. If it was truly 0% I would expect to be told that defrag had nothing to do.
At the beginning of the post I was interested.
But now I can't / won't follow.
Befor use IMatch5 my PC hast to be tuned?
Please take a look at at the IMatch5 website, the first orientation for buyer:
photools.com => Produkte => IMatch5 => Hardware and Software Requirements :
"IMatch 3 ? (should be modified) Hardware and Software Requirements
Minimal Configuration
PC with a Pentium-1 GHz or higher processor (or compatible)
Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or later (both 32 and 64 bit supported)
1 GB RAM
Hard disk space: 60 MB for the IMatch software and accompanying files, several free gigabytes for the IMatch database and cache files
1024 x 600 screen resolution minimum
Compatible Mouse or other pointing device
For larger databases with 100,000 or more images, 2GB RAM and a hard disk with at least 50 GB suggested."
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
There should be clear information regarding the required speed off HDD
a) for DB
b) for files storage
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Is there anyone with comparable HDD speed, and all work fine?
Win7/64 -i7 - 8GB RAM
DB at C: defragted,(also DB), exception for virus scan
Files at NAS. For Test 2800 jpg. After buy 30.000 mixed.
See benchmark
PS
I Think the benchmark do not work well.
Now i tested by WLAN (130Mbits)
See third benchmark
???
Doesn't it work well on NAS?
I use CrystalDiskMark
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: joel23 on October 12, 2014, 08:55:20 PM
Quote from: Richard on October 12, 2014, 04:53:02 PM
Once IMatch has compacted and optimized the database, the database will no longer be fragmented. However, I do wonder what Windows will do with the now compact file. Will it write the file to sequential blocks on the HD or will it put bits and pieces into any open blocks and thus fragment what was just defragmented?
So Richard, I made my tests about DB fragmentation (external, on disk). I deliberately fragmented my DB to 500 fragments on disk (there are tools for it) and after that compact and optimized it. The red boxes in the attachments.
Aside that it took one minute longer, it is as I thought: same 500 fragments.
That tells me that my fear was correct. IMatch rewrites the database fresh but the new file gets written back in pieces and is thus fragmented again.
But then everybody must have problems.
Ist That so important?
QuoteThere should be clear information regarding the required speed off HDD
a) for DB
b) for files storage
I wonder how many computer users even know the speed of their HDD.
My computer is also Win7/64 -i7 - 8GB RAM and works fine for IMatch 5 but from the beginning I had a fast USB-3 stick for the database. I had no knowledge of how having the database on my HDD might affect speed. SO I moved the database to my HDD and could not tell that it made a big difference. However, my database is quite small.
QuoteBut then everybody must have problems.
I don't see that as being the case for everybody but it is the case for some and I started this thread trying to find answers for those who do experience speed problems but can not add SSD or USB-3.
I used this CrystalDiskMark, what Joerg did recommend.
My DB says, 0% defrag.
I use OS : Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
First image in the row is C, where IMatch is installed
Second image in the row is F, where all my real images are stored.
These are two different harddisks.
Interesting is, that D, the third image in the row, is the same harddisk like C, and the benchmark show remarkable difference (D is slower).
I do not know why, maybe D is on the outside of the circle (well, :-[ simply a guess).
And on ths D the DB of IMatch is stored.
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: khfnet on October 13, 2014, 01:29:22 AM
At the beginning of the post I was interested.
But now I can't / won't follow.
Befor use IMatch5 my PC hast to be tuned?
No. No one has said that. But of course everything should at least within the possible limits, well configured and maintained.
Quote
Is there anyone with comparable HDD speed, and all work fine?
We can't compare a workstation with a notebook. And we shouldn't worry about 10MB/s more or less - today CDM shows 133/131MB/s, last week 144MB/s and HD Tune today 128/126MB/s.
Your HDD data is okay for a notebook.
As said in the other thready, with <3.000 files you shouldn't have any problems. Have you ever copied the images to the HDD and relocated the folder in Imatch, to see if the NAS is the source of the problem? Or even better, copy the images to HDD, make a new DB without blinkyblinky (no relations, no buddy files, etc.) and check if it behaves the same.
And are all task done in Imatch? Will say are all images are ingested and are all data written back? Otherwise a test makes no sense.
Quote
I Think the benchmark do not work well.
Now i tested by WLAN (130Mbits)
See third benchmark
???
Doesn't it work well on NAS?
Might be a memory effect. Try again when you have written a GB of data to the NAS. I will try it later on my NAS.
When I told you to connect the NAS to Ethernet instead to 130Mb/s WLAN, than I of course to a 1Gb/s Ethernet. Notebook and NAS are able to run 1Gb right? So why pushing it down?
With 100Mb/s and with 130Mb/s you won't get more than 10-16MB/s (nominal).
Quote from: sinus on October 13, 2014, 07:26:39 AM
Interesting is, that D, the third image in the row, is the same harddisk like C, and the benchmark show remarkable difference (D is slower).
I do not know why, maybe D is on the outside of the circle (well, :-[ simply a guess).
And on ths D the DB of IMatch is stored.
Hi Markus,
I am confused. If I understand correctly D is a partition on the same HDD as C. If that is correct, I don't understand how one can be different from the other.
It is the "outside of the circle" that travels faster and thus is the fastest for read/ write but regardless, it is all one drive. ???
Hi Richard
yes, I can understand your puzzleness. I am confused too.
It is really the same drive.
See attachement 1 ... and grrrr, do not look at the red F, I had trouble with this (new) harddisk, and here Paragon Partition Manger responds with an "3725.8 GB Ungültig" (not guilty), but windows does not show this and I can work without problems with this drive F.
And you can see, C and D (is the drive, with what the computer came) is one drive.
I have repeated the test, you can see this in attachement 2 and 3.
Sometimes computer are a miracle! :o
[attachment deleted by admin]
QuoteSometimes computer are a miracle!
Indeed! When I think about how someone like Mario must be able to write instructions in languages like C++ and that the computer must convert those instructions to machine language (Ones and Zeros) to turn switches (transistors) on or off, it is amazing that computers even work.
I know of two men who, fifty years ago, wrote computer programs in machine language. I suppose it is not much different than being able to understand Morris Code but...
Then consider how many computer languages Mario knows. He is indeed multilingual.
Quote from: Richard on October 13, 2014, 02:36:47 PM
I am confused. If I understand correctly D is a partition on the same HDD as C. If that is correct, I don't understand how one can be different from the other.
It is the "outside of the circle" that travels faster and thus is the fastest for read/ write but regardless, it is all one drive. ???
It is completly logic, if you speak the right language. 8)
It is just the way how (modern) harddisks work.
Let's look at it (I'll just write about reading but writing is essentially the same story):
A harddisk has 1 or more physical disks and for each surface a Read/Write-Head. Those heads are always posititioned simultaneously. Each such a position is called cylinder (you referred to it as circle)
When the harddisk tries to read data the heads need to be positioned to the correct cylinder. The time for doing so is called the "seek time" which is an average time to position the heads to the right cylinder.
Then, the harddisk has to start to look at the data and wait for the needed data to pass by. That time is the latency time and it is related to the rpms of the disk.
It also takes some time to switch between the different heads but this time we can count into the latency time.
On the outer cylinders of the harddisk more data can be stored, thus reading from those cylinders is more efficient because when the hd make one revolution (needing 1/rpm) more data is available to be transferred.
To make things a bit more complicated, hard disks have also a cache memory (which varies). This cache is used by the harddisk to buffer data which is stored sequentially afer the data looked for. (That is the cause for faster sequential reads). When doing random reads, this cache memory is not of such a big use, thus the read speed goes down. Which also can be seen from the shown benchmarks.
An SSD does not have any mechanical rotating items, therefore it reads all it data at the same speed (and faster than a harddisk but depending on the logic of the SSD there are differences).
The so far mentioned factors are inside of the diskdrive but the drive also needs to be connected to the computer somehow. And also those interfaces have different specifications how fast they can transmit data:
For the nowadays most common computer internal interface SATA, there are three different max speeds.
- SATA-6G (or SATA III): max 6Gbit/s or 600MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds (the fastest SSDs reach that value but no harddisk)
- SATA-3G (or SATA II): max 3Gbit/s or 300MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds
- SATA: max 1.5Gbit/s or 150MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds
The there are the external harddisks having USB
- USB 3.0 , "Superspeed": 5 Gbit/s (or 625 MByte/s) theoretical, even if only half of the theoretical speed is reached, it is stiill sufficiently fast for the full performance of a harddisk
- USB 2.0, "Hi-Speed": 480 Mbit/s (or 60 MByte/s) theoretical, in practice ~30MByte/s are reached
or NAS connected via different networks (theoretical maximum speed), e.g.:
- LAN: 100Mbit/s (~12 MByte/s)
- Gigabit-LAN: 1Gbit/s (~120 MByte/s)
- WLAN: 54MBit/s (~6 MByte/s)
- WLAN: 130MBit/s (~16 MByte/s)
If one wants to look at the complete performance chain, there are still other factors which do have an influence [without specific order]:
- how often the harddisk needs to try to read the data without errors
- System setup: eg. certain RAID levels may improve the reading speed (or, to some extent, security against Harddisk failure. Note this is NOT the same as a backup!)
- System configuration: Most modern drives would be able to sort the read-commands in such way that the data can be fetched in an optimized way but this also requires a special BIOS setting and a special driver from Windows.
- Fragmentation of the files [which results in many head relocations] but Windows Defragmentation tries to move the most used files to the beginning of the disk (to speed things up)
- other programs trying to access the same hard disk, e.g. Windows Virtual memory [which would be a bad idea to switch off], virus-scanner making a full scan of the harddisk
Btw., if one looks/tests at the transmissions speeds (esp. for a NAS), one needs to be careful, that one does not only test the buffers which can deliver data faster than the actual harddisk (and transmission rates above the theroretical maximum of the interface/media are a good indicator...)
Regards,
Ralf
PS: When I changed the harddisk in my laptop to an SSD, I mounted the original harddisk to a housing with USB3.0 and compared the performance (internal vs. USB3.0) and the result was identical. I.e. a
very fast USB3.0 stick may be faster than an internal harddisk.
PPS: sorry for the long post
Hi Markus & Richard,
Quote from: Richard on October 13, 2014, 02:36:47 PM
Quote from: sinus on October 13, 2014, 07:26:39 AM
Interesting is, that D, the third image in the row, is the same harddisk like C, and the benchmark show remarkable difference (D is slower).
I do not know why, maybe D is on the outside of the circle (well, :-[ simply a guess).
And on ths D the DB of IMatch is stored.
I am confused. If I understand correctly D is a partition on the same HDD as C. If that is correct, I don't understand how one can be different from the other.
It is the "outside of the circle" that travels faster and thus is the fastest for read/ write but regardless, it is all one drive. ???
It's the same on my other computer (I don't have more than one partition per disk at my main computer, so I never notice). 89MB/s for C: 100GB and 69MB/s D: 51GB
I made a third partition 600MB large. See the results ;) Guess I should better stick to HD Tune.
Anyway. Hm, a certain bit on the outer cylinder travels faster than a bit on an inner cylinder, but the outer bit has to travel a longer way ;) Both bits have to spin one round to appear again at the same position, what ideally is just beneath the read/write head.
The reason why a disk has a slower transfer rate for middle and inner cylinders is the so called Zone Bit Recording (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_bit_recording) Please read it yourself, its English is better than mine.
Personally I see no need for having more than one partition on one disk, except for using them with different cluster size. But than (if possible) better use another disk(s) and don't fill them to much. One SATA-III port should be able to feed 3-4 cheap HDDs (a' 90-100MB/s - with a multiplier) without a problem and in addition with good defragmentation tool, the most used files are arranged at the outer cylinders.
Even older SATA-II disks can still serve pretty fast, see the first one in the attachment (outer, middle, inner transfer rates), which is my D: (User Profiles/Documents)
The other lame once are good for data which don't need to be backuped: Google Drive, Copy.Com etc. pp. Or if some has old SATA-II left, use three or four of them together in a RAID 0, which are good for ~200-270MB/s (OS and Photoshops temp-file, etc.)
Talking about loading the DB from an USB stick: it takes double as long (15s USB-II) as from my HDD. But than it takes much longer to pull the thumbs out of it and of course also writing metadata takes much longer and often the screen switched to white on a slower computer (only 4GB RAM)
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: RalfC on October 13, 2014, 08:54:52 PM
PPS: sorry for the long post
Hi Ralf
Nothing to say sorry, really not! Your post was very interesting, now I do know again more ... I wonder, how long I can remember 8) I hope, the harddisk chrashes before my brain will forget it ;) ::)
Thanks, Joerg, for your posting.
Together with Ralf's posting, I had now a very good harddisk-lesson! ;D
BTW: why is in your second test the write speed so high? I wonder, if this is for real or have I overlooked something.
Quote from: sinus on October 13, 2014, 09:33:08 PM
Thanks, Joerg, for your posting.
Together with Ralf's posting, I had now a very good harddisk-lesson! ;D
BTW: why is in your second test the write speed so high? I wonder, if this is for real or have I overlooked something.
Well, seems CrystalDiskMark got irritated by the small partition size. That's why I wrote "I better should stick to HD Tune" ;)
Out of curiosity I downloaded CrystalDiskMark and ran the benchmark for the three disks I use with IMatch:
- my C: with IM is a low end 120Go SSD (Kingston V300 Sata 3)
- Disk F: with the image files is a 7200 rpm 3 To Barracuda
- Disk K: is a Sandisk extreme 64Go SB 3 stick for the DB and the cache
But now I don't know what to do with the result!! I don't see where the bottle necks could be, not that I witness any, the system is relatively fluid with IM and about 60000 files.
Francis
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: cytochrome on October 13, 2014, 09:38:43 PM
Out of curiosity I downloaded CrystalDiskMark and ran the benchmark for the three disks I use with IMatch:
- my C: with IM is a low end 120Go SSD (Kingston V300 Sata 3)
- Disk F: with the image files is a 7200 rpm 3 To Barracuda
- Disk K: is a Sandisk extreme 64Go SB 3 stick for the DB and the cache
But now I don't know what to do with the result!! I don't see where the bottle necks could be, not that I witness any, the system is relatively fluid with IM and about 60000 files.
Francis
This looks good - except for the SSD. My low end 120GB Samsung 840 does ~470/134MB/s and by this it's slower than my HDD on write.
I would say there is no real bottleneck related to disks!
Seems this thread is driving us nuts? ;)
ps
Except that the SSD is a bit full - 10% left is a bit tight.
[attachment deleted by admin]
Should be forbidden - such quick disks! ... except it would be mine! ;D
- joke off -
Yes, it drives us nuts... its always the same, when a benchmark appears on a forum everybody wants to measure it's system performance, sort of Kindergarten play, my dad has a bigger car and so on.
Yes my C: SSD is full, I delete often tmp files and abandoned programs. I plan to change it for "bigger" one. Yours is in better shape.
Francis
Quote from: cytochrome on October 13, 2014, 10:05:28 PM
Yes, it drives us nuts... its always the same, when a benchmark appears on a forum everybody wants to measure it's system performance, sort of Kindergarten play, my dad has a bigger car and so on.
Right ;) If it helps I do again: I believe you are fine.
Quote
Yes my C: SSD is full, I delete often tmp files and abandoned programs. I plan to change it for "bigger" one. Yours is in better shape.
Francis
I just moved all user files to D:, a HDD. Especially iTunes (movies/music) took a lot of space. Bridges cache is per default created in there and IMatchs cache as well if some don't take care. I have no pagefile at all and temp is redirected to a RAM-Disk. I deleted all .dmp (dumps) which are created once in a while etc. Saves a lot of space.
QuoteSeems this thread is driving us nuts?
True but it is also providing a lot of good information for readers. Hopefully those who read it will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and put some facts to good use so that they get the best performance possible from their computer(s). YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
Quote from: Richard on October 13, 2014, 10:23:58 PM
QuoteSeems this thread is driving us nuts?
YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
Of course. Always.
Important is IMHO to tell what users can expect, not what specifications and marketing are want them to believe / are telling them.
Quote from: joel23 on October 13, 2014, 09:47:42 PM
ps
Except that the SSD is a bit full - 10% left is a bit tight.
Yes, that's extremely tight. The folks at anandtech.com suggest as a general rule leaving at least 25% free on an SSD (unless the manufacturer has set aside a similar amount of over-provisioned space). This greatly improves performance consistency. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op for more technical details (note that they use a Samsung 840 as one of their examples). Also see http://www.anandtech.com/show/6433/intel-ssd-dc-s3700-200gb-review/3 regarding consistency issues.
I came to the conclusion I needed a 256GB SSD for my OS/Windows/programs disk that I usually keep half full.
Hi,
regarding to yout tests I have also tested my drives (Notebook). C: is the default harddisk (5.600 rpm), where most of my pics are stored, F: is the second (build-in) drive with a Samsung EVO 840 SSD (256 GB), where I have 50 GB free. Here I have only strored my IM-db (5,2 GB). I need the SSD for my big Excel-sheets, not for other things.
But the speed of my SSD looks rather quick :), Samsung delivers an own check-pgm (Screenshot2):
[attachment deleted by admin]
Phew, Gerd, I do not know, but this test (with red marked) is not possible, is it?
May be, it depends on the typ of connection ... it's a 6Gb/s SATA3 connection ...
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 10:24:42 AM
May be, it depends on the typ of connection ... it's a 6Gb/s SATA3 connection ...
Nope. Never ever. Each SATA-III port provides nominal 6Gb/s - after 8b10-encoding: 4,8Gb/s effective (-20%) = 600MB/s.
QuoteSamsung delivers an own check-pgm (Screenshot2):
So launch the benchmark test provided by the magician tool.
... here it is:
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 12:02:24 PM
... here it is:
Okay, what ever this is, the "Up to" values are more realistic.
How much RAM you have?
EDIT
Can it be that you have Rapid mode enabled? If so I would say that the used RAM is measured. Start it again and stop after some 100MB / 10% or disable Rapid mode to see its real speed.
@Gerd:
Seems you have the Magician program. Does it allow an easy switch from a C: drive already on a SSD disk to a new Samsung SSD?
Francis
Hi,
@Jörg: why shell I disable what delivers the speed? I want to have the max. speed and it doesn't matter, if extra RAM is used or not ... but a SSD works also like a RAM-disk, or ...
I have 16GB installed.
@Francis: what do you mean? My C-drive is a normal hard-disk, only F: is the SSD and the other one's are external's, connected via USB 3.0 (H: and I: have USB 2.0, K: has USB 3.0, my laptop has only USB 3.0)
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 12:02:24 PM
... here it is:
Gerd, you are about to destroy (torpedieren wäre besser ;)) my new knowledge from Ralf, see above and a fraction here, and also Joerg wrote something equal:
For the nowadays most common computer internal interface SATA, there are three different max speeds.
SATA-6G (or SATA III): max 6Gbit/s or 600MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds (the fastest SSDs reach that value but no harddisk)
SATA-3G (or SATA II): max 3Gbit/s or 300MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds
SATA: max 1.5Gbit/s or 150MByte/s theoretical transmission speeds
Such a speed, what you have measured, should simply not be possible ... but of course, I indulge it to you (gönne es Dir).
Quote from: sinus on October 14, 2014, 03:08:19 PM
Gerd, you are about to destroy (torpedieren wäre besser ;)) my new knowledge from Ralf, see above and a fraction here, and also Joerg wrote something equal:
(...)
Markus, don't worry. If you look at the later posts, you will see that Gerd has measured the tranfer rate from a special section of his RAM (internal computer memory) and not the real transmission speed from the SSD.
The "problem" with the speed tests is that they transfer the same data several times and if that fits into a fast buffer/cache, you just measure the speed of the buffer and not the disk itself. I.e., you get to see the real speed only if the data amount does not fit into the buffer.
Regards,
Ralf
Quote from: RalfC on October 14, 2014, 03:15:18 PM
Quote from: sinus on October 14, 2014, 03:08:19 PM
Gerd, you are about to destroy (torpedieren wäre besser ;)) my new knowledge from Ralf, see above and a fraction here, and also Joerg wrote something equal:
(...)
Markus, don't worry. If you look at the later posts, you will see that Gerd has measured the tranfer rate from a special section of his RAM (internal computer memory) and not the real transmission speed from the SSD.
The "problem" with the speed tests is that they transfer the same data several times and if that fits into a fast buffer/cache, you just measure the speed of the buffer and not the disk itself. I.e., you get to see the real speed only if the data amount does not fit into the buffer.
Regards,
Ralf
Thanks, Ralf, for the clarification! :D
And Gerd: you have a good system, no doubt, so you can be happy anyway! 8)
... and to let your world turn right 8), here the test-data without Rapid-Mode:
[attachment deleted by admin]
Thanks, Gerd! My world turns again from left to right! ;D
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 03:02:05 PM
Hi,
.................
@Francis: what do you mean? My C-drive is a normal hard-disk, only F: is the SSD and the other one's are external's, connected via USB 3.0 (H: and I: have USB 2.0, K: has USB 3.0, my laptop has only USB 3.0)
Gerd, it was a question about the Magician capabilities. I have right now my C: partition on an SSD that is too small (120 Go) and i want to change it for a bigger one (250 Go probably). The question is : how to migrate smoothly all my C drive (Win7 and programs like IM, DxO or Aftershot to the new SSD. Will "Magician" be of any help in this migration?
@jch2103 : Thanks for the AnandTech links, its good reading before buying another SSD...
Francis
I believe the software that ships with Samsung drives includes a clone program, although I don't remember if it's part of the Magician program. (I did fresh installs on the two computers in which I've installed Samsung drives.) There are also other clone programs available.
John
Hi Francis,
as far as I can see, there is nothing in the Magician-software, that supports a migration.
I have earlier replaced my 600 GB with a 1TB harddisk. Here I connected the 1TB HD with a USB-case to my notebook and with AOMEI Partition Manager I transferred the 600 GB with a sector-by-sector mode. At the end I merged the 400 GB together with the 600 GB.
After replacing the disk I could boot and all was working! No problems with registrated software like PS, LR, MS-Office ...
I plan next year to change my 1 TB HD with a 1TB SSD.
Quote from: cytochrome on October 14, 2014, 05:39:30 PM
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 03:02:05 PM
Hi,
.................
@Francis: what do you mean? My C-drive is a normal hard-disk, only F: is the SSD and the other one's are external's, connected via USB 3.0 (H: and I: have USB 2.0, K: has USB 3.0, my laptop has only USB 3.0)
Gerd, it was a question about the Magician capabilities. I have right now my C: partition on an SSD that is too small (120 Go) and i want to change it for a bigger one (250 Go probably). The question is : how to migrate smoothly all my C drive (Win7 and programs like IM, DxO or Aftershot to the new SSD. Will "Magician" be of any help in this migration?
Hi Francis,
I believe the trial version of Acronis True Image should be able to write an image (clone) of C: directly to an already connected new SSD. Afterwards you might need to correct/change drive letters.
Or use MiniTool Partition Wizzard (http://download.cnet.com/Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition/3000-2094_4-10962200.html?part=dl-6285158&subj=dl&tag=button) which does it with three clicks. There are other Partition Tools around which will do as well.
After cloning you need to resize the new partition, 'cause it has the size of your old C:
In BIOS you might have to change the boot drive to the new one. Hope I got all what is needed together now...
In all cases you need to check if the new partition is correct aligned, otherwise you will get huge performance problems up to 25 times slower than normal, especially with SSDs. 'cause for every 4Kb data (one cluster), two clusters have to be read when the partition is misaligned. For SSD it means, those two cluster first have to be deleted and than rewritten again.
See attachment, hope it's to understand (above okay, below always half a cluster is used for the same data). W7 takes care about this, when a new partition is created. but I am not sure with cloning tools. Since it's 1:1 copy it should be okay, but better check.
You do this by launching
wmic partition get BlockSize, StartingOffset, Name, Index in the command prompt.
BlockSize Index Name StartingOffset
512 0 Disk #6, Partition #0 512
512 0 Disk #2, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #4, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #1, Partition #0 1048576
512 1 Disk #1, Partition #1 105906176
512 0 Disk #0, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #5, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #3, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #7, Partition #0 1048576
512 0 Disk #8, Partition #0 1048576
Every number which is divisible by 4 in the starting offsets is okay. Here an older
but still valid article about that (http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/using-diskpart-and-wmic-to-check-disk-partition-alignment/) Had to stripe the "still valid", because it claims that a misaligned partition need to be reformatted to align it. But after four years (the article is from 2010) there are tools which are able to realign misaligned partition without reformatting them. Thanks god.
[attachment deleted by admin]
Thanks Gerd and Joerg, it is planned for next month. I will think thoroughly about all this, I have a lot of stuff and settings I would not like to loose.
Last year while looking for migration tools (to move from my old Dell to my new PC) I came across XXClone. I didn't use it finally, managed everything "by hand" but the concept seemed OK. Has anyone used it?
Francis
Quote from: cytochrome on October 14, 2014, 11:21:25 PM
Last year while looking for migration tools (to move from my old Dell to my new PC) I came across XXClone. I didn't use it finally, managed everything "by hand" but the concept seemed OK. Has anyone used it?
A few years ago I used XXCLONE for awhile but later changed to the free Acronis cloning tools for cloning specific hard drive makes (Seagate and Western Digital are the drives I tend to use). I clone my C: drive to a new spare at least once a month just so I'll have it for a backup should the C: drive suddenly go bad and that does happen once in awhile.
XXCLONE was created by the author of xxcopy, a program I still use today for general incremental backups of my D: drive. however I'm starting to think about changing to something else for my incremental backups because I know the author of xxcopy and XXCLONE is about ready to retire. I'm old as dirt and he's even older than I am. lol
Quote from: cytochrome on October 14, 2014, 11:21:25 PM
Thanks Gerd and Joerg, it is planned for next month. I will think thoroughly about all this, I have a lot of stuff and settings I would not like to loose.
As said with a clone you get a 1:1 copy of the partition. Nothing would get lost.
In the worse (if the change from one "C: to the other C:" does not work for you on the first attempt) you always have the "old" SSD.
Also make sure you have a boot CD (e.g. made by one of these Partition Tools or Hiren's Boot CD (http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd) which btw. boots a minimized XP from which you can launch the mentioned "MiniTool Partition Wizzard") by which you are able to switch back drive letters and the active partition, just in case.
Hi,
I do not prefer incremental backups, if one part is wrong, all is wrong ...
I do a complete file-backup (automatic in the background) to my 4GB-HD and also a backup by copying changed/new files from selected directories (incl. sub-dirs) to another HD via AllwaysSync.
With this way I have allways a readable safety-copy (hopefully) ...
Quote from: Gerd on October 14, 2014, 03:02:05 PM
Hi,
@Jörg: why shell I disable what delivers the speed? I want to have the max. speed and it doesn't matter, if extra RAM is used or not ...
Hi Gerd,
this was meant for getting SSDs real speed, as you did later.
Nevertheless, AFAIK even Samsung does not mention speeds above 1.200MB/s for Rapid mode, so you're lucky to beat their specifications... ;)
Quotebut a SSD works also like a RAM-disk, or ...
Almost. A SSD is far slower as RAM and aside this there is a (small but still existing) chance of losing data when you encounter a sudden power failure, since RAM is volatile.
I just don't believe this will actually help much. What does you make believe it gives you more speed? Looking at the numbers?
Maybe when saving files larger than 1 or 2 GB by an application. But when copying, moving files or writing metadata to images, the rather low performance of the other HDDs determine the speed.
To get a clue, what means large excel files? >400MB?
Quote...the other one's are external's, connected via USB 3.0 (H: and I: have USB 2.0, K: has USB 3.0, my laptop has only USB 3.0)
I am not a fan of connecting otherwise pretty fast disks via USB - but K:, your 4TB HDD is pretty lame for an USB-III connection; I would expect 80-90MB/s if not more.
Is there an eSATA or combined eSATA/USB port on your laptop?
Hi Jörg,
this is OT,what I have to do with Excel, but I will explain short:
We (the company I work for) are using Excel as flexible database. We need to analyse complex combinations (connecting the results of several pivots). The basic db has nearly 200 columns and can have up to 900.000 rows. If you have to fill such long column via index&match with data from another big sheet, then it takes nearly 3h. The CPU is used by 100%, the van is sterting with a higher speed and the temp inside is raising from 45 degree to 80 degree. A pivot combines this amount of rows to 50.000 products and for special analytics I need the each available price for all products in columns to the right (via a pivot). This can create several thousands columns ... such Excel-sheet can be 480MB ... usually my Excel-sheets are between 5 and 100 MB.
Back to the topic:
One of my default background programs is SmatDefrag (IObit). This prog. defragments my C-drive (and only this) in periods, where my notebook is not so busy.
I was a little bit astonished, that my USB 3.0 drives are not much quicker than my older USB 2.0 drives, all are connected to USB 3.0 ... Oooops .. here I think, I can improve!
They are first connected to a van-stand and then to my notebook. This can be a bottleneck, I will look for a newer USB-hub and test again. I made this speed-up experience with myUSB-cardreader, the older one (USB 2.0) need 2,5 sec. per pic and the newer one (also USB 2.0) needs 0,5 sec. per pic.
I'll keep you informed.
Quote from: Gerd on October 15, 2014, 10:19:14 AM
this is OT
;) the last 2/3 of this thread went OT. But I believe this is not that bad.
Quote
...such Excel-sheet can be 480MB ... usually my Excel-sheets are between 5 and 100 MB.
I was just asking about the size of the files, because either should be saved by 1-2sec (I included a bit for latency) or less to your SSD, even when RM is disabled.
FYI: the 840 Evo has a read performance bug (http://www.anandtech.com/show/8550/samsung-acknowledges-the-ssd-840-evo-read-performance-bug-fix-is-on-the-way) - the bug fixed is announced for today. So watch out.
QuoteThey are first connected to a van-stand
Not sure what this is, but if it's the USB-Hub, it of course have to be USB-III as well.
QuoteI'll keep you informed.
Okay, thanks. Hope a new Hub will help. Since you use it for backups, they must take ages ;)
Quote from: Gerd on October 15, 2014, 12:26:23 AM
With this way I have allways a readable safety-copy (hopefully) ...
Hopefully. How many generations you keep?
Hi,
thanks for the info about the EVO-bug, I've set it in my to-do-list!
I keep 2 generations as file-backup (old-one and actual one).
Here my new results with an USB-3.0-hub (right pics shows results with USB 3.0 hub ...yes, it speeds-up):
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quotethe last 2/3 of this thread went OT. But I believe this is not that bad.
I agree that most of this thread is Off Topic but I hope it is information that will benefit IMatch users.
Quote from: Gerd on October 15, 2014, 12:07:29 PM
I keep 2 generations as file-backup (old-one and actual one).
So when you encounter an error (corrupt images, excel sheets, etc.) applied three days ago, you're lost. Acronis btw is very reliable in making incremental backups of whole disk images.
Quote
Here my new results with an USB-3.0-hub (right pics shows results with USB 3.0 hub ...yes, it speeds-up):
Wow, you're quick.
Three+ times the former speed and even the other disks participated a bit by it, as I almost expected.
Hi,
a final feeling: today I have installed the new firmware for my 840 EVO ssd, later the 29 MS updates ... now all is running much faster: LR with nearly no waiting time, to load a pic in max. resolution, less than 1 sec., also IM is running like the devil ... opening my catalogue with nearly 130.00 pics is done in 5 sec. and then 15 sec. to get the first pic in the viewer ... scrolling reacts immediately .... all in all: an amazing performance ... ;D
Quote from: cytochrome on October 14, 2014, 11:21:25 PM
Thanks Gerd and Joerg, it is planned for next month. I will think thoroughly about all this, I have a lot of stuff and settings I would not like to loose.
Last year while looking for migration tools (to move from my old Dell to my new PC) I came across XXClone. I didn't use it finally, managed everything "by hand" but the concept seemed OK. Has anyone used it?
Francis
FYI: Samsung has a data migration tool (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html)
Thanks to all, lots of info and ideas on how to migrate properly. I have an USB3 HD dock that accepts 2.5" drives so should be easy to set up.
I went back to the XXCopy help, it is interesting in that it copies files and folders, not disk sectors, so does un-fragment at the same time (see Richard, I am back at the OT :) ). But I'll probably go to a more classical cloning tool.
I have Paragon Drive Copy, never used it yet but often used Paragon Partition Manager to expand or merge partitions, never failed so i have some confidence. I will also test some of the other programs cited. This forum is a real info mine.
@Joerg, I had seen the Samsung migration tool on their site. They insist it is for Samsung drives only. I will probably buy one but my present SSD is a Kingston. Not sure how all this will cooperate. Anyway thanks again and sorry for derailing the threat...
Francis
Actually, if you dare to use some non-Windows tools ;D (bootable from CD or USB), Clonezilla http://clonezilla.org/ (http://clonezilla.org/) for cloning and restoring and GPartEd http://gparted.org/ (http://gparted.org/) for changing partion sizes might be worth a look.
Regards,
Ralf
Hi Francis,
when I planned my migration, I was also thinking about copying files and folders, but then my idea was, to get an exact copy of my system and data with the hope, that I do not need to install it all new ... and it works ... but that was my old pc. My new pc was delivered with an installed Win8 and here I need to copy files and folders, selectiv. It took much more time, than the migration of my old notebook.
If you plan to do it by file and folders, you should start with a clean new Win-installation and then re-install your extra programs and then fill-up with copying specific files and folders.
just my 2 cents ...
@Ralf_C: on my previous PC I had a Linux partition, and I still have an Ubuntu bootable DVD that I use if for some reason I can't delete or rename a file in Windows. But I am not so familiar with Gparted so...
@Gerd Thanks for the comments. I did it just like you when I went from old to new PC, but now that I have a PC that works well, with programs installed and organized at my liking I wish to conserve this when going from a too small SSD to a bigger one. If you read the XXClone stuff you will see that it will copy files and folders AND prepare the new drive to be bootable. In principle no need to re-install anything.
But I think I'll go with a bit to bit cloning solution. I will take my time to think about and do some preliminary experiments. The only benefit of age is that I get more cautious (and less entrepreneurial which is sad).
Francis
Quote from: cytochrome on October 16, 2014, 07:44:32 AM
@Ralf_C: on my previous PC I had a Linux partition, and I still have an Ubuntu bootable DVD that I use if for some reason I can't delete or rename a file in Windows. But I am not so familiar with Gparted so...
OK, you convinced me to write a bit more about Clonezilla and Gparted. :)
Both exists as so-called Live-CD / Live-USB, i.e. it is possible to boot those systems directly and no installation needed.
Clonezilla can be used to save and restore disk-images (or partitions) including the partition table, etc. onto an external harddisk. This can be used to create a backup of the current state of the disk and the restore will bring the system back into use. (Like with other disk imaging programs). Clonzilla is fully based on the text based UI, but it leads through the process by offering possible choices.
Gparted is a partitioning tool, which is able to create, delete and resize (increase and decrease) partitions and it is also able to move(!) partitions for almost any filesystem (encrypted systems excluded). It has a graphical UI.
In my experience, the migration tools, from Kingston but also the commercial tool from Paragon, are not able to migrate a harddisk to a smaller SSD even if the used space is below of the SSD's capacity and/or might have other restrictions. [I do not know the Samsung tool, but in the user manual is mentioned that the OEM recovery partition is not cloned and having several OS on the harddisk might result in a nonfunctioning setup].
In those cases the above mentioned tools can be useful:
- Backup the Harddisk (Clonezilla) [A good backup is never wrong ;)]
- If needed: Resize and move the partitions to the target size of the SSD (Gparted). Be cautious that the used space is not bigger than the SSD size
- Transfer the image from HD to SSD including the partition table etc. (Clonezilla)
- Make some final adjustments for the partition(s) on the SSD (e.g. GParted)
Regards,
Ralf
Well Ralf, you are taking me by the hand!! I will make a Clonezilla DVD and try once I bought a second SSD. Do I understand well that you recommend to clone first my actual ssd to an rotating HDD, and then from there to the new SD. why not directly to the new one? I will mount it on an USB3 dock, should work, non? If I buy a 250 Go SSD it will have only one partition: C: so my data that is stuffing my present 120 Go SSD will be OK.
I don't understand the comment about cloning to a smaller disk, I will of course clone from a smaller to a bigger one. I mentioned XXclone because their technique to get an un-fragmented disk from a fragmented one is tempting.
Francis
Quote from: cytochrome on October 16, 2014, 04:19:06 PM
Well Ralf, you are taking me by the hand!!
I thought, I describe the generell process for the benefit of all. :)
Quote from: cytochrome on October 16, 2014, 04:19:06 PM
I will make a Clonezilla DVD and try once I bought a second SSD. Do I understand well that you recommend to clone first my actual ssd to an rotating HDD, and then from there to the new SD. why not directly to the new one? I will mount it on an USB3 dock, should work, non? If I buy a 250 Go SSD it will have only one partition: C: so my data that is stuffing my present 120 Go SSD will be OK.
I would make a backup image to a normal harddisk (good practice, anyhow). Clonezilla can also copy from device to device directly, but I never tried it.
Quote from: cytochrome on October 16, 2014, 04:19:06 PM
I don't understand the comment about cloning to a smaller disk, I will of course clone from a smaller to a bigger one. I mentioned XXclone because their technique to get an un-fragmented disk from a fragmented one is tempting.
Your case is a simple case for cloning/copying when the target disk is bigger than the old one (in your case 120 GB to 250 GB).
Let me give an example for cloning to a smaller disk:
The computer has a harddisk with 500GB and that shall be replaced by an SSD with 250GB and the harddisk has 3 (or more) partitions:
1) Windows Boot (size 500MB); 2) C: (size 460 GB, 200GB used); 3) OEM recovery (size 30GB, at the end of the disk) [Windows shows only partition C: !]
If you want to move such a setup to an SSD, you'll have to make the C: partition smaller and move the OEM recovery partition.
This is not easily possible with Windows tools: Windows stores some required. unmovable data in the middle of the partition, i.e. Windows can not make the partition small enough. In addition, Windows can not move a partition. Gparted is able to decrease the size to the required value (because Windows is not running and locking its files) and also move a partition.
Regards,
Ralf
Thanks for the clarification Ralf.
Francis
Hi,
This post will appear permanently under "show new replies to your post".
But it is always unchanged.
Why?
I bring this thread back to life because it gave the push to change my Kingston SSD that was cramped (120 Go, 90% used) for a 250 Go Samsung EVO 840 where Windows and IMatch are more at ease.
To clone the Kingston, after reading again all the posts and advice here I used one of the programs suggested by Jörg: Minitool Patition Wizard because I am really more at ease in the Win world than with Linux solutions. MPW is free for private users, simple to use, options are few and clear, it takes 3 clicks to clone a disk and it works.
It took a bit of time to get the Samsung recognized, really my fault cause I had not read the Asus Bios instructions. When I got it right everything including IMatch was there.
Are there benefits? There should be, in the CrystalDiskMark test it runs much faster than the Kingston but in real life with Imatch it is not that faster. As always it is the slowest parts in the process that set the overall speed. The image files are on a 7200 rpm hdd and although IMatch runs on the Samsung I believe it is Exiftool that is the bottle neck and puts a brake on IM.
But IM starts faster, the delay to open the DB and open the files windows is shorter, white screens are transient (some seconds), and no hang (but I had very few with system and IM on the Kingston).
Francis
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Quote from: cytochrome on November 01, 2014, 09:27:17 AM
I bring this thread back to life because it gave the push to change my Kingston SSD that was cramped (120 Go, 90% used) for a 250 Go Samsung EVO 840 where Windows and IMatch are more at ease.
To clone the Kingston, after reading again all the posts and advice here I used one of the programs suggested by Jörg: Minitool Patition Wizard because I am really more at ease in the Win world than with Linux solutions. MPW is free for private users, simple to use, options are few and clear, it takes 3 clicks to clone a disk and it works.
It took a bit of time to get the Samsung recognized, really my fault cause I had not read the Asus Bios instructions. When I got it right everything including IMatch was there.
Are there benefits? There should be, in the CrystalDiskMark test it runs much faster than the Kingston but in real life with Imatch it is not that faster. As always it is the slowest parts in the process that set the overall speed. The image files are on a 7200 rpm hdd and although IMatch runs on the Samsung I believe it is Exiftool that is the bottle neck and puts a brake on IM.
But IM starts faster, the delay to open the DB and open the files windows is shorter, white screens are transient (some seconds), and no hang (but I had very few with system and IM on the Kingston).
Francis
Regarding the Samsung EVO drive this may help
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192419-samsungs-840-evo-repair-tool-available-to-download-but-be-careful-of-the-caveats-when-you-update (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192419-samsungs-840-evo-repair-tool-available-to-download-but-be-careful-of-the-caveats-when-you-update)
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html)
Thank you for the info. I have not seen any problem (yet) but the drive is only active since 2 days. It came with a software CD with Magician and a migration tool. I did not use it because I read several posts about problems. So I used Minitools' Partition Wizard which is fine and foolproof (just what I needed :)).
The programs on the CD date all back to 2013, I will download the last versions and also the EVO 840 Repair tool in case of problems (I still have the Kingston SSD if some silliness appears).
I bought the drive from Amazon, they have little stock so may be it is a already a fixed issue on this one. We will see...
Francis