# which computer components are most critical for scanning?



## jrhandyman (Apr 8, 2014)

Im buying a new Epson V750 scanner to use on several thousand B&W photos and negatives from the 1940's, 50's and 60's.   I need to get a new computer as mine is quite old.  

Which components of the computer are most critical when scanning?   The processor speed, amount of memory or the video card?  Any other advice would help in my selection of a computer. 

Thanks


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## Braineack (Apr 8, 2014)

RAM. the answer is always more RAM.


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## Robin Usagani (Apr 8, 2014)

No need to worry about anything.  Any spec will do for a brand new computer. Scanning is nothing.  Now if you are asking about editing videos, that's a different story.


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## ecphoto (Apr 8, 2014)

jrhandyman said:


> Im buying a new Epson V750 scanner to use on several thousand B&W photos and negatives from the 1940's, 50's and 60's.   I need to get a new computer as mine is quite old.
> 
> Which components of the computer are most critical when scanning?   The processor speed, amount of memory or the video card?  Any other advice would help in my selection of a computer.
> 
> Thanks



Memory, scanning relies heavily on it. I would say 6-8 gigs of RAM would probably be a good amount for you. Depending on the software and scanning technique used you may need a high performance processor as well.


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## IronMaskDuval (Apr 8, 2014)

Memory, but not all memory is created equal. Fast memory is always ideal.
Hard drive, SDD is best but a fast spinning disk will work as well.


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## Robin Usagani (Apr 8, 2014)

The spec recommends 512 mb. Almost any cheap puter will have way more ram than that.  Come on guys?

Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Scanner B11B178061 B&H Photo Video


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## IronMaskDuval (Apr 8, 2014)

Robin Usagani said:


> The spec recommends 512 mb. Almost any cheap puter will have way more ram than that.  Come on guys?
> 
> Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Scanner B11B178061 B&H Photo Video



Recommended specs vs having more than enough for when you need it. What if OP scans, lightroom, shops, browses and whatever else at the same time? It's the recommended specs for this one component-- not multitasking. Sure 512 is really small, and I can see your point. You're right, any modern computer can handle this task without upgrades.


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## Msteelio91 (Apr 8, 2014)

As they are saying, RAM will help. It is always good to get a new computer with a solid processor. As this is the second most difficult thing to replace down the road. Adding more RAM as needed is easy, same with video cards and hard drives. 

I'd say, in order of importance:

-Processor (Don't cheap out!)
-RAM (8g+ is pretty typical now, look for DDR3)
-Hard drive/SSD (an SSD capable of holding thousands of pictures will be $$$$$. Look for a 10krpm HDD if you want a fast drive for less dough.)
-Video card (This will help more with editing.)




Robin Usagani said:


> The spec recommends 512 mb. Almost any cheap puter will have way more ram than that. Come on guys?





Robin Usagani said:


> Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Scanner B11B178061 B&H Photo Video




He didn't give a budget :/ 

He could drop around $600 on a computer that will be good for years and handle anything he needs to do with those photos.


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## JerryLove (Apr 8, 2014)

IronMaskDuval said:


> Memory, but not all memory is created equal. Fast memory is always ideal.


 All memory waits at the same speed.


> Hard drive, SDD is best but a fast spinning disk will work as well.


 Will he be doing a lot of swapping? Pulling lots of textures in RT?

The scanner or scanner interface to the computer is what will determine your max scan speed. Nothing else remotely modern is likely to be a limiting factor.

I'd focus on enough HDD space to store all these scans (Several thousand photos will take a lot of space... so seriously: Hard drives (and a backup solution))

When discussing "enough RAM": a 40mp scan at 16-bit depth should take up 80MB of RAM (even my PS files at 20MP take up no more than 200MB at most). I'm pretty sure your OS will be more of a hassle. I hear prices moved up, but assuming not ridiculously so, I'd consider a 4GB PC proper over-kill and inexpensive.


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## JerryLove (Apr 8, 2014)

Msteelio91 said:


> -Hard drive/SSD (an SSD capable of holding thousands of pictures will be $$$$$. Look for a 10krpm HDD if you want a fast drive for less dough.)


 My VIDEO is captured to and played back from 5200rpm drives*. I cannot imagine any possible advantage for 10k drives when discussing scanning. 

(*If I ever give a shot to 4K video, I'll likely have some very different opinions on minimum drive speeds)


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## SpikeyJohnson (Apr 8, 2014)

I can help you out a ton on picking components if you want. I build computers for part of my job and have been building for a long time. 

First though, what is your budget? What are you willing to spend? Do you want a desktop or laptop? With those questions answered I can help you out


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## Light Guru (Apr 8, 2014)

Robin Usagani said:


> The spec recommends 512 mb. Almost any cheap puter will have way more ram than that.  Come on guys?
> 
> Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Scanner B11B178061 B&H Photo Video



Exactly. The v750 came in in 2006 that's 8 years ago. Even the base model computer these days will beat the top of the line computer from 8 years ago.


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## Robin Usagani (Apr 8, 2014)

The most important thing is to make sure you have at least a VGA monitor.  Monochrome and CGA monitors suck.


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## AlanKlein (Apr 8, 2014)

As others have said, any new computer will get the job done.  I was using an Epson V600 scanning 35mm and 120 medium format color with a 7 year old computer with no problems.   Of more concern is how you intend to edit them?  what program?  How big are the negatives?  Also, get a decent monitor since editing colors and BW tones after the scan are critical and you want to have reliable and accurate  monitor.  Since you said your film is BW, I don't know how critical this may be.  Maybe others can comment.


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## bratkinson (Apr 9, 2014)

As others have mentioned, scanning isn't a problem, and the software needed to run your scanner needs very little horsepower or RAM.

But...you will soon find out that doing some 'touchup' is always needed, especially for older, faded photos.  I recently did perhaps 200 photos for a friend and every one of them (95% were B&W) needed some sharpening and a bit of extra contrast & exposure adjusting to make them look good.  So the issue becomes RAM and horsepower.  I'm using Photoshop Elements and can hold maybe 15-20 pictures in RAM that were scanned in before it starts swapping it out to disk (paging).  So, I simply scan that many in, then do touchups and save each, then start over with the next group of 15 or so.  Since I'm editing, a quad processor computer is strongly recommended as PSE and others can likely take advantage of the multiple processors.  Also mentioned previously was using a Solid State Drive (SSD) as it's far faster than 'regular' hard drives.  I use SSD for the operating system, documents, and any work 'in process'.  I also back up the work in process to the slower 1TB hard drive that is also in the computer.  Using SSD speeds up all computer aspects from boot up, program start up, and retrieving/saving files.  It's well worth the extra $$$ in my estimation.

For what it's worth, when I built my computer, I'm not interested in game-speed graphics, so I have a cheapo video card that's good enough for me.  So if it takes a 1/4 second longer than some $500 graphics card to display an image, so what.  I think I paid $39 for mine 2 years ago.


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## runnah (Apr 9, 2014)

I'd send everything out to get scanned. Cheaper and less hassle.


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## jrhandyman (Apr 9, 2014)

Im the OP and have learned a lot from your answers, such as the scanning isn't what I need to be concerned about but the editing is.  I'm going to be using Photoshop Elements to edit. The  computer I'm looking at getting is a Dell with the following: 

Processor & Memory:*
4th Generation Intel® Core&#8482; i7-4770 processor 3.4GHz (8M Cache, up to 3.9 GHz)24GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - *4 DIMMs

Drives:
2TB (7200 RPM) Hard Drive + 256GB Solid State DriveBlu-Ray Drive (Reads BRD, Writes DVD/CD)

Operating System:*
Microsoft® Windows 8.1 (64-bit)

Graphics & Video:
2GB AMD Radeon HD R9 270

My only concern is Windows 8, but thats another topic altogether.

Thanks to all for your advice!


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## Msteelio91 (Apr 9, 2014)

Sounds like a solid rig. Don't be concerned about windows 8, if just say hold off on installing 8.1 as there are still some compatibility issues with it when it comes to drivers.

Grab the iobit windows 8 start button and you'll barely even notice you're using windows 8. It's free and a proven tool. If you're scared of free stuff get the Stardock start 8.


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## JerryLove (Apr 9, 2014)

That's a monster/beast for stills... a Ferraru for your grocery commit. The only thing that might run low is the 2TB of HDD (you can expand later though). Photos can get quite large depending on the format and resolution.


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## SnappingShark (Apr 9, 2014)

Any computer will do. Seriously.

However, if you're looking for input generally, I'd suggest an Intel based processor (never had fun with AMD), and any amount of ram over 8gb (and keep it as either 8, 16, 32, 64GB ram - don't get a weird 6, 12, 24gb mix - they're not optimal).

As for hard drives - do you want fast, or plenty of space - cos you can't get both in one.
If you want fast, get an SSD, if you want a lot of space, get a fast HDD (7200rpm or better) - but to be honest, a dual set up such as a 128gb SSD for system, and a good 7200rpm HDD for storage ain't bad.

hmm, backlit keyboard will make sure you can type in the dark just fine too!!


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## Derrel (Apr 9, 2014)

runnah said:


> I'd send everything out to get scanned. Cheaper and less hassle.



I would seriously consider runnah's suggestion...scanning gets old realllllly quickly. There are a number of services that offer scanning very affordably, and their operators are VERY experienced, and they have the skill, software, and the hardware to do the job well.

Scanning is not just a machine-driven, one-and-done, easy-peasey thing...it takes a lot more SKILL than many people realize. If you have never scanned, don't expect that you'll be able to magically make great scans from anything that is even remotely tough to scan.


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## SpikeyJohnson (Apr 9, 2014)

The computer you posted will get the job done extremely quick, regardless of the job. I have windows 8.1 and honestly, it is stable, especially with the components you would have and with dell backing it. I say get to 8.1 because it is large upgrade over 8. I have a pretty similar build at home but mine is custom built by me and it still has no diver issues.

Out of curiosity, what is the price of that Dell build?


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## lambertpix (Apr 9, 2014)

jrhandyman said:


> Im the OP and have learned a lot from your answers, such as the scanning isn't what I need to be concerned about but the editing is.  I'm going to be using Photoshop Elements to edit. The  computer I'm looking at getting is a Dell with the following:
> 
> Processor & Memory:*
> 4th Generation Intel® Core&#8482; i7-4770 processor 3.4GHz (8M Cache, up to 3.9 GHz)24GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - *4 DIMMs
> ...



If you're handy with computers, I'd consider adding a second 2tb drive to mirror the first.  Last I checked from Dell, you can't really order that, so you'd have to add it on yourself.   The 24GB of RAM is sort of interesting - that must be two 8's & two 4's?  Regardless, that should be sufficient for quite a while.

The Windows 8 thing is sort of a mixed bag, I guess.  It was really pretty atrocious when it first came out, but it's getting better as MS slowly recants and adds back in all the stuff they took out to make it look "tablet-y".  The just announced more of these changes at their Build conference.  My biggest headaches were driver issues, but if you're getting everything from Dell, I *hope* they've largely sorted that out for you.

Good luck!


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## Robin Usagani (Apr 9, 2014)

I like how the OP asked this question and he bought the top of the line puter  LOL.  I was expecting a link for a $600 computer or something.


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## Derrel (Apr 9, 2014)

Robin Usagani said:


> I like how the OP asked this question and he bought the top of the line puter  LOL.  I was expecting a link for a $600 computer or something.



Yeah...it's top of the line TODAY....give it a year...it'll be in the middle of the pack...if it lasts three years, it'll rank right there with the $349 systems sold at Fry's Electronics in Wilsonville...


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## Gavjenks (Apr 9, 2014)

Derrel I bought basically that same computer in terms of core specs for like $1200 3 years ago. Also from Dell. They don't get obsolete THAT quickly. (Desktop, mind you. Laptops turn obsolete more quickly)

Anyway, for the classic "shoebox full of photos" I think runnah nailed it: send it into a shop and spend your $200 (or likely much less) having them do it all for you.

Consider that if you do it yourself, you're paying $100s for a scanner AND slaving away for untold hours of your labor (and not having fun in the process) = probably $200 more for a typical salary's worth of time.
Versus sitting on your porch sipping mint juleps and watching the sprinklers the whole time and saving money at that.




I "scan" my 4x5 negatives with a DSLR, but it's only because they trickle in 1 or 2 at a time as I occasionally take them, making it impractical to send them out anywhere. If I had a whole shoebox full of them, I wouldn't do those myself either.


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## Robin Usagani (Apr 9, 2014)

How much do you think it will cost to pay someone to do it?  I dont think it is as cheap as you think especially if you want high res.  The professional that will dust off the film first, apply dust removal on the digital will likely to charge a lot of money per frame.


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## Derrel (Apr 9, 2014)

Robin Usagani said:


> How much do you think it will cost to pay someone to do it?  I dont think it is as cheap as you think especially if you want high res.  The professional that will dust off the film first, apply dust removal on the digital will likely to charge a lot of money per frame.



Check out the rates at some of the places located in India...

Or....ScanCafe - Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning, Video Transfer, Photo Restoration

Gav: "It's called 'humor' "; perhaps it's not available in Iowa???


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## Gavjenks (Apr 9, 2014)

My local camera shop is $0.25 a print for 1000+ and I'm not shopping around at all to get that price.

An Epson V750 the OP suggested buying = almost $800 + let's say $200 he may have been willing to pay extra in computer components if they were relevant = easily enough to pay to have "several thousand photos scanned" like he says he has.


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## Gavjenks (Apr 9, 2014)

And more likely than not, the OP probably doesn't actually need every single photo scanned (maybe! but probably not). Spending 2 hours to cull that number down to 1/3 of the most important photos would save you $650 in scanning fees, which is a pretty damn good wage to pay yourself. Much more lucrative than slaving away scanning things.


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## jrhandyman (Apr 9, 2014)

Out of curiosity, what is the price of that Dell build?[/QUOTE]  

Price is $1299 from Costco


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## SpikeyJohnson (Apr 9, 2014)

O wow that is a great deal.  Mine was about $1100 and I already had my video card, 3 hard drives, CD Drive, and monitors.  I would definitely jump on that deal.  The price is amazing for not having to build it yourself and for such high specs.


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## bratkinson (Apr 11, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Or....ScanCafe - Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning, Video Transfer, Photo Restoration



Derrel - Thank you for that link! I've got close to 2K Ektachrome slides I've been toying with scanning myself...I even have an older NIKON slide scanner with stacker/feeder option, but it's all the cleanup (blow off dust, dust&speckles removal) and post-scan work that I'd really like to avoid. Doing it myself, even with that stacker, was about 2-3 minutes of my computer time after the slide had been scanned in. Re-doing faded Ektachromes to get the colors right can be tricky, and they obviously know how to do it. I'm SOLD!


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## AlanKlein (Apr 11, 2014)

jrhandyman said:


> Im the OP and have learned a lot from your answers, such as the scanning isn't what I need to be concerned about but the editing is. I'm going to be using Photoshop Elements to edit. The computer I'm looking at getting is a Dell with the following:
> 
> Processor & Memory:*
> 4th Generation Intel® Core i7-4770 processor 3.4GHz (8M Cache, up to 3.9 GHz)24GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - *4 DIMMs
> ...



I have exactly the same specs with my Dell XPS 8100 running Win 8.1.  No problem.  Sounds like you have the same model!  Good luck with yours.


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## AlanKlein (Apr 11, 2014)

PS I'm running Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 12 together with no delays.  I went with what is probably more than I need.  But somehow, with new programs coming out in the future, I always want to have extra speed and storage as I've always found it limited later on.  One thing though, Don't forget to get a decent monitor. I did spend a lot a calibratable monitor. (NEC Multisync PA242W with Spectraview II auto-calibrator sensor and software.)   Probably more than is necessary but again, I'm looking to keep this monitor a long long time.


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## jhphotographer (Apr 13, 2014)

RAM is certainly going to be a major factor but what most people forget this the speed of the hard drive. I recommend getting a PC with an SSD drive.


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## JerryLove (Apr 13, 2014)

jhphotographer said:


> RAM is certainly going to be a major factor but what most people forget this the speed of the hard drive. I recommend getting a PC with an SSD drive.


There is simply zero truth here. 

A PSD file of a 20MP RAW is still <150MB with several alteration layers. A small machine has 4,000MB of RAM.
For fun I just opened 5 multi-layered 20MP-from-RAW .psd files simultaneously: and Photoshop is eating 1GB of RAM. That may sound like a lot, but I opened three more (8 simultaneously) and am eating 1.3GB of RAM. 

The read/write speed on a *slow* HDD would be something liek 50MB/sec, so you'd be discussing 2-3 seconds load-time on a new image file. 

I do, in fact, have an SSD under my programs themselves. It does make them faster to load (though will do nothing for speed once loaded); but the benefit under the picture files is almost nill (and you lose size and money). You'd do far better to run RAID on magnetic media in that instance.

In short: If you can throw 16GB on your PC: Great (there's actual support that machines may *slow* past that point). If you want to build arrays of SSDs, that won't hurt anything but your wallet either. But if you think there's gonna be any real difference... there won't be. Nothing that matters (1sec load times when first opening vs 2sec).

Scanned files may be larger... though I'm not sure if the increased resolution would be useful. 

Let's imagine an 8x10 @ 1200dpi @ 24-bit color depth (BTW: this will take a long time for the scanner to scan: the PC is not the point of limitation).
1200^2(resolution) x8(width) x10(height) x24 (depth) / 8 (bits per byte).
1,440,000 x10 x24 / 8
14,400,000 x24 / 8
14,400,000 x 3
43,200,000 bytes
43.2MB

Not a big deal for even low-end modern hardware.


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## illuminating_light (Apr 14, 2014)

SSD's deteriorate over time with every read/write that occurs. it is why they suggest to never defrag them, as this degrades them even quicker. Longevity of these compared to standard HHD's, simply is not enough to justify the small boost of speed you will gain. The standard RMP for HHD's is 5200RPM, you can always upgrade to a 7200 RMP to gain speed, while still maintaining a longer living drive. One can always run optimizing software for the HHD to move most system files and important programs to the faster part of the disk, to ensure maximum performance from it.


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## Braineack (Apr 14, 2014)

from adobe themselves:



> *Solid-state disks*
> 
> Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That&#8217;s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.
> 
> ...


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## lambertpix (Apr 14, 2014)

illuminating_light said:


> SSD's deteriorate over time with every read/write that occurs. it is why they suggest to never defrag them, as this degrades them even quicker. Longevity of these compared to standard HHD's, simply is not enough to justify the small boost of speed you will gain. The standard RMP for HHD's is 5200RPM, you can always upgrade to a 7200 RMP to gain speed, while still maintaining a longer living drive. One can always run optimizing software for the HHD to move most system files and important programs to the faster part of the disk, to ensure maximum performance from it.



Depending on what sort of degradation you're talking about, that could be somewhat dated.  There are really two kinds of SSD degradation -- one of which is largely solved today.  Once upon a time, SSD's used to suffer from write performance degradation as they filled up, because the drive would have to start re-using blocks that had been written once and then marked deleted.  With the advent of TRIM support in newer drives and OS's, though, that problem is pretty much licked.

The other kind of degradation comes from deterioration of the NAND itself.  If you're concerned about this, you'll probably want to read up on the different types of NAND used in SSD's these days, and the impact on longevity of those drives.  Of particular note in that link are the estimated lifespans of drives, ranging from about 12 years for the "cheap" NAND up to 70 years for the pricier stuff.  FWIW, the last time I bought an SSD, I opted for a 256GB Samsung 840 with the "cheap" NAND -- shown with an estimated lifespan of around 23 years of continuous use in that article.  I consider it likely that I'll be ready for an upgrade by then.

Re: 5200rpm vs. 7200rpm, this is valid, but fading fast as a concern.  You'll still see 5400 / 5900rpm drives sold as OEM drives in some cheap-o PC's, but I did a quick, completely informal survey of the first 20 drives on Newegg with a capacity of 3TB+, and I found four listed as 5900rpm and 13 listed as 7200rpm.  Three from WD are listed as "InteliPower", which seems to indicate that the speed varies (I don't know if that's quite as useless as showing a shutter speed of "fast-ish", but it's close).  These days, then, 7200rpm drives are probably more typical for multi-TB drives.  In fact, a lot of the 5900rpm drives are marketed as "green" because their slower motors use less energy and produce less heat -- maybe a benefit if you've got drives in a poorly-ventilated enclosure.




Braineack said:


> from adobe themselves:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Just as with photography equipment, better hardware produces better results (all things being equal), but if you don't know how to use the stuff you've got, you can spend a lot of money and not get the results you're looking for.  With mainstream chipsets & MB's typically supporting 16-32GB of RAM these days, though, 16GB or so of RAM is a pretty safe mainstream setup, IMO.


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## JerryLove (Apr 14, 2014)

lambertpix said:


> Depending on what sort of degradation you're talking about, that could be somewhat dated.  There are really two kinds of SSD degradation -- one of which is largely solved today.  Once upon a time, SSD's used to suffer from write performance degradation as they filled up, because the drive would have to start re-using blocks that had been written once and then marked deleted.  With the advent of TRIM support in newer drives and OS's, though, that problem is pretty much licked.


 TRIM's original purpose was to increase longevity by limiting the number of times an individual cell is written. 



> The other kind of degradation comes from deterioration of the NAND itself.  If you're concerned about this, you'll probably want to read up on the different types of NAND used in SSD's these days, and the impact on longevity of those drives.  Of particular note in that link are the estimated lifespans of drives, ranging from about 12 years for the "cheap" NAND up to 70 years for the pricier stuff.  FWIW, the last time I bought an SSD, I opted for a 256GB Samsung 840 with the "cheap" NAND -- shown with an estimated lifespan of around 23 years of continuous use in that article.  I consider it likely that I'll be ready for an upgrade by then.


 This is all *heavily* use dependent. A drive in a heavily used video camera will degrade *far* more rapidly than your photo archive.



> Re: 5200rpm vs. 7200rpm, this is valid, but fading fast as a concern.  You'll still see 5400 / 5900rpm drives sold as OEM drives in some cheap-o PC's, but I did a quick, completely informal survey of the first 20 drives on Newegg with a capacity of 3TB+, and I found four listed as 5900rpm and 13 listed as 7200rpm.  Three from WD are listed as "InteliPower", which seems to indicate that the speed varies (I don't know if that's quite as useless as showing a shutter speed of "fast-ish", but it's close).  These days, then, 7200rpm drives are probably more typical for multi-TB drives.  In fact, a lot of the 5900rpm drives are marketed as "green" because their slower motors use less energy and produce less heat -- maybe a benefit if you've got drives in a poorly-ventilated enclosure.


 It's also like looking at MP on a sensor. Deceiving.

Contiguious read-write speed is a function of density * rotation. So a 4TB 5400rpm drive has a higher contiguious read/write speed than a 1TB 7200rpm drive (all else being equal).

Random writes are a function of head speed and rotational speed (all else being equal).

But other things matter. More platters means more head queuing, and better random access speeds. Smaller platters (2.5" vs 3.5") mean higher bit density and so faster continuous read/writes (also: less head travel, so likely better random speeds). 

But really none of this matters as there's nothing that's going to be very drive-dependent in scanning photos after the application loads into memory.



> Just as with photography equipment, better hardware produces better results (all things being equal), but if you don't know how to use the stuff you've got, you can spend a lot of money and not get the results you're looking for.  With mainstream chipsets & MB's typically supporting 16-32GB of RAM these days, though, 16GB or so of RAM is a pretty safe mainstream setup, IMO.


This is absolutely untrue. Upgrading to a 2kw power supply, an array of 4 linked professional (say : ATI Fire) video cards, 250GB of ECC RAM, and an array of Enterprise SSDs will bring absolutely nothing to the table once the application is loaded. The hardware is already faster than the scanner. 

(*The video cards may result in edits being a fraction of a second faster as this is likely hardware accellerated. It's a big deal in video transcoding, but not so much in photos)


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