Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > Hard Drive Set up for Solidworks System.. Fastest possible -> SSD??

Hard Drive Set up for Solidworks System.. Fastest possible -> SSD??

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Hard Drive Set up for Solidworks System.. Fastest possible -> SSD??

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smithsb1111   01-23-2008 at 10:35:35 PM

Hey All,


I need to set up a new system for Solidworks due to a need of handling a very large assembly. For performance of solidworks has two key areas, memory and hard drive speed (not at the same time though). I am thinking of going Xeon proc with at least 6 gigs ram and 12 gigs virtual memory. (Windows XP 64). This level of ram and virtual memory is necessary for smooth performance after loading the 3d model. (Should I load the 12 gigs virtual memory to a ssd or ram disk??). Graphics cards is not a hard choice Quadro Fx ...

The real problem is the original loading of the 3d assembly. This is limited by hard drive speed (not sure if it's read or write). A large assembly can take 25-30mins on 7200 rpm drive to load. I am willing to spend a good deal of money (not a fortune) to cut the load time in half. What are my options??.. SSD raid 0?.. Raptors?. Any one out there with similar problems?

Thanks
Steve.

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smithsb1111   01-23-2008 at 11:08:49 PM
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Jim_L9 wrote :

How big is the file?



1 -4 gigs, not one file but many files.

Steve

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13thmonkey   01-23-2008 at 11:15:17 PM
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I'd argue that that kind of time for loading a file would be as a result of the processor de-compressing or re-constructing the file into main memory, i.e. taking raw(ish) data and turning it into a model. 25-30mins would allow for 90GB of file transfer at 60MB per sec which the WD7200.10 can do.

I'd be surprised if it were generating 90GB files.

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smithsb1111   01-23-2008 at 11:21:27 PM
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13thmonkey wrote :

I'd argue that that kind of time for loading a file would be as a result of the processor de-compressing or re-constructing the file into main memory, i.e. taking raw(ish) data and turning it into a model. 25-30mins would allow for 90GB of file transfer at 60MB per sec which the WD7200.10 can do.

I'd be surprised if it were generating 90GB files.




This may be correct but the, unfortunately throwing more cores at it doesn't seem to help. Maybe a threading issue. How can I test this?.. Log HD re-writes during load??.

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13thmonkey   01-23-2008 at 11:25:26 PM
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Can you see if it scales with memory speed, i.e. underclock your memory to 200Mhz, raise it to 266, 333 400 if it'll take it and see if that has an effect? if it is decompressing, i imagine that it would load a chunk into memory, read to and from it many times into the CPU and then dump it back into memory, real or virtual. I could imagine therefore that the memory bandwidth would be possibly very important.

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