USB 2 or USB 3 HDD for photo editing

Handsome90

Hello moneysavers,

Happy new year and hope you guys had a lovely Christmas.

First, a little bit of info about my laptop so that you guys will be able to give a better advice. I'm using a 15 inch Macbook Pro Retina (256 SSD and 16GB RAM).

Currently, I'm using a 500GB USB 2 external HDD by Transcend that is connected to my Mac. I mainly use that for storing my photos. In fact, my main Aperture 3 library is in the USB HDD. Is a USB 2 external HDD fast enough for editing photos? I don't mind if downloading photos from the memory card takes a little longer but I would like edits to be lighting fast (especially brush strokes). Would a USB 3 HDD provide a better performance when editing photos? I'm asking this because I need to buy a USB 3 external HDD anyway for time machine backup. If USB 3 HDD will give better performance during editing photos, then I'll switch to the new HDD as my main Aperture library and use the USB 2 HDD as my time machine backup. Not sure whether this made sense (sorry English isn't my first language).

Looking forward to your advices

paddyrg

The difference will be negligible, the photo is loaded into memory in under a second, and the same to write it back to disc when you're done with it

yangptangkipperbang

Handsome90 wrote: »

Currently, I'm using a 500GB USB 2 external HDD by Transcend that is connected to my Mac. I mainly use that for storing my photos. In fact, my main Aperture 3 library is in the USB HDD.

If you have a fairly large number of photographs you really are courting disaster if you are keeping all/most of them on a single drive.

I have put a separate int HDD into my PC, solely for my photographs, and have 2 ext HDDs for back up. Amazon have a 1TB WD ext HDD for £57.99 - just got one

kwikbreaks

Handsome90 wrote: »

... I would like edits to be lighting fast (especially brush strokes). Would a USB 3 HDD provide a better performance when editing photos? ...

As mentioned above the image gets loaded into memory so the HDD type has no impact all on performance during editting only on load and save times and with photos the difference between USB2 and USB3 is going to be pretty much imperceptible.

Handsome90

Thanks for your advice everyone I didn't know it was loaded into the memory.

And yes, I'll buy a 1TB external hard drive to back up my mac as well as the photos that are stored in my current external hard drive.

neilwoods

Just curious, do you use photo editing software for fun or work.

andy2004

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

If you have a fairly large number of photographs you really are courting disaster if you are keeping all/most of them on a single drive.

I have put a separate int HDD into my PC, solely for my photographs, and have 2 ext HDDs for back up. Amazon have a 1TB WD ext HDD for £57.99 - just got one

1tb is small these days, personally for an extra £20 or thereabouts i'd get a 2tb if i didnt already have 3 of them, mine where self builds. bought the drives samsung's and case's seperately.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-external/desktopusb2.0/wdbaau0020hbk-uesn.html
2tb £81.54 Western Digital.

Handsome90

neilwoods wrote: »

Just curious, do you use photo editing software for fun or work.

For fun You might be wondering how the heck did I fill up my 500 GB HDD with photos. The answer is I didn't. I also have music, tv programmes, etc., stored in that HDD

andy2004 wrote: »

1tb is small these days, personally for an extra £20 or thereabouts i'd get a 2tb if i didnt already have 3 of them, mine where self builds. bought the drives samsung's and case's seperately.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-external/desktopusb2.0/wdbaau0020hbk-uesn.html
2tb £81.54 Western Digital.

Thanks for that link!

closed

can get usb2 2tB drives cheaper, ebuyer <£70 delivered

but they are desktop drives, not portable.

yangptangkipperbang

andy2004 wrote: »

1tb is small these days, personally for an extra £20 or thereabouts i'd get a 2tb if i didnt already have 3 of them, mine where self builds. bought the drives samsung's and case's seperately.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-external/desktopusb2.0/wdbaau0020hbk-uesn.html
2tb £81.54 Western Digital.

I never buy vastly bigger than I need for several reasons. When I NEED a 2TB drive, they will be even cheaper and technology moves on too - my new 1TB is USB3. A USB3 PCI card cost me £9.99 to more than double my backup speed.