Photographer - Upgrade Dell? and/or a bit of build advice...

[joerichland]

I've never built a PC, but I think I have it in me. I currently use a long in the tooth Dell XPS 8100 that I have upgraded in terms of RAM, GPU and storage. It's specs are i7-860 with 16GB DDR3 RAM, nVidia GT-640, 500GB & 250GB SSD's and 1TB 7200 HDD along with several USB 3.0 cheap (5400rpm) external HDD.

I'm a still photographer and my primary use is processing large image files in Photoshop and Lightroom. I am looking to speed up my workflow. I am considering this build, which I think will give me a large performance increase.....

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/wq9Ycc

It seems I'd need to replace so many parts of the Dell that I'd be better off with the listed build and move the dell down a rung in the household?

Assuming that the new build is the way to go, I'm a bit confused on the motherboard and storage. The M.2 drive I chose is NVME which I understand will be my fastest storage by a considerable margin. I'm a bit unclear about if that drive uses some of my SATA 6 capability? As proposed I have the M.2 drive, 2 ssd drives & 2 HDD's. Will the proposed MOB support all that and would I have the ability to add 2 more HDD drives later if I choose?

Lastly, I don't know if I can/should use the M.2 drive as my boot drive, or as a working drive for my current LR load. My entire image collection is around 5TB so it can't fit on the M.2 but perhaps the Lightroom Catalog/database?

Any advice in advance of me pulling the trigger is appreciated

Thanks

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

That's a very good build you've put together.

NVMe storage devices use the PCIe bus, just like a GPU, so SATA is unaffected. NVMe is considerably faster than SATA, so you should use that for the OS and programs. The motherboard has six SATA 3.0 ports, so your SSDs and HDDs will work just fine.

I assume the second SSD and HDD are for backup purposes?

 

[joerichland]

That's a very good build you've put together.

NVMe storage devices use the PCIe bus, just like a GPU, so SATA is unaffected. NVMe is considerably faster than SATA, so you should use that for the OS and programs. The motherboard has six SATA 3.0 ports, so your SSDs and HDDs will work just fine.

I assume the second SSD and HDD are for backup purposes?

Actually not intended for backup. I generally back up my images to external USB HDD's that end up offsite. Pretty much everything else I now have in the cloud.

My thoughts about the 2 SSD's are that I would put my OS and most programs on one, and the Adobe applications on a different drive, is that a reasonable strategy? The 5TB HDD's are for my image files. I have about 4TB of images already and I understand if I fill the drive much beyond that it will slow down?

Perhaps I'd be better off putting OS and Adobe programs on the NVMe and skip one of the SSD's?

Thanks for the help.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

The OS and programs should all go on the NVMe as this offers the best performance. An SSD can be useful as a scratch drive (temporary storage) for your images whilst you work on them.