External Hard Drive choice help

I need to upgrade my equipment this year as CS5 and LR3 start getting real slow on my iMac 2.8 ghz intel dual with 4 GB RAM (maxed out) Even with LR set to 32bit.
Even getting a new system, it may not be a bad idea to have a dedicated scratch disk.
I was reading in this article on optimizing performance that I should get a Solid State Disk for a scratch drive. What is a SSD? Will a Fire wire external disk be sufficient?
I need this dumbed down a bit! Thanks. ;-)

lesnicole wrote:
I need to upgrade my equipment this year as CS5 and LR3 start getting real slow on my iMac 2.8 ghz intel dual with 4 GB RAM (maxed out) Even with LR set to 32bit.
Even getting a new system, it may not be a bad idea to have a dedicated scratch disk.
I was reading in this article on optimizing performancethat I should get a Solid State Disk for a scratch drive. What is a SSD? Will a Fire wire external disk be sufficient?
I need this dumbed down a bit! Thanks. ;-)
Hi lesnicole
The new iMacs can be configured with both an SSD and a mechanical drive, the SSD would be for the Lion OS plus your programs, the mechanical drive - I think you can go up to 2TB - would be for your data files, and could also be assigned as the scratch.
One thing to realize about SSD's is that although they give blistering performance, I'm using 2 of them in my new Win7 build, they do have their drawbacks, the major one of which is that they wear out, just like an old LP record or video tape, and what wears them is writing to them. Reading from the device has no impact on its life whatsoever, so the ideal use for the drive is for your OS + Apps as outlined above, as once you've installed all your programs, the vast majority of the activity on the drive will be reads. This is a really good article that should give you an understanding of the core technologies and processes behind the devices.
As I mentioned, I've just built a new system with 2 SSD's, one for my OS + Apps, and the second, which is an older one from my previous system, that I have "recycled," and given to Photoshop as a scratch disk... I'm interested in seeing how long it will last! LOL!
Another alternative, and one that I would personally favor, even though the new iMacs are pretty incredible, is the Mac Pro tower because you can have up to 5 drives in there; there are 4 drive bays as standard, plus you could install an SSD for your OS + Apps in the second, empty. Superdrive bay. Hopefully we'll see a new Mac Pro sometime this year which will include the Thunderbolt port!
Good luck!
Paul

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