Re: Solid State Disk to boost Mathematica performance
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg129548] Re: Solid State Disk to boost Mathematica performance
- From: João Paulo Pereira <joaopereira9 at gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 02:40:26 -0500 (EST)
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On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 5:09 AM, Szabolcs Horv=E1t <szhorvat at gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > The short answer is no, it won't boost Mathematica's performance for > most computation. > > The longer answer is that the Mathematica kernel doesn't need to access > the disk a lot (unless you explicitly ask it to write/read things > to/from disk), and its speed it mainly limited by your CPU. Where the > SSD will make a noticeable difference in Mathematica is browsing the > documentation centre. Help pages will load faster in my experience. It > will also significantly speed up the startup of many programs and will > reduce the boot time of your OS, so it may be a worthwhile upgrade > > On 2013-01-20 06:25:24 +0000, E. Mart=EDn-Serrano said: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am thinking of installing a 256 GB Solid State Disk (SSD) on my > machine to > > increase its performance. > > > > The current configuration of my machine is: 4 cores (8 threads), 3,4 > GHz; > > with 12 GB DD3-RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 400 (3 GB integrated RAM) and 4 > TB > > Internal HD. It is not a small machine, I think. > > > > The Solid State Disk (SSD) would hold the operating system (Windows 8) > and > > Mathematica (currently v8); plus some half a dozen of other "mission > > critical" programs. > > > > Anyway, the true actual candidates to reside in the SSD are Windows 8 and > > Mathematica, but I wonder whether it is going to really boost the > > performance of Mathematica considering that the machine already has 12 > GB of > > RAM. > > > > But I do not know how Mathematica deals with the kernel and the fronted > > (their interaction), in other words, whether the kernel uses de internal > HD > > to interact with the kernel and vice versa. > > > > I use intensively and extensively dynamics constructs, and in many > occasions > > the dynamic refreshing uses Solve, NSolve and, in occasions NDSolve and > > DSolve, within the second parameter to Dynamic. In any case, with or > without > > solving (always small) systems of equations, moving graphical objects > tied > > to dynamic locators remains an unsolvable issue to me. > > > > In summary, my question is whether the SSD holding windows and > Mathematica > > would bust in any form Mathematica's performance. > > > > Kind regards > > > > E. Martin-Serrano > > > Hi, please let me enter this discussion. I am thinking in buying a new laptop and I'm planning to use Mathematica a lot. I thought having a SSD was essential. Apparently it isn't. Some of you have suggested some features that are important. Besides CPU speed and memory and 64 bit, what should I be looking for in order to increase performance while running Mathematica? My best regards Joao