banannaboat

Q: Editing files over network - am i using my mac or the NAS?

Something i've always wanted to know...

 

All my files are stored on a NAS attached to ethernet network, pretty standard setup, nothing special. Whenever I edit a file (such as a photoshop file), i look for it on the NAS and open it (i don't copy it off the NAS to my hard drive), then once i'm done i just save and close then move on.

 

What I would like to know is when using this method am i using the resources of my Mac (such as the processors and hard drive) or am I using the NAS and am I being restricted by the network speed? There must be some element of both because there's no way my NAS could handle editing a big Photoshop file and I'm guessing the file must be being temporarily written to my Mac's hard drive during the process.

 

The reason for my question is to understand if upgrading my hard drive to an SSD will have a performance increase or am i limited to the throughput of the network?

Mac Pro, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 9:07 AM

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Q: Editing files over network - am i using my mac or the NAS?

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  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Sep 15, 2016 9:45 AM in response to banannaboat
    Level 9 (60,971 points)
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    Sep 15, 2016 9:45 AM in response to banannaboat

    I'm guessing the file must be being temporarily written to my Mac's hard drive during the process.

    You are guessing wrong, unless Photoshop deliberately writes it to the Scratch volume.

     

    A Gigabit Ethernet link provides "near hard drive" performance. Those file Reads are coming straight off your NAS as individual records. Your Mac DOES store them in its recently-read RAM cache in case they need to be re-read soon.

     

    upgrading my hard drive to an SSD will have a performance increase

     

    Yes, upgrading your Boot Drive to an SSD will have a measurable performance increase. This is because of what is happening on the Boot Drive. All day long MacOS is "snacking" on the contents of the Boot drive, reading parts of a directories, parts of preference file, parts of Applications and Aplications' sandboxes, swap files, spool files for printing and other too numerous to mention.

     

    There is a logjam around the boot drive. The maximum speed it can move the head to a new location (which incurs dead time while the seek completes) followed by the Read or Write.

     

    When you switch from a rotating drive to an SSD, all those factors increase sharply, and overall system lag decrease a great deal.

     

    Another way to get more performance is to use separate drives for each of:

    Boot/ Applications/ swapfiles

    Picture Source file

    Picture destination file

    Scratch Volume, if used