Should I use an external SSD or my internal SSD on DELL XPS

I have a Dell XPS 15 and use Da Vinci Resolve Studio 14. Happy with the laptop and the software but I am interested to find the absolute best way to make it run smartly, saving my laptop from over straining and not breaking the bank. My laptop specs are as follows...

Dell XPS 15 9560 - 15.6" - Core i7 7700HQ - 16 GB RAM - 512 GB SSD - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 - 4 GB GDDR5 SDRAM

(It has a thunderbolt port also).

I want to ask what would you add to this to make it super efficient. For instance should I upgrade my SSD to a 1tb or should I get an external SSD 1tb to plug in through thunderbolt and work like this. I don't know what is better to have my scratch disk on or the pros and cons. I also thought about having an external GPU for any time I need to heavily edit or grade in da Vinci as I believe I could use the internal and external GPU. I'm looking in to the Sonnet Puck RX70 atm as on their website they claim best portable GPU for Da Vinci Resolve.

So should I edit off an external ssd (then backing up once finished to an external hard drive then deleting the files from this SSD ready for the next edit). Or should I use my SSD I already have internally on my computer to edit and then back up to external Hard drive / delete.

Also is that GPU Sonnet Puck along used with the internal GPU a good choice? I do like it for its portability. Or should I get a better more bulkier EGPU and use it for indoor use for heavy grading and rely on my internal GPU for working on the road.

Sorry if this post is really long and winding on. If any of you have a set up like this or found something that works for you please let me know.



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Hi.

I am new to Resolve to, but I hope that I can answer some of you computer related quietens.

I found a review of you computer here:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS- ... 648.0.html

At the end of the review under the Pros I read:

Thunderbolt 3 (albeit only 2x PCIe lanes)

For me that is not a Pro. For me only 2x PCIe lanes is a big Con.

Last year I ask this forum for recommendations for other eGPU's, all with 4x PCIe lanes. The answer was they are all to slow. So I can't really recommend you to buy an eGPU when your Dell only have 2x PCIe lanes to the Thunderbolt 3 port.

But if you still consider to use one, do I like to tell you that there is a lot of rumors on the Internet about a new generation of nVidea Graphics cards. Some rumors say spring other say summer. So I can't recommend you to buy the current generation. I will suggest that you try to Google GTX 2080.

Regards Carsten

Hi there,

I tried the Sonnet egpu RX570 and had some surprising results:

I am working with a MacPro 15" 2016 / HighSierra 10.13.6 / AMD Pro 460 (that is approximately 1.86 TFlops) and Davinci Resolve Studio 15. I rendered a complicated 4K clip that "normally" takes 7 minutes for delivery.
With the RX570 attached the clip was rendered in ... 6 minutes 24 seconds. Very disappointing, I thought and tried out different configurations.
I discovered that by switching OFF the internal GPU AMD PRO 460 und selecting the eGPU ONLY the system got a real boost! (talking about Davinci Resolve Studio 15)
The clip now rendered in 3 minutes 32 seconds with the egpu ONLY.
To be sure I deleted the cache, made a new project and repeated the experiment. This time it was 3 minutes 36 seconds for the RX570 egpu ONLY and 7 minutes 12 seconds with the AMD PRO 460 ONLY. 6 minutes 26 with both card selected.
The best results I got by selecting metal.

My conclusion: The Sonnet egpu RX570 has 5 TFlops, so it is theoretically 2,7 times faster than the PRO 460. In my system it is in fact approximately 2 times faster than than the internal card. You can use that potential (at least with the MacPro) best by using it as the ONLY graphics card.
My guess: In comparison with the 1050 (I think it is 1.76 TFlops) the egpu should give you a good boost.
Of course the TFlops are not everything...

If anyone out there knows why the egpu works better with the internal PRO 460 disabled I would love to know!

Regards Hubertus