Computer Specs for best case Calibre Usage

[LMF]

Hi Guys,

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I'm in the market for a new computer and a big part of my use of it is going to be with calibre. I have about a 30thousand book collection that needs a fair bit of work done on metadata etc.

What I'm wondering is whether a quad core (over dual core) laptop would be more beneficial for work with calibre or whether clock speed should be the greater consideration. My (limited) understanding is that not all programs can utilise multiple cores and I don't know if calibre can or not. It will be either an i5 or i7 with 4-8gigs of ram and I do multitask a lot. My present laptop (an old inspiron 1525, win 32, dual core, 3gb ram, 1mb cache) predominantly slows down and maxes out the cpu only when I'm using calibre so I'm presuming anything will be fine for the other programs I run and my key consideration is what laptop specs will be most beneficial for calibre. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

And a huge thanks to those who created and keep calibre running strong!

Linda

[HarryT]

Linda,

I've just gone from a dual-core i5 laptop to a quad-core i7, and it's made a tremendous improvement to the performance of Calibre.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by LMF

...My (limited) understanding is that not all programs can utilise multiple cores and I don't know if calibre can or not. ...

Running Calibre 0.8.41 on a quad-core desktop; roughly 5000 books.

I open task manager and note each processor usage; near zero as I have few background apps running.

I open Calibre and note only one processor responds. No threading on startup, at least on my system.

I run a bulk heuristic conversion on several books and all four processors kick in.

So, there ya go.

ETA: I got curious at threading level and picked one book and ran the conversion again. Again, all four kicked in. There ya go some more.

[LMF]

Thanks Harry,

Were other specs like ram similar on both computers. I guess what I'm asking is do you think the improvement came from it being quad-core and not some other improvement like more ram or higher clock speed.

Ideally I'd get an i7 quad core with plenty of ram and a high clock speed but money is a factor and so I'm looking for value for money, trying to avoid paying a lot more for better specs that only provide minimally noticeable benefits.

[LMF]

Thanks Rob,

That helps a great deal to know it can use all the processors. Pity it can't on startup since it takes so long to load large libraries but I can happily live with that as once I start calibre I tend not to close it until I turn of the computer anyway.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by LMF

Thanks Rob,

That helps a great deal to know it can use all the processors. Pity it can't on startup since it takes so long to load large libraries but I can happily live with that as once I start calibre I tend not to close it until I turn of the computer anyway.

I don't 'know' that it won't on startup, just that it didn't on mine. Presumably, if it had to do any sorting, indexing or importing, it may well have. Anyway, I can't imagine the size of the library would have too much to do with the time it takes calibre to start; I would think it is just referencing an existing database and the associated indexes, not loading the entire thing at startup. If your version is taking too long to start up, you may have 'other' issues going on.

Kovid may chime in later and set us all right.

[LMF]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

If your version is taking too long to start up, you may have 'other' issues going on.

That could well be true also - my laptop's three years old, has been a real workhorse and I think it would benefit from a clean up! I'm holding off doing anything to it though until I get a new one and then I'll just use it when I really need to share the workload between them both.

The time it takes at start up though really isn't something I'm worried about - it's probably only a couple of minutes. At first I kept thinking it was a problem because it would become non-responsive while it was trying to load and I'd often kill the process but now I've realised as long as I leave it, it eventually loads up.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by LMF

Pity it can't on startup since it takes so long to load large libraries

If that is your priority, you might want to put your library on a better harddisk. Perhaps even Solid State Disk.
My friends tell me that if you have limited budget to improve PC it might be better to get SSD and a bit weaker processor, instead of splurging on really fast processor alone.

If you do less conversions and more work with metadata, where Calibre has to open many files fast, you might benefit form a faster disk more than from a faster processor.

A friend of mine used to use several harddisks in Raid0, stripped to improve access times to data. Now he uses SSD.
Do make frequent backups if you go the Raid0 path ;-)

[LMF]

Originally Posted by kacir

If that is your priority, you might want to put your library on a better harddisk. Perhaps even Solid State Disk.

If you do less conversions and more work with metadata, where Calibre has to open many files fast, you might benefit form a faster disk more than from a faster processor.

This is certainly something I need to consider. It's trying to work out where the best 'bang for the buck' is and a solid state drive is very tempting, especially since most of my work will be on metadata and not conversions. I just wish they were that little bit cheaper and that little bit bigger

I think though I'm more inclined to wait and see on the solid disc drive because that's something that can be updated pretty painlessly after purchase but it will certainly be something I keep in mind.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by LMF

Thanks Harry,

Were other specs like ram similar on both computers. I guess what I'm asking is do you think the improvement came from it being quad-core and not some other improvement like more ram or higher clock speed.

Ideally I'd get an i7 quad core with plenty of ram and a high clock speed but money is a factor and so I'm looking for value for money, trying to avoid paying a lot more for better specs that only provide minimally noticeable benefits.

My new laptop does have 8GB RAM compared with 4GB on the older machine, that's true. But memory is nowhere near overcommitted on the older laptop while doing conversions, so I don't think that's a particular issue.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

If that is your priority, you might want to put your library on a better harddisk. Perhaps even Solid State Disk.
My friends tell me that if you have limited budget to improve PC it might be better to get SSD and a bit weaker processor, instead of splurging on really fast processor alone.

A couple of years ago I had a Dell netbook with an SSD. Reading from disk was OK, but writing was mind-numbingly slow. Like going back to floppy-disk speeds! I'm sure that not all SSDs are that slow, but bear in mind that SSD does not automatically equate to better performance - it can be worse. A LOT worse.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by kacir

If that is your priority, you might want to put your library on a better harddisk. Perhaps even Solid State Disk.
My friends tell me that if you have limited budget to improve PC it might be better to get SSD and a bit weaker processor, instead of splurging on really fast processor alone.

If you do less conversions and more work with metadata, where Calibre has to open many files fast, you might benefit form a faster disk more than from a faster processor.

Upgrading to a better mechanical disk wouldn't really make much of a difference as access times and random read/write would still be atrocious. I can definitely attest to the fact that Calibre works faster with SSDs, though. Unfortunately, moving to an SSD is not always feasible when dealing with laptops. Since a laptop is mobile, there may be times when internet access isn't available and needing to carry external hard drives or flash drives all the time due to insufficient internal storage is inconvenient.

@HarryT
That Dell netbook probably has one of those cheap JMicron SSDs. Even for its time, it was considered pretty bad (quite awful particularly when compared to the 1st gen Intel SSDs). Modern SSD's from Intel, Crucial and Samsung are pretty safe bets.

[HarryT]

[QUOTE=ilovejedd;1993289
@HarryT
That Dell netbook probably has one of those cheap JMicron SSDs. Even for its time, it was considered pretty bad (quite awful particularly when compared to the 1st gen Intel SSDs). Modern SSD's from Intel, Crucial and Samsung are pretty safe bets.[/QUOTE]

Thank you - that's good to hear.

[LMF]

Am I right in saying a possible solution to the limited storage problem with a ssd is to replace the optical drive (if it's an interchangeable one) with another hard drive for storage? I doubt I'd use the dvd/cd player - probably only if I have installation cd's from time to time. If I used the optical drive for another hard drive could I take it out and put the dvd/cd drive back in on the rare occasion I need it?

Also, to get optimum performance my calibre library files would need to be on the ssd but I'm wondering would I still get a performance boost if my laptop was run from the ssd but I had my book files on another hard drive? My library is quite large and I'm just trying to work out the logistics.

[ilovejedd]

Whether it's easy to take out the optical drive depends on the laptop. If it uses normal slim optical drives, then yeah, your idea will work. I've seen some slim 5.25" ODD to 2.5" HDD adapters on Newegg. What you could also do is keep the Calibre metadata database on the SSD while keeping the actual books on a separate disk. There's a DOS batch file somewhere in the Calibre install directory showing you how to do this.