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Does Reunion make full use of multiple cores?

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    Does Reunion make full use of multiple cores?

    I currently run Reunion 12 on a late 2012 27" iMac, 3.4GHz Intel Core i7 (which I understand is quad core), 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3. The iMac has a 1TB fusion drive, with a meagre 58GB available space. Very much time for an upgrade.

    I'm close to ordering a 16" MacBook Pro with 2.4 GHz 8-core 9th generation Intel Core i9 processor with Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz. I'll probably order the 32GB of 2666MHz DDR4 memory, and 4TB of SSD storage.

    The processor speed on the Macbook Pro is slower, but double the number of cores. And of course i9 vs i7.

    Am I likely to notice a significant improvement with Reunion with the new hardware specs? I have almost 75,000 individuals in my Reunion family file. I've noticed generating and searching through a list of Sources (3,125 of them) has slowed to a crawl these days.

    On the iMac I run MacOS 10.13.6 High Sierra because a HDD disk fault prevents me from upgrading to anything later. Obviously the MacBook Pro will have the latest OS installed.

    Interested in thoughts from anybody who knows more than I in terms of what resources Reunion capitalises on, or from anybody who's moved from and to similar specs.
    Last edited by Steven; 20 November 2019, 12:52 AM.

    #2
    You will likely see an improvement in performance due to the SSD, the newer processor and the Turbo Boost. However, the extra cores will not add much to Reunion's performance.
    Gregg Witmer
    Leister Productions, Inc.

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      #3
      Looking at my processor-usage graphs (from iStat) when Reunion is running, it does not appear to Reunion uses all cores or indeed maximize the use of any single core.

      I did notice that, when I transplanted an SSD into my iMac (2014) which had been Fusion drive before, Reunion was able to work with larger databases better. This is particularly since the main family database builds up over time and with fragmentation this becomes very much slower on spinning discs. (The Fusion Drive is supposed to locate often-used files on the SSD portion of the disk, but that doesn’t work)

      Other things that speed up Reunion are: Close the separate list window, irrespective of what it is showing
      Switch off 'Identify relatives on the fly'
      I was thinking that Color Tags would also lead to slow down but switching it off (I have 20 color-coded lines) does not lead to a noticeable speed increase.

      Considering the specs on your iMac, perhaps it is worth investing in a 2 TB SSD upgrade? It’s not a do-it-yourself job. Two years ago it set me back $700 plus labor but I got something that felt like a brand-new zippy Mac...
      --
      Eric Van Beest
      Spring, TX

      Researching: Van Beest, Feijen, Van Herk

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by eric.vanbeest View Post
        Considering the specs on your iMac, perhaps it is worth investing in a 2 TB SSD upgrade?
        That definitely would've been my preferred option, Eric. However earlier this year I took my professionally packaged iMac on a flight, and a Virgin Australia baggage handler obviously dropped it, because on arrival, the top left corner of the iMac aluminium chassis was slightly bent, and the glass in that corner shattered. Apple itself won't instal anything but a replacement 1TB fusion drive in that model. I found a 3rd party repairer who would install a 2TB+ SSD, but in addition to the cost of the larger capacity storage, there's the matter of the bent chassis, broken screen, etc. Then of course there's the risk that with a 2012 iMac, something else fails after the storage issue has been resolved.

        Soooo, I've been waiting for the announcement of the 16" MacBook Pro, and looking forward mostly to not having to live with the limitation of almost-exhausted storage. I'll be using the iMac as an external monitor due to the healthy screen size.

        As an aside, I did take out travel insurance at the time I purchased the fateful airline ticket. The insurance was one of those add-ons which the airline encourages a customer to buy at the time of buying an airline ticket. The insurance was through CoverMore. I took out the insurance specifically because I was taking the iMac on as cargo, and I know how much your average baggage-handler doesn't give a sh*t when it comes to respecting the property of others.

        When it came to making a claim for the damage, between Virgin Australia and CoverMore there were more exclusion clauses than either you or I have had hot dinners.

        For instance, CoverMore's insurance policy did not cover 'valuables', and valuables were defined as including computers. Why on earth an insurance company is allowed to sell an insurance policy that doesn't cover valuables remains beyond my comprehension, given that this is precisely the reason that the concept of insurance exists. Mind you, this was despite Virgin Austraila's promotion of that insurance showing an image of an iPad. Not only that, CoverMore's policy capped claims at AUD 750. Apple's quote for repair was close to AUD 2,000.

        I informed Virgin Australia that regardless of the tirade of disclaimers that it and CoverMore launched, Virgin Australia could not contract out of its legislative obligation to provide due care and diligence in the process of providing a professional service, which included providing carriage for my iMac. The matter would be taken to court. Cut a long story short, CoverMore ended up paying out its AUD 750 cap, and Virgin Australia continued to disclaim liability but once it realised I was serious about the court action, agreed to settle for the difference between CoverMore's payout and the quote from Apple.

        Frankly, a rort all round. I guess the commercial reality is that there are plenty of expenses to be saved by denying liability.
        Last edited by Steven; 20 November 2019, 03:47 PM.

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          #5
          In case of interest to some, I've since migrated from the late 2012 27" iMac, 3.4GHz Intel Core i7 with 1TB fusion drive, to a 16" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz 8-core Intel Core i9 with 4TB SSD.

          Overall performance seems to be a little better, perhaps clouded by problems I've had with migration of Apple's Mail from High Sierra to Catalina, and the fact that a good chunk of processing power continues to be absorbed, it seems, by the Photos app proceeding with conversion of 60,000 files (277GB) from High Sierra to Catalina. It's now Day 21 since receipt of the MacBook Pro, with the progress bar within Photos indicating about 90% complete.

          Reunion-specific performance is, it seems, about the same, ie. mildly better. I was hoping for a pleasant surprise when it came to searching through Sources. But post upgrade, that continues to be the most apparent bottle neck. What intrigues me, as a non software coder, is why I can list and filter around 75,000 People with quite acceptable speed, yet listing and filtering around 3,150 Sources is comparatively tiresome.

          Example: I click on People. No filter. List of 74,787 presents almost instantaneously. I filter for KNOWLES. Filtered list appears, almost instantaneously.
          I click on Sources, for which there are currently 3,143 sources. I search for Knowles. Around 5 seconds to return filtered list. I click away from Sources, then click back into Sources. Around 10 seconds to regenerate the previously filtered list.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Steven View Post
            ...I filter for KNOWLES. Filtered list appears, almost instantaneously.
            I click on Sources, for which there are currently 3,143 sources. I search for Knowles. Around 5 seconds to return filtered list...
            To explain why you are seeing such a difference in searching speed...

            When you search the People list for "KNOWLES" - Reunion is only concerned with one field, the last name field. In addition, Reunion maintains a cache of the last names in the background to make this search even faster. The People list search is not actually looking at each person record it's actually going through an optimized cache which is very fast.

            However, when you search the Sources list for "KNOWLES" - Reunion must go through each structured source field and the freeform text field for each source, no source fields are cached so this can be a rather time consuming search.

            Gregg Witmer
            Leister Productions, Inc.

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