Laboratory Computer Performance in a Digital Pathology Environment: Outcomes from a Single Institution
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 31, 2026

Author Spotlight: Enhancing Neurorehabilitation Through EEG, Motor Imagery, and Virtual Reality
Published on: May 10, 2024
Mark D Zarella1, Adam Feldscher2
1Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Background:
In an effort to provide improved user experience and system reliability at a moderate cost, our department embarked on targeted upgrades of a total of 87 computers over a period of 3 years. Upgrades came in three forms: (i) replacement of the computer with newer architecture, (ii) replacement of the computer's hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD), or (iii) replacement of the computer with newer architecture and a SSD.
Methods:
We measured the impact of each form of upgrade on a set of pathology-relevant tasks that fell into three categories: standard use, whole-slide navigation, and whole-slide analysis. We used time to completion of a task as the primary variable of interest.
Results:
We found that for most tasks, the SSD upgrade had a greater impact than the upgrade in architecture. This effect was especially prominent for whole-slide viewing, likely due to the way in which most whole-slide viewers cached image tiles. However, other tasks, such as whole-slide image analysis, often relied less on disk input or output and were instead more sensitive to the computer architecture.
Conclusions:
Based on our experience, we suggest that SSD upgrades are viewed in some settings as a viable alternative to complete computer replacement and recommend that computer replacements in a digital pathology setting are accompanied by an upgrade to SSDs.
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