Selecting, installing, maintaining a scratch drive

[PSA DC-9-30]

I'm going to buy a new Vista 64 bit system this week and will have them install a second internal hard drive for PS to use as a scratch drive. I will probably get at least a 320 Gb drive (main one is 640 Gb).

What specs should I look for in such a drive? (I'm still using CS2) Is the speed of the drive very important?--I thought that speed will only be an advantage for random searches which will not be an issue for a scratch drive.

Aside from keeping the disk only half full and defragmented, are there any other maintenance issues I should be aware of to maximize speed?

[rdonson]

What drive do you plan to put the Vista scratch (paging) file on?  You might consider buying two more drives.  If you really want to optimize you'll probably want your images on yet another drive.

[Mark D Segal]

I'm going to buy a new Vista 64 bit system this week and will have them install a second internal hard drive for PS to use as a scratch drive. I will probably get at least a 320 Gb drive (main one is 640 Gb).

What specs should I look for in such a drive? (I'm still using CS2) Is the speed of the drive very important?--I thought that speed will only be an advantage for random searches which will not be an issue for a scratch drive.

Aside from keeping the disk only half full and defragmented, are there any other maintenance issues I should be aware of to maximize speed?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217408\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You most likely don't need such a high capacity drive to serve as a scratch disk, though I haven't seen much guidance on what is the minimum safe size. Speed - in terms of both rpm and transferring information - are the key performance variables of interest for this function. Get the fastest you can. Here's some guidance from Wikipedia on top-of-the-line HD speeds:

<<The fastest “enterprise” HDDs spin at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm, and can achieve sequential media transfer speeds above 1.6 Gbit/s and a sustained transfer rate up to 125MBytes/second. Drives running at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm use smaller platters because of air drag and therefore generally have lower capacity than the highest capacity desktop drives.>>

[ruraltrekker]

I use Vista 64 bit with 4 drives:

#1 is a 250 for OS & Programs

#2 is 1 250 partioned into two drives - A) 15 gigs as PS scratch disk  balance as a documents disk

#3 is a 500 for active jobs (all jobs get archived to mirrored servers after they are complete and cleared from this drive)

#4 is a 500 for active personal work (same as #3 jobs - moved to servers)

I have 8 gigs of ram and my windows page file is on drive #1, set to 12 gigs if I remember correctly.

This setup works just fine - at times I am working on 3-5 gig PSB files (lots of layers)

This setup cranks pretty well.

Ken

[PSA DC-9-30]

Thanks for the replies. My budget is limited, but if I had the choice of adding a second additional drive (total of three) or upping the RAM from 4Gb, which do you think would have a greater effect on system performance and speed? I will be using CS2, Lightroom 2.0, Illustrator 10 (which hopefully is compatible with Vista 64 bit!), but rarely simultaneously. The raw files from my E-510 are around 11 Mb each, although I have some scans of my Kodachromes that weigh in at over 300 Mb!!

[bill t.]

I think spend your money on RAM rather than a drive.

I have a Vista64 + CS3 + 8GB.  My main scratch disc is the drive that doesn't have my image files on it.  I have done nothing else, have never set up a ram disc or any such thing.  The system handles 1GB panoramic files with ease, I often see the "Used" RAM on the CPU Usage widgit go well above 4GB while in PS, and I rarely see any significant disc swapping.  Vista and/or CS3 apparently know how to make the most of what it has available, perhaps ram discs are being automatically allocated during those above-4GB instances.  Hugely better PS experience that with XP or the Macs I sometimes use.

In any case, RAM and more RAM will be the order of the day for 64bit CSx.  Remember you only have so many RAM slots available, fill them wisely.

[ruraltrekker]

I think spend your money on RAM rather than a drive.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217500\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I agree as well. Ram has gotten so cheap and it is the first place the machine goes to.

You will really enjoy working with Vista 64 bit. A world of difference from XP.

Ken

[ruraltrekker]

I will be using CS2, Lightroom 2.0, Illustrator 10 (which hopefully is compatible with Vista 64 bit!)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217486\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

All of these programs listed work just fine with Vista 64.

Lightroom 2.0 will install as a 64 bit program by the way.

Ken

[budjames]

Ditch Vista and buy a MacPro. Everything will work better, faster and more reliably. If you really want to run Vista, using Bootcamp or Parallels, you can run it on your Mac.

Bud
Former Windows and Vista user.

[PSA DC-9-30]

I bought a Seagate SATA II 250 Gb drive for the scratch drive, which they are installing now (wish I knew how to do more of this type of thing myself and save a lot of money!). I'm going to see how this system runs on 4Gb RAM for now, and install more later myself. (In any case, it'll be scorchingly fast compared to my old XP system, which never even had a scratch drive).

[PSA DC-9-30]

Another question, if you would be so kind...

Now that I have my new Vista 64 bit system, will I need to uninstall Photoshop CS2, Illustrator 10, and Acrobat 7.0 from the old machine before they will install on the new one? (One possible complicating factor is that these are academic versions)

[bill t.]

Yes, you must "deactive" on the old machine, then "activate" on the new one.  Adobe seems to be in the middle of automating this process, for instance I recall this was a menu item for CS3, but I had to go through some business on the phone for Premiere.  Sorry, can't remember the steps for CS3, but the phone support was painless and fast, and there were no hitches and no down time.

[Mark D Segal]

Ditch Vista and buy a MacPro. Everything will work better, faster and more reliably. If you really want to run Vista, using Bootcamp or Parallels, you can run it on your Mac.

Bud
Former Windows and Vista user.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217703\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Do you have the operating stats? Have you done bench tests on similarly configured PC and Mac systems to confirm this? Kept records of downtime on each system long enough to know for sure?

Now, turning back to the specific advice the OP requested of us, I believe it fair to say that the basic principles of system configuration favouring better performance of Photoshop apply to both systems - generally more RAM is the first recommendation always made, to minimize recourse to the scratch disk. No matter how fast and how big the scratch disk, it will slow you down every time it needs to be accessed. But there are limits to how much RAM the application and the OS working together can profitably use. Beyond that, the rpm and the data transfer rates of the scratch disk will make a difference. Adobe publishes excellent papers on its website for both Mac and PC discussing these variables in some detail. I would recommend that any one buying a new system should read those papers first.

I don't wish to re-ignite this silly flamewar between the fanatics of alternative operating systems, but a couple of comments are in order. One compelling reason to consider a Mac now that they have Intel processors is the flexibility they offer to operate in both Windows and Mac OS environments. There's no question it's an excellent system, for the time being free of most of the security issues we face in the PC world, and were I starting afresh I would seriously consider converting; but that said, a properly configured PC efficiently produces excellent, reliable results. This isn't a religious decision - these systems are just tools to serve a purpose - do some research if you haven't already and chose the one you think will best suit your needs and comfort.

[theophilus]

Just a few notes:

1) The Windows paging file can be on the same physical hard drive as you have Windows on, but it should have its own partition.  Normally this partition should be 1.5x-2x the size of your RAM.  Since you eventually want 8 gigs of RAM I would do 12 GB minimum.

The reason the paging file needs a separate partition is to keep your other drives from getting fragmented.  If you just have one big C: drive the paging file is what fragments it and slows it down.

2) RAM is cheap right now.  Hard Drives are always dropping in price for more GB.  I would go 8 GB of RAM now if you can swing it, it could just cost more later.  As an example, last summer I purchased 2 GB of RAM for $140, and I bought 2 more GB of the exact same RAM last week for $40.  It could easily go back up.  Hard Drives are always dropping in price.

3) The size of the Photoshop scratch disk depends on the size of images you are working on.  If you are stitching huge pano's then you need 10's of GB.  For just normal one-shot 12-16 megapixel shots then 10 GB is plenty.

[ruraltrekker]

Just a few notes:

The reason the paging file needs a separate partition is to keep your other drives from getting fragmented.  If you just have one big C: drive the paging file is what fragments it and slows it down.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217828\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

OH, but there is a way to keep this from happening. Go to the advance settings and use custom under virtual memory to set the page file to 12 gigs, both as initial and maximum. The file is now fixed in size on the disk and does not move around, which the paging file does if set to the default setup.

Ken

[ruraltrekker]

Ditch Vista and buy a MacPro.
Bud
Former Windows and Vista user.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217703\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I thought the tag line was "Get a Mac"?

I don't get this Vista bashing. I have found 64 bit to be a great OS and I also find the 32 bit to be better than XP. I had 5 computers running XP and stayed away from Vista because everyone said it was crap. Well I got a laptop with Vista 32 and just found it a better way to do things and just a cleaner interface. Having issues with my workstation running XP & CS3 I changed it to Vista 64 and whala, no issues and now I have more ram to use than I did with XP. I have since converted all but two machines (both are acting as file servers) to Vista. Seriously, I am getting tired of hearing this "Vista sucks" crap. It just isn't true.

Ken

[KeithR]

OH, but there is a way to keep this from happening. Go to the advance settings and use custom under virtual memory to set the page file to 12 gigs, both as initial and maximum. The file is now fixed in size on the disk and does not move around, which the paging file does if set to the default setup.

Ken
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217905\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Could you explain this procedure a little more. I have Vista and I have never set up anything concerning page filing. I do have a seperate HD(not a partition on the main drive)that I use as a PS/LR scratch disc.

[ruraltrekker]

Could you explain this procedure a little more. I have Vista and I have never set up anything concerning page filing. I do have a seperate HD(not a partition on the main drive)that I use as a PS/LR scratch disc.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217958\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Sure:

Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced Sytem Settings

Go to the Advanced Tab, click the Settings button under Performance

Go to the Advanced Tab and click on the Change button in Virtual Memory

Choose Custom Size

Enter the same values in Initial & Maximum - in my case I have 12186 in both entries (this is 12 gigs). Click OK

Restart the computer.

[theophilus]

OH, but there is a way to keep this from happening. Go to the advance settings and use custom under virtual memory to set the page file to 12 gigs, both as initial and maximum. The file is now fixed in size on the disk and does not move around, which the paging file does if set to the default setup.

Ken
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217905\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

12 gigs would not be enough then.  I did some research and the maximum paging file size is 3x your RAM, the minimum size is 2 MB.

If you let the system manage it then the file will start at 1.5x your RAM and grow if necessary.

[ruraltrekker]

12 gigs would not be enough then.  I did some research and the maximum paging file size is 3x your RAM, the minimum size is 2 MB.

If you let the system manage it then the file will start at 1.5x your RAM and grow if necessary.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=217974\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I am finding 12 gigs to be plenty in a system with 8 gigs of ram running Vista 64. So how do you come up with the statement that 12 is not enough? Plus you don't deal with the OS re-sizing the paging file as you work, which frags the disk.

Ken