How large of a scratch disk for Photoshop CS & how much RAM?

M
Posted By
mwhals
Jan 11, 2004
Views
317
Replies
8
Status
Closed
How large of a disk for Photoshop CS should I put in a system I am building? Also, since the disk is sort of an extended RAM, should I get two smaller drive and put them in a RAID 0 configuration (since no data is stored on them, RAID 0 is safe) for performance?

I was looking to put 2 Gig of RAM in the machine. Is that overkill for Photoshop CS? I will be using it on large files from a digital SLR.

I don’t want minimum performance as I want a fast machine.

Mark H

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 11, 2004
Mark,

RAID 0 offers better performance (in real terms about 40/50% better throughput than a fast single drive) for scratch. I have mine configured at 40GB, but half that should be fine. You can either get two smallish drives and set them up for RAID 0 or larger drives and partition the array. In my case I have two 80GB drives configured as RAID 0 and partitioned so that the first 40GB is used for scratch and the remainder for short term storage. This way I can also Save images much quicker than would otherwise be the case. Typically the image will be saved to this second partition and then copied/backed-up to a more secure drive/location later.

So far as ram goes you should find that 2GB is fine for all but the largest images.
M
mwhals
Jan 11, 2004
So what about the largest images and RAM? Some DSLRs in RAW mode can create HUGE files. Same with scanning through a film scanner.

Mark H
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 11, 2004
Mark,

Some DSLRs in RAW mode can create HUGE files.

How huge?

I’ve worked with images over 10GB recently (some folk want big images and I don’t argue).

At present Photoshop can’t address anything above 2GB of ram so fast scratch (RAID 0) is really the only way to go when working with very large files.
Q
Quale
Jan 12, 2004
Will PS CS run under Windows Server 2003?
M
mwhals
Jan 12, 2004
Ian,

10 GB is larger than the file sizes current DSLR cameras will produce. Typically, images are under 100 MB.

Mark H
L
LenHewitt
Jan 12, 2004
Quale,

In all probability, yes, but it has not been tested under Server 2003 and so isn’t supported under that O/S. Whilst Adobe T/S won’t refuse to give assistance to you, at the end of the day they are quite likely to say "Sorry, but we don’t support it"
Q
Quale
Jan 12, 2004
So if PS CS works with Server 2003, the idea is to run a ramdisk-like program on 64-bit architecture, e. g., an Opteron, to make ram available as the primary scratch disk for PS. PS still can only use 2 gigs ram even when run on 64-bit machines because of it’s 32-bit code, but Server 2003 can address much more than the 4 gig limit under Windows XP. Some dual Opteron boards support 16 gig ram. The leftover 14 gigs can be viewed as scratch.

Now, with Ian working with 10g files, even the 14g of scratch and the 2g of ram will get sucked dry quickly. You might turn history states down. You might perfect a smaller version of the image first and copy the results to the big one. The meta data, actions, and batch capabilities might facilitate transfer from small to big image.

You could also plug-in solid-state disks like rocket-raid to your mother board. Given room on that dual-Opeteron board, you could fit four rocket-raids, for a total of 16 gig. They’d give faster access than hard disks.

With Ian’s work, he probably uses layers upon layers. So even the extra ram (and who knows how much extra money), the 6-channel raid should be populated with the latest 10K SATA.

We’ll let the artists imagine what to do with 100g files.
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 12, 2004
With Ian’s work, he probably uses layers upon layers. So even the extra ram (and who knows how much extra money),

I did what I was asked (without argument). I did tell the guy he was a dumb ass for requesting the images this size – whilst he didn’t agree I’m still able to walk 😉

BTW: during beta many of us worked on large images for test purposes. If we hadn’t you wouldn’t be able to now 😉

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections