Scratch Disk Arrangement

WP
Posted By
Walter_Petrel
Jul 5, 2004
Views
456
Replies
9
Status
Closed
I’ve been wondering about assigning Scratch Disks in PS CS. The way I have my machine (G5 Dual 2 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 2 internal 250 GB HDs, OS 10.3.4) set up, is that I have the second internal HD partitioned into 5 disks: Scratch 1 (46 GB), Scratch 2 (46 GB), Scratch 3 (46 GB), Scratch 4 (46 GB). In PS CS preferences, I have the Scratch Disks set up as First: Scratch 1, Second: Scratch 2, Third: Scratch 3 and Fourth: Scratch 4.

Do I have this set up correctly? In the reading I’ve done it seems that people have only one partition on their second internal HD earmarked for their Scratch Disk. Am I misreading this? Does it help PS CS work more efficiently to have separate partitions on the second HD assigned as the 4 Scratch Disks?

Thanks for any insight into this.
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Mike_Ornellas
Jul 5, 2004
Disk partitions are not the same as physical drives.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jul 5, 2004
<< Does it help PS CS work more efficiently to have separate partitions on the second HD assigned as the 4 Scratch Disks? >>

I don’t see how it would. I have only one partition on my second internal HD and it seems to work perfectly well for Scratch.
B
Buko
Jul 5, 2004
The only thing you don’t want is to have your scratch disk partition on the same drive as the system and the systems SWAP files. Partitioning the Second drive into 5 separate scratch disks is silly. I would use most of that drive for something usefull like storage.
WP
Walter_Petrel
Jul 5, 2004
Mike Ornellas: Are you saying that each of the possible Scratch Disk assignments in the PS CS Preferences (where you choose the First, Second, Third and Fourth Scratch Disks) should be separate physical drives if you have them, and that there is no advantage to having them as discrete partitions on the same physical drive?
B
Buko
Jul 5, 2004
Walter, each hard drive only has one set of read write heads
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Graham_Phillips
Jul 5, 2004
Walter, your partition scheme isn’t doing Photoshop any favours. If you really need 184 gigs for Photoshop, you should repartition your second physical drive so that the 184 gigs is in a single contiguous block. From your initial five partitions I deduce that you wanted some space for something else, so leave the remainder of the 250 gigs for a second partition. Then, in Photoshop, set the first partition of the second disk (the 184-gig one) as the first Photoshop scratch disk and set the 2nd, 3rd and 4th scratch disks to None.
JW
James_Wilsey
Jul 5, 2004
And keep in mind that the first (top partion) you create is considerbly faster than the last partition on the drive.

You have just created 5 partitons, easch of them being successively slower than the first-

And the newer versions of photoshop (incl CS) do not have the same scratch volume size limits as previous versions… so you would be best served to just have a large scratch partition set up as the first partion- Or just one large volume for scratch….
R
Ram
Jul 5, 2004
Walter,

Are you saying that each of the possible Scratch Disk assignments in the PS CS Preferences (where you choose the First, Second, Third and Fourth Scratch Disks) should be separate physical drives if you have them, and that there is no advantage to having them as discrete partitions on the same physical drive?

That is correct. Not only is there no advantage whatsoever, but it could be a distinct disadvantage, for the reasons already stated by the other posters.
WP
Walter_Petrel
Jul 7, 2004
I think I was remembering the old limits that James mentioned, but I am clear on this now. Thanks much.

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