Typing & Cloning wearing out my Hard Drive

GB
Posted By
Guy Burns
Sep 25, 2006
Views
395
Replies
15
Status
Closed
The other day I removed several hundred tiny dust specks from an old photo. I noticed that every time I clicked using the clone tool, it blipped the external FW drive I boot from. Then today I noticed that every time I type a single letter in Photoshop, the hard drive blips.

I worry about my poor little hard drive doing what I consider unnecessary work. I like to treat it gently and have it work as little as possible.

Can I stop these blips by loading something into memory; or is this a symptom that I need more memory? I have a G5 running OSX 10.4.7, Photoshop CS, and 512 MB of RAM, with 60% allocated to PS.
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AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 25, 2006
I noticed that every time I clicked using the clone tool, it blipped
the external FW drive I boot from.

But why are you booting your G5 from an external FWD in the first place?

And 512 MB of RAM is honestly far too little to run Photoshop on 10.4.7.
R
Ram
Sep 25, 2006
What Ann says.

You should put at least 4GB of RAM sticks in your machine.

Boot from an internal hard drive, and set a second internal hard drive as your primary scratch disk.
P
povimage
Sep 25, 2006
At least 1gB to 2gB of RAM for CS…

You’re worried about overusing a hard drive? WHatevah!
JF
john_findley
Sep 25, 2006
You should put at least 4GB of RAM sticks in your machine.

While not being so impolite as to say this is BS, I will say that I run PS on very large files on 2GB, with never a problem.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 25, 2006
But 2 GB is NOT the same as "512 MB" John is it?

I did drive CS2 on a G5 with just 1.5 GB and a single HD for a short time; and I can only say that Photoshop ran like molasses in January under those conditions.
JF
john_findley
Sep 25, 2006
I was referring to Ramon’s hyperbole, only.
I
iGary
Sep 25, 2006
You need more memory. 2 gigs minimum, and like Ramon said, 4 gigs is more like it. Either way, Photoshop and OS X both use virtual memory heavily. Your disk light is providing a hint of what’s going on.

Don’t boot from FireWire drives. Reasons such as testing an OS upgrade etc., are fine, but for routine operation, no.

SATA II is a different story. Internal or external, they serve as fine boot and scratch drives.

Here is an excellent Tech Doc.
<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/317280.html>

Hopefully other posters have more of these up their sleeves! πŸ˜‰

Gary
R
Ram
Sep 25, 2006
Running a G5 with half a meg of RAM is absurd. Running it with 2GB is merely ridiculous.

My machine is maxed out at 2GB; but I have worked on other machines that have up to 8GB of RAM, and you can tell a difference between 6GB and 8GB of RAM.

I stand by what I said before. If you have a G5, put at least 4GB of RAM in that sucker.

Hyperbole my foot.
JC
John_Cornicello
Sep 25, 2006
I’ve noticed something similar recently (might have been there for a while). I have 4 gig of RAM, am starting off my main drive. Have my scratch disk on an internal second drive. The files I’m working on are one one (or the other) of the internal drives.

Often when I select a Photoshop filter one of my external firewire drives fires up (spinning beachball for a few seconds). It also "blips" when I toggle the view of an adjustment layer. I don’t think I’ve noticed it when typing or cloning, though. Haven’t had a chance to figure out why the external is being hit in these situations.
JF
john_findley
Sep 25, 2006
It’s common knowledge that more RAM is better. Possibly Guy knows this, too. To say you need " at least 4GB" serves to discourage someone who hasn’t the financial or the hardware requisites from feeling they can utilize Photoshop satisfactorily.

I make a living using CS2, with all filters functioning, in highly-computational, high-resolution, multi-layered illustration and photography. My machine, like yours, is maxed out at 2GB. Would I like to have 4GB? Of course. Can I make a pretty good living with 2GB? Obviously.

I have no quarrel with the fact that 4GB is faster; nor with the assertion that 512MB is insufficient. But to say that you need " at least" 4GB is absurd. And hyberbolic.
R
Ram
Sep 25, 2006
Findley,

But to say that you need " at least" 4GB is absurd. And hyperbolic.

You also took the speed-reading courses, didn’t you?

Or maybe you skipped a grade or two in school and never learned to speak your native language well.

Read again. I said:

You should put at least 4GB of RAM sticks in your machine.

I stand by that. It’s not "hyperbolic", unless to an alcoholic.
JF
john_findley
Sep 25, 2006
And I stand by what I said, without sliding into personal attacks. πŸ™‚
R
Ram
Sep 25, 2006
Whatever. I won’t bother you Β—or with you.
R
Ram
Sep 25, 2006
Guy,

If you can afford a G5 you can afford 4GB of RAM.
B
Buko
Sep 25, 2006
If you can afford a G5 you can afford 4GB of RAM.

Yeah I have to agree with this. Why spend all that money to cripple the machine with no RAM.

When I bought my G5 I bought 4GB RAM for it as well a second hard drive I have not been disapointed.

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.

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