I'm getting ready to buy a new laptop and in looking at options, some companies will partion the hard drive for me.
I've read about memory use and scratch disk errors/use in PS, and I'm wondering if one solution is to partion the hard disk (I'm not a computer geek, so--assuming this is a good thing to do--I don't know if this is something I can do myself?). And are there any other suggestions for freeing up enough memory to keep PS working?
I'm planning to get a fairly fast dual core processor and at least 2 GB of RAM.
Best, David.
#1
David,
There is a very useful pdf presentation made by Adobe engineer Scott Byer. It's about tuning your system, and shows ways to do it.
<
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/10/tuning_photosho.html>
(download the PDF linked to on that page.
Rob
#2
From a performance standpoint, putting the scratch file on the same drive but a different partition won't gain you anything. The drive head is still going to alternate between system commands, application coammands, work fiile read/write, and scratch file read/write. For a performance increase you need a separate drive, preferably on a separate controller.
From a practical standpoint, I've run PS on single-drive machines for years with no file errors due to having the scratch file on the same disk, and I don't really notice a performance penalty. If I have a second drive available I always set that to the primary scratch drive, but like I said, I've never seen an appreciable difference in performance.
#3
I've noticed with my current computer with 1 MG RAM, that sometimes PS runs really slow or temporarily freezes. Based on what you've said, I'm assuming that with 2 MG RAM and dual core processor things should run more smoothly. I'll also read the resources mentioned above.
Thanks, d.
#4
A temporary freeze often occurs when there is memory being swapped to and from disk.
#5
A fast Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM will go far in speeding things up. And make sure you get the fastest/largest laptop drive available for your selection. This should make PS run pretty quick.
#6
Sid, are you referring to the hard drive? I'm looking at 80 or 120GB, but I think a fast hard drive might be more important than size.
Best, David.
#7
As I said, the "fastest/largest laptop drive" (hard drive) available for the particular brand/model of computer you decide on. Fastest first, largest second. If you're going to be producing content on the run then you need lots of storage without having to lug around external drives. So, get the fastest/largest hard drive available.
#8