Scratch Disk, how much space?

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 07:18:24 -0400:

BC> I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a BC> partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a BC> scratch disk. Approximately how large should this BC> partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about BC> the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the BC> space needed, or recommended.

BC> Thanks,
BC> Bill Crocker

May I add my hopes for a reply here too! I have Elements 3, which also allows for a scratch disk and I also have an external USB disk with a lot of free space. Can anyone say if the use of a scratch disk is safe and in what size of problem will it have an effect? I have another possible complication in that the external disk is formatted FAT and the primary partition is NTFS

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Hello, James!
You wrote to Bill Crocker on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:28:45 -0400:

BC>> I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a BC>> partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a BC>> scratch disk. Approximately how large should this BC>> partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about BC>> the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the BC>> space needed, or recommended.

BC>> Thanks,
BC>> Bill Crocker

JS> May I add my hopes for a reply here too! I have Elements 3, JS> which also allows for a scratch disk and I also have an JS> external USB disk with a lot of free space. Can anyone say JS> if the use of a scratch disk is safe and in what size of JS> problem will it have an effect? I have another possible JS> complication in that the external disk is formatted FAT and JS> the primary partition is NTFS

I have not found answers to all my questions but Adobe has some useful stuff at
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/332812.html

"How much" is discussed but not "how much speed up" nor all the reasons for it. Scratch space about 5 times that of the biggest likely picture is the number suggested.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

"James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote in message

Hello, James!
You wrote to Bill Crocker on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:28:45 -0400:
BC>> I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a BC>> partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a BC>> scratch disk. Approximately how large should this BC>> partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about BC>> the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the BC>> space needed, or recommended.

BC>> Thanks,
BC>> Bill Crocker

JS> May I add my hopes for a reply here too! I have Elements 3,
JS> which also allows for a scratch disk and I also have an JS> external USB disk with a lot of free space. Can anyone say JS> if the use of a scratch disk is safe and in what size of JS> problem will it have an effect? I have another possible JS> complication in that the external disk is formatted FAT and
JS> the primary partition is NTFS

I have not found answers to all my questions but Adobe has some useful stuff at
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/332812.html

"How much" is discussed but not "how much speed up" nor all the reasons for it. Scratch space about 5 times that of the biggest likely picture is the number suggested.

Before I get corrected, I know the web site is for a Mac but the same answer apparently applies to Windows, as perhaps I would expect.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm?loc=en_us& term=photoshop+elements+scratch+disk+size

gives the results of a search of Adobe’s support data base.

Note the URL is probably on two lines. If it does not work by clicking, enter the whole thing in RUN or the browser with no space between ? and loc.

—
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

"James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote in message

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 07:18:24 -0400:

BC> I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a BC> partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a BC> scratch disk. Approximately how large should this BC> partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about BC> the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the BC> space needed, or recommended.

BC> Thanks,
BC> Bill Crocker

May I add my hopes for a reply here too! I have Elements 3, which also allows for a scratch disk and I also have an external USB disk with a lot of free space. Can anyone say if the use of a scratch disk is safe and in what size of problem will it have an effect? I have another possible complication in that the external disk is formatted FAT and the primary partition is NTFS

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Hi James:

I do know this, using a scratch disk will make processing of photos faster. It is just as safe as not having one, considering your files are on a hard drive, one way, or another. Also, all the files that are processed on the scratch drive are temporary files, used for processing by Elements, and never your original, or final saved files.

FAT vs NTFS should not be a big concern, especially if the drive is not real large. External USB however, will have an impact on performance, as compared to EIDE, SATA, or SCSI. USB does not have as fast of data transfer as the others, and you want your scratch drive to be one of your fastest if possible.

For now, I created a separate partition in the front of my secondary physical hard drive. Because I have a lot of space, I made it 30GB, and a second partition for the remaining space on the same drive is used to store static archives. This assures that the partition for the scratch disk will not be used for any other purpose while Elements is using it.

Hope that helps.

Bill Crocker

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 15:23:55 -0400:

BC> "James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote BC> in message
??>> Hello, Bill!
??>> You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 07:18:24 -0400: ??>>
BC>>> I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a BC>>> partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a BC>>> scratch disk. Approximately how large should this BC>>> partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about BC>>> the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the BC>>> space needed, or recommended.
??>>
BC>>> Thanks,
BC>>> Bill Crocker
??>>
??>> May I add my hopes for a reply here too! I have Elements ??>> 3, which also allows for a scratch disk and I also have an ??>> external USB disk with a lot of free space. Can anyone say ??>> if the use of a scratch disk is safe and in what size of ??>> problem will it have an effect? I have another possible ??>> complication in that the external disk is formatted FAT ??>> and the primary partition is NTFS
??>>
??>> James Silverton
??>> Potomac, Maryland
??>>
??>> E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

BC> Hi James:

BC> I do know this, using a scratch disk will make processing BC> of photos faster. It is just as safe as not having one, BC> considering your files are on a hard drive, one way, or BC> another. Also, all the files that are processed on the BC> scratch drive are temporary files, used for processing by BC> Elements, and never your original, or final saved files.

BC> FAT vs NTFS should not be a big concern, especially if the BC> drive is not real large. External USB however, will have BC> an impact on performance, as compared to EIDE, SATA, or BC> SCSI. USB does not have as fast of data transfer as the BC> others, and you want your scratch drive to be one of your BC> fastest if possible.

BC> For now, I created a separate partition in the front of my BC> secondary physical hard drive. Because I have a lot of BC> space, I made it 30GB, and a second partition for the BC> remaining space on the same drive is used to store static BC> archives. This assures that the partition for the scratch BC> disk will not be used for any other purpose while Elements BC> is using it.

BC> Hope that helps.

Thanks very much! I decided to take the plunge and defined the first scratch disk as my USB 2.0 disk that has about 50GB of non-contiguous space free and is FAT instead of NTFS. The external disc is 7200 rpm rather than the 5000 rpm (I think) of the main partition. I think editing has speeded up and more importantly, any temporary files are removed cleanly on exit. That was most important since the USB disk is my back-up volume. Elements is using the root directory of the disk; all the other files are in named folders.

Thanks again!
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

"James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote in message
[clipped]

Thanks very much! I decided to take the plunge and defined the first scratch disk as my USB 2.0 disk that has about 50GB of non-contiguous space free and is FAT instead of NTFS. The external disc is 7200 rpm rather than the 5000 rpm (I think) of the main partition. I think editing has speeded up and more importantly, any temporary files are removed cleanly on exit. That was most important since the USB disk is my back-up volume. Elements is using the root directory of the disk; all the other files are in named folders.

Thanks again!
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Well it’s not ideal, but better than a sharp stick in the eye! 🙂

A separate partition on the drive would be much better, but if there is no other activity on the drive, and you defrag it, it should work ok.

Bill Crocker

I have seen the term scratch disk but don’t know what it is or why we need it? I have 3.0 is it an option and if so what does it do for me?

Thanks,
Dan

"Bill Crocker" wrote in message

I recently purchased Elements 5.0, and I want to create a partition on my secondary hard drive to be used for a scratch disk. Approximately how large should this partition be? I’ve found all kinds of information about the importance of having one, but nothing regarding the space needed, or recommended.

Thanks,
Bill Crocker

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:45:26 -0400:

BC> "James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote BC> in message
BC> [clipped]
??>> Thanks very much! I decided to take the plunge and defined ??>> the first scratch disk as my USB 2.0 disk that has about ??>> 50GB of non-contiguous space free and is FAT instead of ??>> NTFS. The external disc is 7200 rpm rather than the 5000 ??>> rpm (I think) of the main partition. I think editing has ??>> speeded up and more importantly, any temporary files are ??>> removed cleanly on exit. That was most important since the ??>> USB disk is my back-up volume. Elements is using the root ??>> directory of the disk; all the other files are in named ??>> folders.
??>>
??>> Thanks again!
??>> James Silverton
??>> Potomac, Maryland
??>>
??>> E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

BC> Well it’s not ideal, but better than a sharp stick in the BC> eye! 🙂

BC> A separate partition on the drive would be much better, but BC> if there is no other activity on the drive, and you defrag BC> it, it should work ok.

When last checked, the disk quite definitely, even to my eye, did not need defragmenting. Most of the free space is in four large ranges, one about half the disk. I can’t see why Elements should have trouble with that! The fairly simple structure is because the large backup files are written without
fragmentation. I’m a bit puzzled why that should not be as good as a special partition.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

"Danny" wrote in message

I have seen the term scratch disk but don’t know what it is or why we need it? I have 3.0 is it an option and if so what does it do for me?
Thanks,
Dan

This link has a pretty good explanation:

http://www.easyelements.com/scratch-disk.html

Bill Crocker

"James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote in message

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:45:26 -0400:

BC> Well it’s not ideal, but better than a sharp stick in the BC> eye! 🙂

BC> A separate partition on the drive would be much better, but BC> if there is no other activity on the drive, and you defrag BC> it, it should work ok.

When last checked, the disk quite definitely, even to my eye, did not need defragmenting. Most of the free space is in four large ranges, one about half the disk. I can’t see why Elements should have trouble with that! The fairly simple structure is because the large backup files are written without fragmentation. I’m a bit puzzled why that should not be as good as a special partition.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

It’s just that a separate partition would never be disturbed, or fragmented by other activity. As long as none of your saved files in that partition change, then you should be fine. If you add, delete, or edit any of those files, then ideally you would want to defrag it. It’s no big deal to defrag a hard drive.

Bill Crocker

Hello, Bill!
You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 21:36:26 -0400:

BC> "James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote BC> in message
??>> Hello, Bill!
??>> You wrote on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:45:26 -0400: ??>>
BC>>> Well it’s not ideal, but better than a sharp stick in the BC>>> eye! 🙂
??>>
BC>>> A separate partition on the drive would be much better, BC>>> but if there is no other activity on the drive, and you BC>>> defrag it, it should work ok.
??>>
??>> When last checked, the disk quite definitely, even to my ??>> eye, did not need defragmenting. Most of the free space is ??>> in four large ranges, one about half the disk. I can’t see ??>> why Elements should have trouble with that! The fairly ??>> simple structure is because the large backup files are ??>> written without fragmentation. I’m a bit puzzled why that ??>> should not be as good as a special partition. ??>>
??>> James Silverton
??>> Potomac, Maryland
??>>
??>> E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

BC> It’s just that a separate partition would never be BC> disturbed, or fragmented by other activity. As long as BC> none of your saved files in that partition change, then you BC> should be fine. If you add, delete, or edit any of those BC> files, then ideally you would want to defrag it. It’s no BC> big deal to defrag a hard drive.

True enough! It’s a pity that Elements always you to only specify a disk letter not a folder also.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

Hello, James!
You wrote to Bill Crocker on Tue, 3 Oct 2006 22:46:17 -0400:

JS> True enough! It’s a pity that Elements always you to only JS> specify a disk letter not a folder also.

Ridiculous missed spelling always = allows, sorry!

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

"James Silverton" <not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not> wrote in message >

True enough! It’s a pity that Elements always you to only specify a disk letter not a folder also.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

There are utilities that allow you to emulate a disk drive (virtual drive), from a folder on a drive. But in this case, it would cause too much of a performance hit, as there is some overhead in managing the virtual drive.

Years ago, before the ultra fast hard drives of today, we use to create RAM disks. It was a virtual drive emulated within RAM (memory). Very fast, but not too big at the time. I’m surprised no one has exploited the RAM drive technology with today’s massive amounts of high speed RAM.

Bill Crocker

Bill Crocker wrote:

There are utilities that allow you to emulate a disk drive (virtual drive), from a folder on a drive. But in this case, it would cause too much of a performance hit, as there is some overhead in managing the virtual drive.
Years ago, before the ultra fast hard drives of today, we use to create RAM disks. It was a virtual drive emulated within RAM (memory). Very fast, but not too big at the time. I’m surprised no one has exploited the RAM drive technology with today’s massive amounts of high speed RAM.
Bill Crocker

I would expect, as with virtual drives in folders, that there is also a reasonable amount of overhead managing a RAM drive? I’m not the expert by a long shot, but from what I do know about disk management and memory management, I can imagine it could be a significant drain on resources.

Plus Photoshop Elements does use the RAM, (even if not in the form of a drive), in preference to the Scratch Disk, so the point of a Scratch Disk is only really when you need much more space than RAM can provide.

Certainly I agree though, that some other applications in different fields could make use of the concept of a RAM drive.

As for the original question about the size of a scratch disk, I generally try to allocate at least 3-5GB. This way, when working on very large images much to big to use just RAM, Photoshop Elements copes quite well.

There’s my two cents. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

"Robert Redwood – www.easyelements.com"
wrote in message

Bill Crocker wrote:

There are utilities that allow you to emulate a disk drive (virtual drive),
from a folder on a drive. But in this case, it would cause too much of a performance hit, as there is some overhead in managing the virtual drive.
Years ago, before the ultra fast hard drives of today, we use to create RAM
disks. It was a virtual drive emulated within RAM (memory). Very fast, but
not too big at the time. I’m surprised no one has exploited the RAM drive
technology with today’s massive amounts of high speed RAM.
Bill Crocker

I would expect, as with virtual drives in folders, that there is also a reasonable amount of overhead managing a RAM drive? I’m not the expert by a long shot, but from what I do know about disk management and memory management, I can imagine it could be a significant drain on resources.

Plus Photoshop Elements does use the RAM, (even if not in the form of a drive), in preference to the Scratch Disk, so the point of a Scratch Disk is only really when you need much more space than RAM can provide.
Certainly I agree though, that some other applications in different fields could make use of the concept of a RAM drive.

As for the original question about the size of a scratch disk, I generally try to allocate at least 3-5GB. This way, when working on very large images much to big to use just RAM, Photoshop Elements copes quite well.

There’s my two cents. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

I read somewhere yesterday that Photoshop can only use a maximum of 1.7GB of RAM. Is that true?

I wonder why Adobe took an exception to the Windows standard, and did not use the Windows Page File, vs. creating it’s own Scratch Disk? It seems like a redundant waste of disk space.

Bill Crocker

Bill Crocker wrote:

"Robert Redwood – www.easyelements.com"
wrote in message

Bill Crocker wrote:

There are utilities that allow you to emulate a disk drive (virtual drive),
from a folder on a drive. But in this case, it would cause too much of a performance hit, as there is some overhead in managing the virtual drive.
Years ago, before the ultra fast hard drives of today, we use to create RAM
disks. It was a virtual drive emulated within RAM (memory). Very fast, but
not too big at the time. I’m surprised no one has exploited the RAM drive
technology with today’s massive amounts of high speed RAM.
Bill Crocker

I would expect, as with virtual drives in folders, that there is also a reasonable amount of overhead managing a RAM drive? I’m not the expert by a long shot, but from what I do know about disk management and memory management, I can imagine it could be a significant drain on resources.

Plus Photoshop Elements does use the RAM, (even if not in the form of a drive), in preference to the Scratch Disk, so the point of a Scratch Disk is only really when you need much more space than RAM can provide.
Certainly I agree though, that some other applications in different fields could make use of the concept of a RAM drive.

As for the original question about the size of a scratch disk, I generally try to allocate at least 3-5GB. This way, when working on very large images much to big to use just RAM, Photoshop Elements copes quite well.

There’s my two cents. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

I read somewhere yesterday that Photoshop can only use a maximum of 1.7GB of RAM. Is that true?

I wonder why Adobe took an exception to the Windows standard, and did not use the Windows Page File, vs. creating it’s own Scratch Disk? It seems like a redundant waste of disk space.

Bill Crocker

Nope, don’t think the 1.7GB size limit exists. This is an extract from Adobe’s official page:

"When insufficient RAM is available for bitmap image editing, Photoshop Elements uses a scratch disk file–temporary disk space used for storing data and performing computations. Photoshop Elements can create 200 GB of scratch disk files on up to four hard disk partitions."

(Taken from http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/333200.html about three quarters of the way down)

Maybe an older version has lower limitations, I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

"Robert Redwood – www.easyelements.com"
wrote in message

Bill Crocker wrote:

"Robert Redwood – www.easyelements.com"

wrote in message

Bill Crocker wrote:

There are utilities that allow you to emulate a disk drive (virtual drive),
from a folder on a drive. But in this case, it would cause too much of a
performance hit, as there is some overhead in managing the virtual drive.

Years ago, before the ultra fast hard drives of today, we use to create
RAM
disks. It was a virtual drive emulated within RAM (memory). Very fast,
but
not too big at the time. I’m surprised no one has exploited the RAM drive
technology with today’s massive amounts of high speed RAM.
Bill Crocker

I would expect, as with virtual drives in folders, that there is also a reasonable amount of overhead managing a RAM drive? I’m not the expert by a long shot, but from what I do know about disk management and memory management, I can imagine it could be a significant drain on resources.

Plus Photoshop Elements does use the RAM, (even if not in the form of a drive), in preference to the Scratch Disk, so the point of a Scratch Disk is only really when you need much more space than RAM can provide.
Certainly I agree though, that some other applications in different fields could make use of the concept of a RAM drive.

As for the original question about the size of a scratch disk, I generally try to allocate at least 3-5GB. This way, when working on very large images much to big to use just RAM, Photoshop Elements copes quite well.

There’s my two cents. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

I read somewhere yesterday that Photoshop can only use a maximum of 1.7GB of
RAM. Is that true?

I wonder why Adobe took an exception to the Windows standard, and did not use the Windows Page File, vs. creating it’s own Scratch Disk? It seems like a redundant waste of disk space.

Bill Crocker

Nope, don’t think the 1.7GB size limit exists. This is an extract from Adobe’s official page:

"When insufficient RAM is available for bitmap image editing, Photoshop Elements uses a scratch disk file–temporary disk space used for storing data and performing computations. Photoshop Elements can create 200 GB of scratch disk files on up to four hard disk partitions."
(Taken from http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/333200.html about three quarters of the way down)

Maybe an older version has lower limitations, I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. 🙂

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

I think you misunderstood. I was referring to the amount of actual RAM it could access, not emulated RAM via a Scratch Disk.

Bill Crocker

Bill Crocker wrote:

I think you misunderstood. I was referring to the amount of actual RAM it could access, not emulated RAM via a Scratch Disk.

Bill Crocker

Oh dear me, so you were! I’m absolutely dozy lately!! I started my first year at uni last week, so I’ve had a lot to get used to. I think I need more sleep! 🙂

Sorry about that!!

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

"Robert Redwood – www.easyelements.com"
wrote in message

Bill Crocker wrote:

I think you misunderstood. I was referring to the amount of actual RAM it
could access, not emulated RAM via a Scratch Disk.

Bill Crocker

Oh dear me, so you were! I’m absolutely dozy lately!! I started my first year at uni last week, so I’ve had a lot to get used to. I think I need more sleep! 🙂

Sorry about that!!

Robert Redwood
www.easyelements.com
Photoshop Elements Expert Advice

LOL! Wait until you get old. 🙁

Bill Crocker