I’m putting together a new system partly to run Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw, and I have a question about the optimal hard drive configuration. Software is CS3 running on Windows XP Pro SP2.
With three physical drives, I would probably do it like this: 1. 10k RPM – OS, programs 2. 10k RPM – ? 3. 7.2k RPM – Assets
Where is the best place for the Windows page file and the Photoshop scratch disk?
Or would I be better off going with four (less expensive) 7.2k RPM drives, in which case the OS/programs, page file, scratch disk, and assets could all have their own drives?
As mentioned, the system swap file will not necessarily require a lot of performance if you have sufficient RAM, so setting aside an extra disk may not have any benefits. You should just make sure to make it large enough and define a manual size, the reason being that this way it will be created in a fixed location, preventing it from getting overly fragmented.
Your setup is excellent, if you let Photoshop scratch have #2. Don’t put anything else on that drive.
Why? If the drive is a large capacity model, e.g., 200GB+, then I think it would be a waste not to partition it. If you partition the drive and give PS the outer (faster) partition for scratch, you can use the remainder for files that will not be loaded into Photoshop, such as HD images or other data/backups. The reason for not loading files likely to be accessed by PS on the second partition is that you want to avoid simultaneous reads/writes to the scratch drive.
I use the second partition for long term storage, and if I want an image from that drive, I copy it to my Edit folder, then copy it back when I am ready.
I will probably go with two 10k’s, one for OS/programs and the other for PS scratch, plus an assets drive. I like the idea of partitioning the scratch disk and using the rest of it for non-PS data.
The time seems right for me to rebuild my system. I hope to go with Vista 64-bit and CS4. I also expect to replace my mostly PATA disc system with SATA, so I have been wondering about an optimal disc setup too.
I have read a few sources espousing a RAID level 0 for the PShop scratch. Does it really improve performance that much? Drives may be cheap nowadays, but enclosure space and power connectors remain the limiting factor.
I had RAID0 on my previous xp system and it was really fast, but on the present Vista 64/8GB system I haven’t bothered.
Photoshop’s memory management changed with CS3. Scratch disk is now a continuous and highly dynamic background activity – most of the time keeping one step ahead of the action – and as a result RAM is rarely fully saturated. IOW, you don’t wait for the scratch disk nearly as much as you used to, so access time is not that critical any more.
Unless, as John said, you’re working on really huge files.
Really depends. I’m not a photographer, so my insights are limited, but when you deal with RAW files a lot, RAIDs seem superior, probably due to how they allow to read the files, generate previews and save adjusted versions all at the same time. Not merely a bandwidth thing, but related to the access pattern I’d say. Beyond that the need for RAID is arguable, it seems. Even most print facilities I know, work off their standard internal disks in their Macs, so it mustn’t be that critical if considering the sheer file sizes. I would however dare to say that when you are actually doing touchup and PS’ caching system comes into play as you pan and zoom around, a RAID may noticeably speed up things.
im putting together a machine that will be pretty much used JUST for photoshop. i have an older 250 Gb SATA 1.5 drive with (probably) a 4mb cache and a 500 Gb SATA 3.0 drive with 32 Mb cache. So far I have put windows xp on a 75 G partition of the 500 and have two other 200 G partitions available. with this setup, where is the best place to put the OS, the PS program files, the windows swap file and the PS scratch discs. I can start over and re-partition the drives and reinstall the OS wherever i have to. looking for the best way to configure my resources. Im running this with a Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53GHz and 4 gigs ofPC6400 DDR2 800 Dual Channel RAM.
btw, im using PS 7.0 for now, but will likely move up to LightRoom in the not too distant future.
There are threads where people are saying that making partitions allways get the file performance slower. I’m installing a new computer to Photoshop work and going to get the optimal hard drive configuration. I have three 500Gb SATA drives and I’m thinking configuration:
1. physical drive OS (vista 64-bit) and Apps 2. physical drive two partitions D: Win Pagefile and E: data 3. physical drive two partitions F: Photoshop Scratch and G: data
How can I give PS the outer (faster) partition for scratch (on the drive 3)?
If I partition the 1. physical drive too so that OS and APPS gets the faster (outer) partition, would it have significant disadvantages?
Sorry I asked the question in a wrong way. I ment – how I can get (in Vista) a partition that is the faster (outer) partition on that drive? Is it so that the first partition to be made is always the faster one on that physical drive?
