Using an external USB 2.0 Drive as the scratch disk

In article ,
says…

In response to a previous thread (which I can’t seem to reply to). I found using an external USB 2.0 drive (2/ 250gb Maxtor 7200RPM) to be slower than using the startup drive even on my latptop (Dell Latitude C640, 80GB 5400 RPM).

PS7 Gussian Blur 4.0 pixels on a 6000 x 4000 photo.

141 secs (USB 2 Drive)
110 secs (C Drive)

Hope this helps.

Thanks, as that might have been my original post regarding doing just that. I appreciate the feedback. It still might be worth my while, even given the slow-down, on my laptop. I’ve gone the route of adding another 80GB HDD, but at this moment, it won’t fit into the slot (battery, while running on AC>DC) and Toshiba has not gotten back to me on the mechanics of making the addition, so I still might have to fall back to the USB/Firewire Scratch Disk.

Thanks,
Hunt

Tommy Huynh wrote:

In response to a previous thread (which I can’t seem to reply to). I found using an external USB 2.0 drive (2/ 250gb Maxtor 7200RPM) to be slower than using the startup drive even on my latptop (Dell Latitude C640, 80GB 5400 RPM).

PS7 Gussian Blur 4.0 pixels on a 6000 x 4000 photo.

141 secs (USB 2 Drive)
110 secs (C Drive)

Hope this helps.

Try with FireWire, with USB2 my Maxtor has a max troughput of 25 MB/sec and with FireWire 40 MB/sec (I measured 39 MB/sec).

The speed also depends on the quality of the USB2/Firewire card. My PCI USB2 card was considerably slower as my onboard USB2 (15 MB/sec vs. 25 MB/sec). I don’t have a PCI FireWire card, so I can’t check that.

Waldo

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 11:58:53 +0200, Waldo
wrote:

Tommy Huynh wrote:

In response to a previous thread (which I can’t seem to reply to). I found using an external USB 2.0 drive (2/ 250gb Maxtor 7200RPM) to be slower than using the startup drive even on my latptop (Dell Latitude C640, 80GB 5400 RPM).

PS7 Gussian Blur 4.0 pixels on a 6000 x 4000 photo.

141 secs (USB 2 Drive)
110 secs (C Drive)

Hope this helps.

Try with FireWire, with USB2 my Maxtor has a max troughput of 25 MB/sec and with FireWire 40 MB/sec (I measured 39 MB/sec).

The speed also depends on the quality of the USB2/Firewire card. My PCI USB2 card was considerably slower as my onboard USB2 (15 MB/sec vs. 25 MB/sec). I don’t have a PCI FireWire card, so I can’t check that.

Got two 😉 Firewire is just as quick through a PCI slot. 🙂

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui

From: Waldo

Try with FireWire, with USB2 my Maxtor has a max troughput of 25 MB/sec and with FireWire 40 MB/sec (I measured 39 MB/sec).

I’ve tried using an external HD with both USB 2 and Firewire, and while Firewire was faster than USB 2 it was still slower than just using C drive.

Waldo …

Tommy Huynh wrote:

In response to a previous thread (which I can’t seem to reply to). I found using an external USB 2.0 drive (2/ 250gb Maxtor 7200RPM) to be slower than using the startup drive even on my latptop (Dell Latitude C640, 80GB 5400 RPM).

PS7 Gussian Blur 4.0 pixels on a 6000 x 4000 photo.

141 secs (USB 2 Drive)
110 secs (C Drive)

Hope this helps.

Try with FireWire, with USB2 my Maxtor has a max troughput of 25 MB/sec and with FireWire 40 MB/sec (I measured 39 MB/sec).

The speed also depends on the quality of the USB2/Firewire card. My PCI USB2 card was considerably slower as my onboard USB2 (15 MB/sec vs. 25 MB/sec). I don’t have a PCI FireWire card, so I can’t check that.
Waldo

I was using a PCMCIA USB2 adapter so that may have something to do with it also.

On 06 Sep 2004 00:59:19 GMT, (Bill Hilton)
wrote:

From: Waldo

Try with FireWire, with USB2 my Maxtor has a max troughput of 25 MB/sec and with FireWire 40 MB/sec (I measured 39 MB/sec).

I’ve tried using an external HD with both USB 2 and Firewire, and while Firewire was faster than USB 2 it was still slower than just using C drive.

Which is, of course, exactly how it should be., but doesn’t really help when you can’t add another hard drive as in the OP’s question. 🙂

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui

I’ve tried using an external HD with both USB 2 and Firewire, and while Firewire was faster than USB 2 it was still slower than just using C drive.

From: Hecate

Which is, of course, exactly how it should be., but doesn’t really help when you can’t add another hard drive as in the OP’s question. 🙂

Why do you have to add another hard drive to use C drive for scratch ?

Just use the externals for extra storage, they aren’t fast enough for scratch.

On 08 Sep 2004 04:18:06 GMT, (Bill Hilton)
wrote:

I’ve tried using an external HD with both USB 2 and Firewire, and while Firewire was faster than USB 2 it was still slower than just using C drive.

From: Hecate

Which is, of course, exactly how it should be., but doesn’t really help when you can’t add another hard drive as in the OP’s question. 🙂

Why do you have to add another hard drive to use C drive for scratch ?
Just use the externals for extra storage, they aren’t fast enough for scratch.

Because PS isn’t keen on having it’s scratch disk on the same drive as the system scratch disk. It’s leads to slowdowns. So, the question is, is it slower having PS using the scratch disk on an external firewire, or is it slower using the C drive? And that depends on the C drive speed, processing speed and lots of other variables.

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui