As I mentioned in another topic I'm planning at getting the WD740 Raptor drive soon, and was wondering what's the best to put on there to see the most every day improvement? Like Windows XP alone, Windows XP with Program Files, or include the Page File as well?
I'll have a 300gb drive too, partitioned starting with what ever isn't on the Raptor, like the first one (they are the fastest right?) Photoshop Scratch Disk.
I do lots of desktop work / surfing / writing / excel etc... but also PhotoShop with many images, levels etc... and 3D modelling & animation with Lightwave. Often downloading TV shows from Shareaze in the background 24/7. That's mostly it, I leave games to Xbox and such.
Any ideas? Thanks!
What's the best type of files to put on WD740 Raptor drive?
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The Instigator
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Run the OS on the Rator with your programs. If you short partition the drive - make it 20 gigs and leave the rest of the drive unpartitioned - you can actually reduce seek times even lower. When you partition the large storage drive, make a static page file of 400 to 500 MB right away so it is on the very first - and fastest - part of the drive. That should give you the most performance out of your drives.
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Shining Arcanine
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Re: What's the best type of files to put on WD740 Raptor dri
Storing your operating system, paging file, programs and games on it would be a good idea.TailsNZ wrote:As I mentioned in another topic I'm planning at getting the WD740 Raptor drive soon, and was wondering what's the best to put on there to see the most every day improvement? Like Windows XP alone, Windows XP with Program Files, or include the Page File as well?
I'll have a 300gb drive too, partitioned starting with what ever isn't on the Raptor, like the first one (they are the fastest right?) Photoshop Scratch Disk.
I do lots of desktop work / surfing / writing / excel etc... but also PhotoShop with many images, levels etc... and 3D modelling & animation with Lightwave. Often downloading TV shows from Shareaze in the background 24/7. That's mostly it, I leave games to Xbox and such.
Any ideas? Thanks!
I think it's also possible to get a bit too hung up on partitioning strategies. I've tried all sorts of weird and wonderful partitioning systems in the past which I thought would give me better performance, but I always ended up with loads of wasted space and my data in a mess all over the place.
I think generally simpler is better, and the fewer drive letters you have to deal with the easier your life will be (with the simple proviso that your user data should be on a different volume from the OS in the event you have to reformat).
If you weren't a Photoshop user, I'd just say Raptor: OS/apps/pagefile and the 300GB (whatever): data and leave it at that, but I think the PS scratch file would like to be on the second disk as I said in the other thread.
I think generally simpler is better, and the fewer drive letters you have to deal with the easier your life will be (with the simple proviso that your user data should be on a different volume from the OS in the event you have to reformat).
If you weren't a Photoshop user, I'd just say Raptor: OS/apps/pagefile and the 300GB (whatever): data and leave it at that, but I think the PS scratch file would like to be on the second disk as I said in the other thread.
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The Instigator
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Its soo easy to put the page file on the second drive and it is by far the most reccomended way of using a page file that I cant think of any reason to not put it on the second drive. BTW, even if you tell windows to not use a page file, it will make one anyway and it will be on the root drive on a slower part of the drive. To see for yourself, just tell windows to not use a page file. When you bring up you task manager and look at page file usage, there will be about 100MB in use. Even with 2 gigs of ram, windows still will allocate space for page file.
FWIW, here is a link to download a Microsoft White Paper about setting up Photoshop in an XP system.
I had an Adobe link on setting up also but it seems to be broken.
EDIT: Found a link to the Adobe Knowledgebase that works.
I would set up the OS & Apps on a partition on the Raptor and then use the rest of the disk to hold new images for work in progress (RAW conversion & editing). That way you are getting some use of the faster drive for more than just OS & Apps. The Photoshop scratch should be the first partition on the other drive. Use the rest of the 300 for storage and perhaps a "Ghost" of the C: drive (there is something better than Symantic's Ghost out but I cannot remember right now).
I had an Adobe link on setting up also but it seems to be broken.
EDIT: Found a link to the Adobe Knowledgebase that works.
I would set up the OS & Apps on a partition on the Raptor and then use the rest of the disk to hold new images for work in progress (RAW conversion & editing). That way you are getting some use of the faster drive for more than just OS & Apps. The Photoshop scratch should be the first partition on the other drive. Use the rest of the 300 for storage and perhaps a "Ghost" of the C: drive (there is something better than Symantic's Ghost out but I cannot remember right now).
Last edited by JimK on Sun Apr 03, 2005 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't think that's a good idea, as the Raptor's heads would be constantly having to seek between the system files and the data files they were working on. It would be better to have the work in progress on a different spindle from the OS, pagefile etc as then both datasets could be accessed simultaneously. These days a decent 300GB 7200rpm drive will benchmark pretty close to a Raptor anyway, at least as far as STR is concerned.JimK wrote: I would set up the OS & Apps on a partition on the Raptor and then use the rest of the disk to hold new images for work in progress (RAW conversion & editing). That way you are getting some use of the faster drive for more than just OS & Apps.
In any case, the Raptor's higher performance would be compromised by having the data shunted towards the centre of the platters where STR is lower, as well as having increased seek distances.
Thanks for all the replies so far 
To summarise so far:
Raptor 74gb
C:\ Contains Windows XP, Program Files & Page File (3gb, min & max set the same to prevent fragmentation) - 30gb (or entire drive, not sure yet)
D:\ Empty (perhaps not partitioned after all)
Undecided 300gb
E:\ Photoshop Scratch Disk - 10gb
F:\ Some Stuff
G:\ More Stuff (perhaps a Ghost of the C:\ or something)
I'll probably have 1gb of RAM. Just reading the Microsoft White Paper on Photoshop linked above, it talks about the Page File and says the minimum is 1.5 times your ram, with the maximum being 3 times. I noticed various theories about page file size last year, but Microsoft can be trusted I suppose. They also suggest keeping it on a seperate file than your system files.
Thanks for all the help! I read the Microsoft Article now, it's quite long so I grabbed the best PhotoShop specific settings thinges from it:
History - Put history levels around 20, or 40-50 to begin with, to see how comfortable you with it.
Export Clipboard - Turn off Export Clipboard unless needed
Cache Levels - If you have plenty of ram set it to max, 8.
*Scratch Disc - Keep off the same drive as virtual memory and image files if possible, otherwise just keep it off the same drive as virtual memory if possible. Hmm. It ranks that as a higher priority than keeping them off the same drive the Windows XP system files are on.
Ram - If you have less than 2gb, set it around 50%, if you have 4gb, set it about 70%. Photoshop can only access up to 2gb of ram anyways.
To summarise so far:Raptor 74gb
C:\ Contains Windows XP, Program Files & Page File (3gb, min & max set the same to prevent fragmentation) - 30gb (or entire drive, not sure yet)
D:\ Empty (perhaps not partitioned after all)
Undecided 300gb
E:\ Photoshop Scratch Disk - 10gb
F:\ Some Stuff
G:\ More Stuff (perhaps a Ghost of the C:\ or something)
I'll probably have 1gb of RAM. Just reading the Microsoft White Paper on Photoshop linked above, it talks about the Page File and says the minimum is 1.5 times your ram, with the maximum being 3 times. I noticed various theories about page file size last year, but Microsoft can be trusted I suppose. They also suggest keeping it on a seperate file than your system files.
Thanks for all the help! I read the Microsoft Article now, it's quite long so I grabbed the best PhotoShop specific settings thinges from it:
History - Put history levels around 20, or 40-50 to begin with, to see how comfortable you with it.
Export Clipboard - Turn off Export Clipboard unless needed
Cache Levels - If you have plenty of ram set it to max, 8.
*Scratch Disc - Keep off the same drive as virtual memory and image files if possible, otherwise just keep it off the same drive as virtual memory if possible. Hmm. It ranks that as a higher priority than keeping them off the same drive the Windows XP system files are on.
Ram - If you have less than 2gb, set it around 50%, if you have 4gb, set it about 70%. Photoshop can only access up to 2gb of ram anyways.
Last edited by TailsNZ on Sat Apr 02, 2005 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If you're a big league photoshopper, the scratch file location is very important, and it will have a bigger impact on your overall working experience than the pagefile performance. If you've got plenty of RAM, Windows won't be hitting the pagefile all that much anyway, but Photoshop always needs the scratch file whatever it's doing, and because of its peculiar demands you'll see a much bigger performance hit from poor scratch file location than you will from a less-than-ideal pagefile location when you're doing other things (I worded that badly, but hope you get what I mean)...TailsNZ wrote:
I guess Page File is more important than Photohop Scratch Disks, so I put that one right after the Page File. Thanks for all the help! I read the Microsoft Article now, it's quite long so I grabbed the best PhotoShop specific settings thinges from it:
It really all depends on your own priorities and working patterns I suppose...if it weren't for Photoshop complicating things you could just put the pagefile on the beginning of the second drive for best performance.
I don't think you'll really see much benefit from short-stroking the Raptor, if that's the reason for partitioning it...when you install the OS, apps etc it will fill up from the outside in anyway, and you'll still have the full undivided capacity if you end up installing more apps than you originally anticipated. Besides that, IIRC the Raptor's design actually concentrates its full capacity automatically on the fast outer parts of the platters, compared with "normal" drives (I'm ready to be corrected on this however if someone knows better).
BTW, I wouldn't attach too much importance to a white paper simply because Microsoft wrote it... the pagefile advice in particular is pretty outdated and is more relevant to when you were running Win2K on a P2 with 128MB of RAM. The old advice to have a pagefile at least 1.5 times the size of physical RAM is complete nonsense if you have a gigabyte of the stuff...
I'll reinforce nick705's suggestion - put OS pagefile on the Raptor, PS scratch on the 300 GB drive. DO NOT put both the pagefile and the scratch disk on the same drive - this will cause serious performance issues. (Obviously, if you only had one disk, you'd have no choice...)
Raptor: OS, pagefile (set min and max the same, this prevents pagefile fragmentation - perhaps 2 or 3 GB, to be safe), programs, games. All on the same partition.
If you've still got space to spare, you could create a second partition for storing certain data files (perhaps the photoshop files you're currently working on?).
300 GB: Photoshop scratch disk (needs its own partition), then the rest in one big partition for data.
As an aside, all drives fill up from the outside in, using the fastest tracks first. Regular defragmentation should keep your data in the optimum location on the disk.
Raptor: OS, pagefile (set min and max the same, this prevents pagefile fragmentation - perhaps 2 or 3 GB, to be safe), programs, games. All on the same partition.
If you've still got space to spare, you could create a second partition for storing certain data files (perhaps the photoshop files you're currently working on?).
300 GB: Photoshop scratch disk (needs its own partition), then the rest in one big partition for data.
As an aside, all drives fill up from the outside in, using the fastest tracks first. Regular defragmentation should keep your data in the optimum location on the disk.
Scratch disk size
A very timely thread... I am building a computer for a friend whio is a keen amateur photographer. He also likes to game.
Anyway, so far we have ordered two 200GB disks (Samsungs) and I am thinking about the partitioning scheme. From reading this thread, I have come up with this outline scheme:
Disk1, partition1 OS, pagefile (set min=max=2GB), programs
Disk1, partition2 Data (Photoshop-work-in-progress))
Disk2, partition1 Photoshop scratch disk
Disk2, partition2 Data (non-Photoshop-work-in-progress)
However, I am not too sure on the appropriate sizes for these partitions. Also, it seems to me that I might have think of keeping some general data on the first disk to avoid wasting too much space, perhaps on the same partition as Photoshop-work-in-progress. Otherwise, as it stands, I guess WindowsXP uses 1GB, programs maybe 30GB (games?), pagefile 2GB (to be safe), leaving 167GB of space for the second partition just for Photoshop-work-in-progress!
Also, the Microsoft article linked above states that you should set aside space for the Scratch Disk that is at least five times greater than the largest file size you expect to work with (file size not pixel size).
I myself have no experience with digital imaging work on computer so that doesn't really tell me anything. While I appreciate that there will be no single answer to this question, I would be grateful for some guidance on what that could mean in practice. This friend is not a professional photographer but a keen amateur.
For example, although I can work out the size of an image at a given resolution and colour depth, I do not know how much larger a Photoshop file is likely to be if one accounts for history states (say between 20 and 50).
Anyway, so far we have ordered two 200GB disks (Samsungs) and I am thinking about the partitioning scheme. From reading this thread, I have come up with this outline scheme:
Disk1, partition1 OS, pagefile (set min=max=2GB), programs
Disk1, partition2 Data (Photoshop-work-in-progress))
Disk2, partition1 Photoshop scratch disk
Disk2, partition2 Data (non-Photoshop-work-in-progress)
However, I am not too sure on the appropriate sizes for these partitions. Also, it seems to me that I might have think of keeping some general data on the first disk to avoid wasting too much space, perhaps on the same partition as Photoshop-work-in-progress. Otherwise, as it stands, I guess WindowsXP uses 1GB, programs maybe 30GB (games?), pagefile 2GB (to be safe), leaving 167GB of space for the second partition just for Photoshop-work-in-progress!
Also, the Microsoft article linked above states that you should set aside space for the Scratch Disk that is at least five times greater than the largest file size you expect to work with (file size not pixel size).
I myself have no experience with digital imaging work on computer so that doesn't really tell me anything. While I appreciate that there will be no single answer to this question, I would be grateful for some guidance on what that could mean in practice. This friend is not a professional photographer but a keen amateur.
For example, although I can work out the size of an image at a given resolution and colour depth, I do not know how much larger a Photoshop file is likely to be if one accounts for history states (say between 20 and 50).
Scratch disk size
OK, I have done some more googling.
It seems that, as Photoshop can use multiple scratch disks, the thing to do is to set aside a dedicated partition that is large enough for most anticipated usage. Then one can allocate an additional "Scratch Disk" to use a shared partition in case of unexpected overflow.
Having spoken to my friend about his file sizes, it seems that 300MB is a large Photoshop file in his world, so on the x5 principle, that would indicate 1.5GB as an expected Scratch Disk size. Allowing for multiple concurrent images and growth, a 10GB partition should be a good size to allocate as a dedicated partition. Then I can allocate an additional scratch disk on a shared partition, probably on Disk2, Partition2 in my above schema. I presume I should limit the size in case of anomalous events that might fill up the whole disk so I will set some limit such as another 10GB.
Both "Partition2s" in the above schema can then be used for ordinary data storage, with the proviso that Photoshop works-in-progress should be stored on Disk1 until such time as they are ready to be archived, at which time they can be stored on either Disk as space permits.
It seems that, as Photoshop can use multiple scratch disks, the thing to do is to set aside a dedicated partition that is large enough for most anticipated usage. Then one can allocate an additional "Scratch Disk" to use a shared partition in case of unexpected overflow.
Having spoken to my friend about his file sizes, it seems that 300MB is a large Photoshop file in his world, so on the x5 principle, that would indicate 1.5GB as an expected Scratch Disk size. Allowing for multiple concurrent images and growth, a 10GB partition should be a good size to allocate as a dedicated partition. Then I can allocate an additional scratch disk on a shared partition, probably on Disk2, Partition2 in my above schema. I presume I should limit the size in case of anomalous events that might fill up the whole disk so I will set some limit such as another 10GB.
Both "Partition2s" in the above schema can then be used for ordinary data storage, with the proviso that Photoshop works-in-progress should be stored on Disk1 until such time as they are ready to be archived, at which time they can be stored on either Disk as space permits.
This is something I wrote on an art forum about setting up computers for work with photoshop regarding scratschdisks, pagefile, RAID and so on...
Seems to have killed that thread tho
Seems to have killed that thread tho
About scratchdisks - what matters more than partitions and raid (while working) in PS is to have them on separate spindles (aka physical harddrives)
If you have the RAM and use normal XP pro - sure put the first, either windows swap or ps scratch disc (test...) on a ram-drive.
After that have OS/Programs separated from windows swap AND PS scratch disc.
Use dedicated drives or at least dedicated partitions on drives for swap and scratch. Just putting a scratchfile or swapfile in another partition on the same drive as you have/use other stuff doesnt help more than locking the swap-size...
like so:
HD0: C:\ OS & programs // F:\ games, my documents, mail
Ram-Drive: primary windows swap (pagefile.sys) or/and primary PS Scratch
HD1: D:\ windows swap // G:\ whatever not used heavily while XP is paging
HD2: E:\ PS Scratch // H:\ whatever not used while using PS
HD3\HD4+ RAID1: J:\ workfiles
If it were my system, I'd be putting everything on a different drive--over the network. With gigabit ethernet, it should be fast enough.
Just leave the OS on the drive in the computer. Put everything else on different hard drives in your file server(s).
My LAN is only 100megabit, but even so I get a nice overall performance boost by mapping my various application directories across different drives over the network. Right now, I have just one hard drive per computer, so this means spreading application directories across all of my systems.
Just leave the OS on the drive in the computer. Put everything else on different hard drives in your file server(s).
My LAN is only 100megabit, but even so I get a nice overall performance boost by mapping my various application directories across different drives over the network. Right now, I have just one hard drive per computer, so this means spreading application directories across all of my systems.
The main point in relation to this particular thread is that Photoshop has unusual requirements for best performance, and it really depends on how much PS is a priority when determining the overall setup.
If it were my dosh and Photoshop played a major part in my life, I'd consider reallocating any available funds so that there were three separate physical disks (on seperate SATA/IDE channels). The first one (the Raptor presumably) would hold the OS, a paging file and installed apps (one single partition). The second (the 300GB data drive) would have a small partition (maybe 1GB) right at the start for a second pagefile, with the rest being allocated for data, including PS work in progress (the reasoning here is that WinXP is smart enough to page to whichever physical drive is least busy at a particular instant). The third (another Raptor?) would have a smallish partition at the start of the drive (10GB or thereabouts) solely for the PS scratch file (which hates being fragmented), with the rest for...ummm...whatever (maybe a first-stage backup of some of the data files on the second disk). If I were a pro, or semi-pro, I might even consider a RAID0 array of two Raptors for the scratch file (one of the few situations where RAID0 might be a real advantage)....
I don't think mapping drives across a GbE network is the solution...you're at the mercy of the effectiveness of the available drivers, and you might also (depending on your mobo) be limited by the GbE controller being attached to the PCI bus which it can max out all by itself even if nothing else wants some of the available bandwidth.
If it were my dosh and Photoshop played a major part in my life, I'd consider reallocating any available funds so that there were three separate physical disks (on seperate SATA/IDE channels). The first one (the Raptor presumably) would hold the OS, a paging file and installed apps (one single partition). The second (the 300GB data drive) would have a small partition (maybe 1GB) right at the start for a second pagefile, with the rest being allocated for data, including PS work in progress (the reasoning here is that WinXP is smart enough to page to whichever physical drive is least busy at a particular instant). The third (another Raptor?) would have a smallish partition at the start of the drive (10GB or thereabouts) solely for the PS scratch file (which hates being fragmented), with the rest for...ummm...whatever (maybe a first-stage backup of some of the data files on the second disk). If I were a pro, or semi-pro, I might even consider a RAID0 array of two Raptors for the scratch file (one of the few situations where RAID0 might be a real advantage)....
I don't think mapping drives across a GbE network is the solution...you're at the mercy of the effectiveness of the available drivers, and you might also (depending on your mobo) be limited by the GbE controller being attached to the PCI bus which it can max out all by itself even if nothing else wants some of the available bandwidth.
Three drives
Three drives does sound optimum but I think we will stick to two for now. Maybe if/when a third drive is eventually added we can rejig things a little, although I think having two disks not used for user data (other than backup) will likely be a step too far for us.
Actually, maybe the best thing would be to upgrade RAM to 2GB and allocate a small ramdisk for the paging file. Reason being that I keep hearing that XP always has a small swap file regardless of RAM size but why not make it use RAM for that swap file? We are only on 1GB RAM as of now because gaming is a high priority and, aside from the cost of 2GB, I didn't want to load the memory controller on the Athlon64 because of the effects on memory frequency, command rate, timings etc..
Actually, maybe the best thing would be to upgrade RAM to 2GB and allocate a small ramdisk for the paging file. Reason being that I keep hearing that XP always has a small swap file regardless of RAM size but why not make it use RAM for that swap file? We are only on 1GB RAM as of now because gaming is a high priority and, aside from the cost of 2GB, I didn't want to load the memory controller on the Athlon64 because of the effects on memory frequency, command rate, timings etc..
If you have enough memory, Windows will not continuously write to the swap file. Just because Windows creates a swap file, does not mean it is constantly writing to it.
So if you increase to 2GB of memory, just let Windows use it as normal. That will decrease the likelihood of needing the swap file.
All this discussion about swap files is way overdone unless you are editing very large graphics files that exceed your real memory (programs like Photoshop like to keep the whole image in memory). Same thing applies to digital editing of large sound files with certain sound editors.
So if you increase to 2GB of memory, just let Windows use it as normal. That will decrease the likelihood of needing the swap file.
All this discussion about swap files is way overdone unless you are editing very large graphics files that exceed your real memory (programs like Photoshop like to keep the whole image in memory). Same thing applies to digital editing of large sound files with certain sound editors.
That's not quite true... the PS scratch file is a slightly different beast from the Windows paging file and it's always used even if there's plenty of available physical RAM, hence why its placement is important. And it's suprisingly easy to max out your real memory when you're on a roll with Photoshop anyway...multiple layers, undo buffers etc all take their toll...m0002a wrote: All this discussion about swap files is way overdone unless you are editing very large graphics files that exceed your real memory (programs like Photoshop like to keep the whole image in memory).
You're quite right though that more RAM will give more benefits overall than tinkering with swapfiles and scratch files, and there's not much point in creating a ramdisk just for the paging file... all you'll be doing is making less memory available for the OS and apps.
Putting the pagefile on a RAM disk is counter productive.
Reasons to leave the pagefile on the hard drive, rather than using a RAMdisk:
- Paging stuff that hasn't been used from memory frees up space for disk caching.
- It gives PhotoShop more RAM to play with. PhotoShop will make good use of up to 2GB all by itself. Add 512 MB for Windows and the other stuff, and you've filled up 2.5 GB without even thinking about disk caching. You don't need to be inventive to utilise lots of RAM effectively.
- Stuff gets paged because it hasn't been used recently. But the data in RAM doesn't get immediately overwritten after it's been paged, it's simply able to be overwritten if something suddenly needs some memory (loading a program or file, for example). So if the paged data is still in RAM when it's needed again, it gets read from RAM. New stuff always uses empty RAM before overwriting paged data.
I wouldn't bother to use a RAM disk on a system with less than 4 GB of RAM. It's arguable whether it's worth putting pagefile or scratch on a RAMdisk if you've got that much. With only 2 GB, it's best to let Windows and PhotoShop decide what to do with it.
Everything I know about optimising for PhotoShop I learned at Storage Review. More cleary reasoned posts supporting my arguments are available there. Gilbo's posts there about PhotoShop are especially informative.
Reasons to leave the pagefile on the hard drive, rather than using a RAMdisk:
- Paging stuff that hasn't been used from memory frees up space for disk caching.
- It gives PhotoShop more RAM to play with. PhotoShop will make good use of up to 2GB all by itself. Add 512 MB for Windows and the other stuff, and you've filled up 2.5 GB without even thinking about disk caching. You don't need to be inventive to utilise lots of RAM effectively.
- Stuff gets paged because it hasn't been used recently. But the data in RAM doesn't get immediately overwritten after it's been paged, it's simply able to be overwritten if something suddenly needs some memory (loading a program or file, for example). So if the paged data is still in RAM when it's needed again, it gets read from RAM. New stuff always uses empty RAM before overwriting paged data.
I wouldn't bother to use a RAM disk on a system with less than 4 GB of RAM. It's arguable whether it's worth putting pagefile or scratch on a RAMdisk if you've got that much. With only 2 GB, it's best to let Windows and PhotoShop decide what to do with it.
Everything I know about optimising for PhotoShop I learned at Storage Review. More cleary reasoned posts supporting my arguments are available there. Gilbo's posts there about PhotoShop are especially informative.
Swap, scratch, etc.
OK, well I think I understand things now a lot better. Many thanks to all who posted. May just look into Gilbo's Lore.
Yes, I know it was not even me who started the thread .
Yes, I know it was not even me who started the thread
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PositiveSpin
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2004 5:03 am
The ultimate answer?
Perhaps the best might be to buy some 36Gb Raptors, and have the OS + software on the first one, the pagefile on the second one, the Photoshop scratch space on the third.
Then save the finished images to space on a (large!) file server, cause there's no room left in the machine for more hard drives
Maybe putting the OS pagefile and Photoshop scratch space on the same drive is OK? But definitely keep these away from the drive with the OS and other software. And maybe consider mirroring the drive holding the OS to avoid having to set the machine up again?
I have gigabit Ethernet, and it makes access to file server very quick - easily comparable to local hard drives for saving files. The file server is running two RAID 5 arrays of 200Gb hard drives, so it's a good thing that it is in another room
Then save the finished images to space on a (large!) file server, cause there's no room left in the machine for more hard drives
Maybe putting the OS pagefile and Photoshop scratch space on the same drive is OK? But definitely keep these away from the drive with the OS and other software. And maybe consider mirroring the drive holding the OS to avoid having to set the machine up again?
I have gigabit Ethernet, and it makes access to file server very quick - easily comparable to local hard drives for saving files. The file server is running two RAID 5 arrays of 200Gb hard drives, so it's a good thing that it is in another room
Re: The ultimate answer?
If you have more than one hard disk, these are the first things you should separate. Disk access gets very messy if they're both on the same disk.PositiveSpin wrote:Maybe putting the OS pagefile and Photoshop scratch space on the same drive is OK?
The reason being, you get heavy access to both swap and scratch at the same time, and if they're on the same drive, performance will be severely limited by the time spent seeking back and forth between the two.
You referred specifically to Photoshop and sound editors in your previous post, so it seemed as though you were including the application temporary files and not just the Windows pagefile specifically. Sorry if I misunderstood.m0002a wrote:I didn't say anything about PS scratch files. I was only talking about OS paging (swap) files.
Errr... thanks for the heads-up...m0002a wrote: Even on a forum rife with theoretical distinctions that are impossible to measure, this thread has gone way too far.
The performance issues being discussed here are not just theoretical, and they're certainly measurable, as you'd know if you spent any time doing serious multimedia work. Since you brought up the subject of sound editors, a CD image in PCM format can weigh in at nearly 800MB, so it's not hard to imagine running out of physical memory when you factor in the OS and running services, and that's even before you start any significant multitasking.
I'm not sure where the peevishness is coming from...if this thread is annoying you so much, no-one's forcing you to contribute to it or even to read it.
The best way to increase performance with PS, sound editors, etc is to have enough memory to avoid memory swapping to disk. That is much preferable than having to worry about disk allocation.
It is extremely unlikely that someone will be accessing Photoshop program files on disk, at the same time as scratch files on disk, at the same as the image file on disk. That is why memory was invented, so synchronous disk access is minimized.
Anyone who has performance problems with such programs, needs more memory, not more disk allocation algorithms.
If that bothers you, I am very sorry, but the solution is more memory (and not more memory for virtual disks).
It is extremely unlikely that someone will be accessing Photoshop program files on disk, at the same time as scratch files on disk, at the same as the image file on disk. That is why memory was invented, so synchronous disk access is minimized.
Anyone who has performance problems with such programs, needs more memory, not more disk allocation algorithms.
If that bothers you, I am very sorry, but the solution is more memory (and not more memory for virtual disks).
That's the whole point...it's not unlikely at all, in fact it's a common occurrance even with relatively large amounts of RAM. Furthermore, it's quite likely that someone using PS will also have Illustrator, Indesign etc running at the same time, each of which have their own heavy memory demands.m0002a wrote: It is extremely unlikely that someone will be accessing Photoshop program files on disk, at the same time as scratch files on disk, at the same as the image file on disk.
Of course it's always best to have as much physical RAM as possible, but it can't be the whole story, at least until 64-bit OSes and the apps to take advantage of them are commonplace.
It's safe to say that most PhotoShop users can't afford enough memory to ignore disk based optimisations. Even with 4 GB, you still end up needing scratch and pagefile.
When Photoshop is capable of using 10 GB of RAM, and users have that much RAM installed, maybe then it won't matter so much where you put your scratch disk. But you'll still need one, and it'll still get used.
A lot of users are waiting for a 64 bit version of Photoshop to allow it to effectively utilise more RAM. And then, once the software can use it, yesa, they will install more RAM if they can afford it and their hardware will take it.
When Photoshop is capable of using 10 GB of RAM, and users have that much RAM installed, maybe then it won't matter so much where you put your scratch disk. But you'll still need one, and it'll still get used.
A lot of users are waiting for a 64 bit version of Photoshop to allow it to effectively utilise more RAM. And then, once the software can use it, yesa, they will install more RAM if they can afford it and their hardware will take it.