Recommended size of scratch disk.

I like taking pictures and have thousands of them in my computer,
but cannot devote as much time and serious attention to photography
as I would like. So far, I have only dabbled on and off with
Photoshop (v7), but could become more involved in the future.

I guess the desireable amount of RAM and scratch disk size depends
on image size. So far, the largest images I've worked on are of
the order of 20 MP - around 70MB in 24-bit color. Hard to say if
I'm likely to become more ambitious in the future.

I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, pimpom wrote:
I like taking pictures and have thousands of them in my computer,
but cannot devote as much time and serious attention to photography
as I would like. So far, I have only dabbled on and off with
Photoshop (v7), but could become more involved in the future.

I guess the desireable amount of RAM and scratch disk size depends
on image size. So far, the largest images I've worked on are of
the order of 20 MP - around 70MB in 24-bit color. Hard to say if
I'm likely to become more ambitious in the future.

I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

Buy a Big, Honkin' USB HDD. Keep your images on a partition there,
_and_ use a 2nd partition on the USB HDD to back up your user files from
the PC. You do back up, don't you? :-)

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: http://jonz.net/ng.htm

wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, in rec.photo.digital "pimpom"
wrote:

I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

A partition on a separate disk is a good idea. The size required
depends upon how you use PS and the amount of space needed for this
use. What type of editing you do on what size images, how many
cache levels you want, etc.

Somewhere I read increasing the size of a scratch disk makes a
positive difference up to a certain limit; more than that results in a
decrement in performance. Sorry to say I can't remember the size or
the source.

Mine is set in the second partition of the primary disk: C:/ for boot
and system use, D:/ for program files and scratch disk (140 GB free);
data is on E:/, a second internal drive, with backups to a pair of USB
externals. Seems to work good with files up to 50 MB.

--
Frank ess

pimpom wrote:
I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?


Don't even worry about the scratch disk, but do get yourself more RAM.
It's cheap, and 3GB will make a much, much bigger difference than any
type or amount of scratch disk.

"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, "pimpom"
wrote:

Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

There is no benefit in using a separate partition. Just use the second
drive space as needed. That's how my backup system has worked for
years. It is currently 41GB of a 80GB drive. That's not just pictures.
The folders of pictures add up to 16GB.

The idea behind having a dedicated partition for scratch disk is
that the space will never be fragmented due to other files stored
in the same partition.

I've also planned my partitioning scheme for the two hard disks so
that the computer is unlikely to need access to the second drive
(where the scratch disk is located) when I'm using Photoshop. Other
partitions in the second drive will be used for storing games and
video files.

On Sun, 25 May 2008 22:06:55 +0000, Allodoxaphobia wrote:

On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, pimpom wrote:
I like taking pictures and have thousands of them in my computer, but
cannot devote as much time and serious attention to photography as I
would like. So far, I have only dabbled on and off with Photoshop (v7),
but could become more involved in the future.

I guess the desireable amount of RAM and scratch disk size depends on
image size. So far, the largest images I've worked on are of the order
of 20 MP - around 70MB in 24-bit color. Hard to say if I'm likely to
become more ambitious in the future.

I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two hard
disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you think I
will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive to be used
exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will something like 5GB
be adequate ?

Buy a Big, Honkin' USB HDD. Keep your images on a partition there,
_and_ use a 2nd partition on the USB HDD to back up your user files from
the PC. You do back up, don't you? :-)

I disagree. I'd spend the money on max'ing out the RAM, first, then do a
little drive/partition reworking to get the most out of the two existing
drives before investing in another.

FWIW, I prefer to have the System/Applications on one drive and all my
data and such on another with nightly "difference" backups of the data
drive going onto a backups dedicated 3rd on a completely different
machine, but then I'm unbelievably paranoid. ;-)

Stef

Allodoxaphobia wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, pimpom wrote:
I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

Buy a Big, Honkin' USB HDD. Keep your images on a partition there,
_and_ use a 2nd partition on the USB HDD to back up your user files from
the PC. You do back up, don't you? :-)

While backing up is certainly useful I wonder why you would possibly
want to create a swap partition on a HDD with such a slow interface.

jue

On Mon, 26 May 2008 22:14:47 GMT, J?gen Exner wrote:
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:54:45 +0530, pimpom wrote:
I am migrating to another computer with Win XP, 1GB RAM and two
hard disks - a 320GB main drive and a 200GB second drive. Do you
think I will benefit from creating a partition on the second drive
to be used exclusively as a PS scratch disk ? And if so, will
something like 5GB be adequate ?

Buy a Big, Honkin' USB HDD. Keep your images on a partition there,
_and_ use a 2nd partition on the USB HDD to back up your user files from
the PC. You do back up, don't you? :-)

While backing up is certainly useful I wonder why you would possibly
want to create a swap partition on a HDD with such a slow interface.

Huh? Where in anything that you quoted was "swap" addressed?

And, the intent would never be to actually work on images on the USB HDD.
Copy the 'archive' image that's to be futzed with to the image editing
directory on a 'motherboard' HDD and flail away.

The OP intimated that he wanted to store A LOT of images on a HDD when
putting together a new system. Why tie up some much space with archive
storage on the mainboard HDD(s)?

And, to the OP: Burn a copy of your image directory(s) using your
new DVD writer -- if they are at all important to you.

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: http://jonz.net/ng.htm