Doing an upgrade to my current system - replacing 2 X 36GB Raptors with
2 X 74GB Raptors (RAID 0) as the system drive (needed more space). I'm a
casual user of Photoshop Elements. Question: would I benefit from using
one of the 36GB disk as the "scratch" disk for Elements. Pictures/video
are stored on a 300GB 7200 RPM Seagate SATA harddrive. OS is Vista Home
Premium (64 bit).

Other components:
AMD 5200+, 4GB Memory, GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB)

Thanks,
Fitz
--
Your body is a temple boy,
You ought to treat it well
But you trash the place and rent it out
Like it's some cheap motel - The Badlees

You might benefit from upgrading to drive sizes that aren't what 5 years
old. 76GB who in hell can get a long with that. I have 2TB of drive space
and still need more. You do realize you can raid larger drivers. You do
realize that you can get 200GB or larger cheap these days.

Robert Barnett wrote:
> You might benefit from upgrading to drive sizes that aren't what 5 years
> old. 76GB who in hell can get a long with that. I have 2TB of drive
> space and still need more. You do realize you can raid larger drivers.
> You do realize that you can get 200GB or larger cheap these days.
>
>
Yep, but not at 10,000 rpm (Raptor X are 150GB). But 148GB (74 X 2 RAID
0) is plenty for the system drive for my needs- and fast. Add in the
storage drive(s) for pics, vids, music, etc and I have all the space I
need. Still, the original question was would Photoshop benefit from an
isolated hard disk as a scratch disk.


--
Your body is a temple boy,
You ought to treat it well
But you trash the place and rent it out
Like it's some cheap motel - The Badlees

From Adobe:

If you have more than one hard disk, you'll get the best performance when
virtual memory is on one hard disk and the Photoshop scratch disk on
another, so they do not try to use the hard disk at the same time, which can
slow down Photoshop and the operating system. However, if the operating
system has enough RAM to not have to swap pages out of RAM, then having
virtual memory and the Photoshop scratch disk on the same drive will not
decrease performance.

"Fitz" <akfitz@gci.net> wrote in message
news:13uamien2rdhk58@corp.supernews.com...
....
> Yep, but not at 10,000 rpm (Raptor X are 150GB). But 148GB (74 X 2 RAID 0)
> is plenty for the system drive for my needs- and fast. Add in the storage
> drive(s) for pics, vids, music, etc and I have all the space I need.
> Still, the original question was would Photoshop benefit from an isolated
> hard disk as a scratch disk.

Yes - as would the OS itself. Less fragmentation for long transfers, and no
arm contention.

Not directly relevant to your question, but for the rest of us, here's a
thought. Vista can get a performance bump by swapping out to a USB2 flash
drive. These flash drives are getting pretty darn fast - faster than most
hard drives if you count seek time, and may work well as a swap drive for
Photoshop. For windows, format the drive as NTFS to get a bit more of a
speed boost. Here's an article that touches on this:
http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=139778
--
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com

On Mar 23, 3:14 am, "Mike Russell" <RE-MOVEm...@Curvemeister.comRE-
MOVE> wrote:
> "Fitz" <akf...@gci.net> wrote in message
>
> news:13uamien2rdhk58@corp.supernews.com...
> ...
>
> > Yep, but not at 10,000 rpm (Raptor X are 150GB). But 148GB (74 X 2 RAID 0)
> > is plenty for the system drive for my needs- and fast. Add in the storage
> > drive(s) for pics, vids, music, etc and I have all the space I need.
> > Still, the original question was would Photoshop benefit from an isolated
> > hard disk as a scratch disk.
>
> Yes - as would the OS itself. Less fragmentation for long transfers, and no
> arm contention.
>
> Not directly relevant to your question, but for the rest of us, here's a
> thought. Vista can get a performance bump by swapping out to a USB2 flash
> drive. These flash drives are getting pretty darn fast - faster than most
> hard drives if you count seek time, and may work well as a swap drive for
> Photoshop. For windows, format the drive as NTFS to get a bit more of a
> speed boost. Here's an article that touches on this:http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=139778
> --
> Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

Hi Mike,
This is not directly relevant to your reply, since it's not USB2, but
at almost $6000 this gives some idea of how far the flash prices still
need to fall for a complete conversion.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,14...a/article.html

<ronviers@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d1c38e6d-8dd3-4a43-be3d-90a864f12461@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com...

[re photoshop swap drive alternatives]

> Hi Mike,
> This is not directly relevant to your reply, since it's not USB2, but
> at almost $6000 this gives some idea of how far the flash prices still
> need to fall for a complete conversion.
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,14...a/article.html

Interesting, Ron. 65 Mbytes / sec? Not too shabby. I'll get two and hook
them up as a RAID array for some real performance.

On a more earthly plane than that of the OP - a freebie USB1 drive I
happened to have lying around tops out at a typical .7 Mbytes / sec. so yes,
USB1 would not be suitable for much of anything. The faster USB2 drives
from Lexar, Kingston, and the like will do much better than this, 25 MB
(Megabytes) / sec, and I imagine these would be perfectly suitable.

Most of my work is done on a rather old notebook, whose 5200 rpm drive will
do about 5.6 MB/sec write speed. Even my network drive does about that
fast.) Adding an inexpensive USB2 external drive gets me a transfer rate of
about 18 MB / sec, which is several times faster than my notebook's internal
hard drive, and I've found that using it for both system and Photoshop swap
speeds things up considerably.

In my situation, I populate four MSVDM desktops with some rather large apps,
including Photoshop, ACDSee, Google Earth, and Dreamweaver. Most of my
delay is in switching desktops, swapping in the pages for the new one, so
having a faster swap drive makes a big difference.
---
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com

On Mar 26, 1:00 pm, "Mike Russell" <RE-MOVEm...@Curvemeister.comRE-
MOVE> wrote:

> four MSVDM desktops with some rather large apps,
> Most of my delay is in switching desktops
> ---
> Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

Is MSVDM very different than having four users accounts on the same
computer? I am going to download it but it is not something I need
right now. What I could use is more monitor real estate.
Most of my delay is cognitive. I just spend two days staring at
fifteen lines of script. My computer sits and stares back at me
waiting for me to enter something.

<ronviers@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:99371edc-eb6e-482d-9b69-ad8058209d0f@h11g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 26, 1:00 pm, "Mike Russell" <RE-MOVEm...@Curvemeister.comRE-
> MOVE> wrote:
>
>> four MSVDM desktops with some rather large apps,
>> Most of my delay is in switching desktops
>> ---
>> Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com
>
> Is MSVDM very different than having four users accounts on the same
> computer?

Yes, I keep four desktops, so I have one for Photoshop and development,
another for web work, a third for GPS/Google Earth - or other special
projects, and a fourth for email and web. That plus two monitors, means I
have a lot of stuff open at the same time. Whe I switch desktops, it all
swaps in and out at the same time, so a faster swap drive makes a big
difference.

> I am going to download it but it is not something I need
> right now.

I didn't try it on my windows system until I saw how nice it was after
upgrading to Tiger - then I found out there was a free version from
Microsoft.

> What I could use is more monitor real estate.
> Most of my delay is cognitive. I just spend two days staring at
> fifteen lines of script. My computer sits and stares back at me
> waiting for me to enter something.

Some bugs are just that way - or maybe, like me, you are still recovering
from the realization that "The Wire" is really over!
--
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com

On Mar 26, 6:39 pm, "Mike Russell" <RE-MOVEm...@Curvemeister.comRE-
MOVE> wrote:

> I didn't try it on my windows system until I saw how nice it was after
> upgrading to Tiger - then I found out there was a free version from
> Microsoft.

I took a look at MSVDM and Virtual Dimension. I like them both but VD
displays what each window has open and allows for more desktops. The
problem now is finding the natural boundaries between projects. I
would like to keep the same instance of Word open in each window but
I'm sure I will adjust.

> Some bugs are just that way - or maybe, like me, you are still recovering
> from the realization that "The Wire" is really over!

It's not a bug, part of my plan for taking over the world is to endear
Vinge's post-singularity entity to me by providing impetus for its
genesis by driving my computer, through frustration and pity, to
contrive a way to upgrade my brain. I heard The Wire was good but I do
not get that channel. I hope it is as good in reruns as Arrested
Development.

> --
> Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

On Mar 28, 4:33 pm, "ronvi...@gmail.com" <ronvi...@gmail.com> wrote:
I
> I would like to keep the same instance of Word open in each window but
> I'm sure I will adjust.


A quick update about Virtual Dimension - it turns out that not only
can I have the same instance of any application across all desktops
but I can also move apps between windows. It has already become
indispensable. There is also something cathartic and peaceful about
making the switch.

<ronviers@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fd7aceaa-e35c-4771-864b-25733c9e6e75@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
[re performance, desktops, cabbages, and kings]

> A quick update about Virtual Dimension - it turns out that not only
> can I have the same instance of any application across all desktops
> but I can also move apps between windows. It has already become
> indispensable. There is also something cathartic and peaceful about
> making the switch.

That sounds handy - I may give it a try.
--
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com