Scratch Disc
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- mirrorball
Gonna get a wee 120gb external bus powered drive to use as a scratch disc.
Would it be better to go for a USB 2.0 or Firewire one?
I also want to use it as storage too so how much GB's should I give the Scratch disc? I work in Photoshop & Indesign mostly....
- mirrorball0
Anyone? anyone?
- Nairn0
Is it advisable to use an external as a Scratch disk? I'd always go with an internal (SATA/IDE).
Otherwise, I'd go with USB2 - as far as I know, they're about the same speed (on most external drives) whilst USB2 is usable on more machines.
I know that I'd prefer it if my Firewire external HD were USB - I stupidly thought that it was quicker when I bought it.
- horton0
not really worth going out and buying an external disk for this purpose.. if you really want a dedicated scratch disk best if you just keep it in mind for next time you reformat an internal SATA and partition off like 5gbs or so for scratch.
- skelly_b0
I believe Firewire 400 is slightly faster than USB2, but it is negligible. If you are on a Mac I would suggest a Firewire 800 connection, since this is about twice as fast as the other two.
Beyond that it is a good idea to use an internal drive for a scratch. Nothing but the OS and Apps on one drive. Partition the second drive to hold working files and scratch. Then archive and backup to externals. That is what I do at least.
- Nairn0
Why the partition for the scratch drives? Is that so you always ensure you've got xGB free on that drive?
Otherwise, I can't see any speed gain.
- monNom0
all the writes to the scratch disk fragment the drive pretty quick. keeping all that stuff on a dedicated drive letter makes it easy to format every couple of months for tip-top performance.
- horton0
i've read that read write speeds will be quicker if you dedicate 1st or 2nd partition of a disk to scratch, as that part of disk is closest to center. but i dunno if its really all that noticeable. i just like having 5GBs set aside because i know its always free.
i've got drive 1 as OSX and apps, drive 2 as scratch, fonts, files, library etc.
- horton0
i've got drive 1 as OSX and apps, drive 2 as scratch, fonts, files, library etc.
horton
(Sep 24 07, 16:28)* correction; drive 2 partitioned as 3.. scratch, fonts & library.
- epigraph0
fw4oo and usb 2 are about the same speed, but Firewire is capable of sustained data transfer, while usb sends bursts of data.
so firewire is faster.
- epigraph0
check this out though http://www.gearlog.com/2007/03/h…
$2000, but It'll make photoshop fly!
- Nairn0
Interesting, epigraph - so Firewire's 'better' on video and long file writes? Good to know.
- mirrorball0
So my internal hard drive should be partitioned into 3
1. FOR OSX & APPS
2. Scratch disc for photoshop
and left empty
3. For all my working files, music, pics, fonts etcIs this right?
- Nairn0
Just the first two, the third partition's a bit redundant - you're much better off with a second hard disk.
- mirrorball0
So just keep all me Work Files in with the 1st partition with OSX then?
Have the 2nd partition as my scratch and leave that with 5gbs totally empty