Canon camcorder + scratch disk questions

I have a Canon Optura 50 (I now know that was not the best choice!). But, given what I have and I can't buy a new camcorder for a while, I would like some advice and clarification.
I have been following the thread on dropped frames and the do's and don'ts of internal vs external hard drives (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?forumID=936&threadID=680582). The consensus seems to be that (a) it is not a good idea to use the internal drive as the scratch disc, and (b) best to use an external FW drive and daisy chain the camera to FW drive to computer.
With the Canon I take it I cannot daisy chain it due to it's FW hardware quirks of not liking anything else on the FW bus at the same time as video capture, correct?
Am I going to run into major problems with my internal drive, since I use it as the scratch disk? I capture to the internal, and then move all the files to the external for editing in FCE.
Is there anything else I should know or do? I have created several projects in FCE, with success. I am slowly learning more as I go, and this forum has been a great help.
Lisa
iMac 20" Intel Core Duo 2Ghz 1.5gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7) FCE 3.5; Seagate 250 GB FW external

With the Canon I take it I cannot daisy chain it due to it's FW hardware quirks of not liking anything else on the FW bus at the same time as video capture, correct?
I have my Canon daisy chained through my external HD with no problems. Ever. So I am forced to believe either I have been blessed with enternal luck (knock on woodcrest) or convince myself the consensus that there is a specific problem with Canon cameras being daisy-chained has been the direct effect of pure coincidence and speculation. One will truly never know if a specific set-up will work until they try it out for themselves so go ahead and daisy chain that Canon away and see if you have problems.
And as far as using an external disk as your HD goes...
If you have the FC Express User Maual, take a look at Chapter 12 titled "Determining Your Hard Disk Storage Options" starting on page 153. If you don't have the manual feel free to check it out online here on Apple's website. Be aware it's a 26.5 MB link so it might take awhile to load but I'll highlight the juicy stuff for ya:
The manual states:
"By default, Final Cut Express HD uses the hard disk on which the application is installed
as your scratch disk to store captured and render files. Ideally, you should use a hard
disk other than your main system disk as your scratch disk."
It goes on to mention:
"The data rate of the video you capture depends on the format of the source video and
the codec you use for capture. The data rate for DV and HDV is 3.6 MB/sec.: Whatever
disk drive technology you decide to use, your storage disk’s sustained transfer speed
must be fast enough to keep up with the data rate."
The MBP can have a 7200 drive installed in it and that's not really the point. The point is it's just not reasonable to think that ONE HD, even if it's a 10,000 Raptor, can read the information to run the Operating System, Application, AND read your video/audio data all at once without expecting hiccups. You need your System drive to run your OS and Apps. and your seperate Scratch Disk for your Media (not a partition of your System Drive). Simple as that.
Not saying the other way isn't possible, it's just not recommended. If Apple doesn't recommend it then I won't regardless of status.

Similar Messages

Photoshop scratch disk question

Hi All,
I do a lot of work with photoshop elements, and currently have an external drive with a 2GB partion as my scratch disk - connected via firewire.
However I am beginning to find this set up a little annoying as it means I am stuck to one location unable to move when using photoshop.
I was thinking about partioning the internal hard drive on my PB instead and so having the scratch disk available wherever and also the transfer speed would be by the Gb instead of 400Mb. (am I right?)
Is it a good idea to partion a hard drive on a portable? is it worth all the hassle of reinstalling and also has anyone had any problems after partioning? like battery life decreasing?
Thanks in advance,
Naj

you seem have to put this question in the software session but fine. well, actually, you don't need to specifically partition you drive for photoshop and just let it choose your start-up disk or other connected drive you choose. but, for external drive, you have to connect while you start up you system. if not, your ps will always switch back to your start-up disk when you start your ps.

Scratch Disk Question

In the past I have had 10 GB partitions of the main hard drive to use exclusively for a scratch disk for Photoshop and all the other Adobe Suite apps because I had heard it wasn't a good idea to have the scratch drive the same as your main hard drive.
Just recently upgraded to an iMac (a nice, new, white one with the high quality matte screen) which has a 250 GB internal drive. I didn't bother to repartition this one and have been using it as my scratch & main disk for the last 2 months. Which means the system is on this drive and I am opening and saving to it regularly.
My question is, would it be worth it to create a separate partition just for a scratch disk? Does it really make that much of a difference? I haven't noticed any problems up until now but was wondering about it.
As you can see below I have a 2.16 Core 2 Duo with 3 GB of ram, HD currently has 108.3 GB available, 124.2 GB used. I mainly use Adobe CS3; Illustrator, Photoshop & InDesign always open and in constant use and switching between them.
So should I repartition for a dedicated scratch disk or is it not necessary? Well, obviously it's not necessary since I've been working fine without it for 2 months, but will it improve performance of the Adobe apps and/or prevent possible directory corruption? And if I should how big should it be?

Hi! If it's doing what you want I wouldn't mess with it. The biggest bottleneck is probably if you were at a near full disk situation. As long as you keep 15-20% of free space you probably won't have problems. One other thing you can consider. You should have a bootable clone backup for emergencies and using an external firewire drive works good for that so if you get one you could always partition it to use as a scratch disk as well as a bootable backup clone. The internal disk speed is going to be faster that firewire so as long as the setup you are using is working well I'd stick with it but give serious consideration to a bootable backup solution. Tom

Scratch Disk Questions

Only pagefile, scratch/renders, and program files on this drive? Any reason not to do some file storage on this drive, too? Or what about other programs that never run simultaneously with editing apps?
Is it acceptable to have my main media storage drives in a RAID array, but use a single unraided SATA drive for scratch? Or should one move the scratch disk from a single drive to RAID in these circumstances?

Keep in mind that the Velociraptor has only 16 MB cache, whereas a 1 TB disk has 32 MB cache. Also keep in mind that on a 150 GB disk 100 GB of data amounts to a fill rate of around 70%, while on a 1 TB disk that would only amount to 10% fill rate. Comparing both disks when empty, yes, the Velociraptor is faster, but when filled up to 70% is may well be slower than a 1 TB disk filled to 10%.
Look at these charts:
The spikes are caused by the cache being depleted. With 100 GB data on the disk, the sequential read speed is around 100 MB/s
Now look at the graph from a 1 TB disk:
With the same 100 GB data on this disk the sequential read speed is around 115 MB/s
Now look at the graph for a 2 disk raid0 array with 2 x 1 TB disks:
With up to 900 GB of data the sequential read speed stays at around 200 GB/s.
And the last one, a 12 x 1 TB disk raid30 array shows these figures:
Across the board this delivers a sequential read speed of over 800 MB/s (average 853 MB/s) and no deterioration with increasing fill rates.
Although these graphs only indicate sequential read speeds, the same pattern applies to write speeds.

Photoshop CS4 Scratch Disk question

i've asked questions about this topic before, but did not quiet get the answer i was looking for.
First: How much hard drive space should be allocated to photoshop? We are working with files at times exceeding 6GB. We have 32GB of RAM and a few hard drives, internal and external.
Second: the size of my Documents folder is no more than 250gb and the capacity of the system hard drive is 500. What else could possibly take up so much room? the programs take up about 50gb so im left with 200 missing GB?
Thank you for your attention.

mikhail7 wrote:
Second: the size of my Documents folder is no more than 250gb and the capacity of the system hard drive is 500. What else could possibly take up so much room? the programs take up about 50gb so im left with 200 missing GB?
Thank you for your attention.
Turn off system restore or at least manually delete older restore points and reduce the number of states to store. Windows will create restore points after every install and also in regular intervals without you doing anything. Even if they are incremental, they are taking up oodles of space. The hibernation cache is usually the exact size of your system directory + swap file + RAM amount, so if you have a lot of RAM and a large swap file, it wil lbe pretty large, too. It can however be eliminated by simply turning off the hibernation in the energy management options. For further cleanup, use Windows' own Disk Cleanup Utility or tools like CCleaner.
Mylenium

Question about Photoshop scratch disk and specific setup

Hi Folks
Thanks for the help in advance.
I'm a novice and need help finding a solution to a new PC Build. (Windows 7 Pro 64bit with Photoshop CS6)
I only recently found out about having a scratch disk dedicated for photoshop (very novice i know ), and was wondering if a 120-128GB SSD would be enough? (Please bear in mind I can't fit large SSD raid configs to my budget, plus I live in New Zealand, so prices are higher for SSD at the moment).
I only edit single camera RAW files at a time around 25mb per file, with no large amount of layers and very rarely do large images i.e. Panorama etc. I have searched the forums but could not find a concrete answer.
My setup was originally meant for a HTPC (I don't intend to overclock), but I will also be using it for light photography projects. Specs below:
CPU: Intel i7 3770
Mobo: Asrock B75 Pro3-M (or Asus P8H77m Pro, depending on budget)
16gb Ram (maybe bump up to 32gb later)
120-128gb SSD for OS and apps
120-128gb SSD scratch disk
2 TB HDD for storage
If anyone knows, the motherboards I've listed have 3x Sata3 ports, Asrock has one Intel chip and two Asmedia controlled Sata3 ports, while Asus has 2x Intel controlled and 1x Marvell controlled Sata3 port. If I went with the Asrock, would it be okay to connect the OS/Apps SSD to the intel controlled sata3 port and have the scratch disk and storage HDD to the Asmedia sata3 ports?
And one more novice question, when I begin to edit my images, is it best to transfer my photos from memory card to storage HDD then work from there? Or would it be quicker opening images direct from a USB 3.0 card reader / USB 3.0 external hard drive?
Thanks again everyone, really appreciate it

priddye wrote:
Just to clarify, if/when I get one 256gb SSD for my main C: drive, I can load the OS/Apps and store some data for the time being (until I get another SSD) and use the 2TB HDD for scratch disk only?
Yes, that's what I meant. You could try putting Photoshop scratch on C: at least temporarily, and watch your free space carefully. If you don't work on big documents or set your history states to be very large, it might be workable. But be careful. The safe "set it and forget it" configuration is to make your HDD the one and only Photoshop scratch drive.
When I do get around to getting the second 256gb, I will look at installing the two SSD's in RAID configuration. If i were to do this, can I load the OS/Apps to the RAID SSD's as well as using them for scratch disks and have the 2TB HDD for storage? I hope that makes sense.
Sounds about right; with 512GB on tap you should be able to run just about everything from C:, as long as you don't keep your entire photo library on there. Realistically, on a big system that's got a lot of apps installed and has been used for some time, Windows and your apps may end up consuming 100 to 150 GB, so that would still leave you a lot of breathing room.
Keep in mind that what you describe may require 3rd party re-partitioning software and/or backup and restoral, or a complete reinstallation of Windows and everything (usually the latter is what is recommended when moving up to a RAID system volume).
By the way, SSDs stay in best working order if you overprovision - i.e., maintain a fair amount of free space. The internal controllers need the free space to keep the data organized well and maintain top performance.
-Noel

Macbook Pro with Dual hard drives. Scratch Disk, Memory 64bit, Raid, Set Up Questions.

Hello, this is my first post.
I just upgraded from the original 2006 17" Macbook Pro to a refurbished 13" Macbook Pro 2.53GHZ 4GB Ram (2009 model).
I bought the MCE Tech Optibay and installed it (if you dont know anything about it, ask me, its amazing.) So now I have 2x 500GB 7200RPM Seagate hard drives installed.
I am running Snow Leopard, CS3, Lightroom 1.4.
I have the main hard drive set up with Snow Leopard and all the Applications. I keep all my files on external firewire 800 drives, except files I am currently working on.
The second hard drive is set up as a scratch disk for Photoshop CS3 and that is it.
I am looking to upgrade to CS5 and Lightroom 3 here within this month or so. Or if I get anxious, tomorrow, haha.
I want to know the best setup I can do with my current set up with CS3 and for my future setup with CS5.
Any info will appreciated.
-Would some kind of raid set up with my internal drives be better? How does raid work with scratch disks?
-If I upgrade to 8GB memory in my macbook pro, would I even see a difference in performance if I didn't have a scratch disk? Since CS5 and Snow Leopard can use more memory in 64bit.
I think thats all I have on my brain right now. I may have more questions, or I can guarantee I will have more later.
Thanks alot.

First the scratch. Like you said, most everyone has a different take on scratch discs but I'd guess you're wasting one heck of a lot of hard drive space using all 500 GB for Scratch, did I read that right? If I did read it correctly YES, partition it and get some use out of it!!
I've got a unibody MBP 2.93GHz, OS 10.5.8, CS3 & PS 5 (running in 32bit mode), and 8 gigs of ram. I've partitioned the one 300 GB drive so 50GB is scratch, the other partition is for OS, & Apps, and documents (images).
I use LR 2 first than export to PS 5 to finish up. My photos get to be 300MB to 500MB in size and both versions of PS work on this setup just fine. Using PS 5 in 64 bit mode is faster opening files but NON of my plugin's are 64 bit yet, that's why I'm still stuck in 32 bit mode.
Not knowing what size or kind of files you work on makes giving advice a bit tough but try setting the status indicator (don't know the right name for it) in the bottom left corner of any PS open file to "Efficiency" and watch what happens when you process your files. I rarely see mine drop below 90%, I've got the usable RAM in PS Prefs set to it's max suggested, cut way back on History and Cache.
Can't wait for NIK and others to offer their plugin in 64 bit, later this year is what I was told.
There used to be an old "rule of thumb" with old version of PS about Scratch disc size. I don't remember exactly but it may have been 3 to 5 times the size of your biggest file??
Good luck, Alan

Scratch disk and other setup questions

Hello, I am a long time Premiere user but have never been involved with the setup. I have decided to start doing personal video editing on my gaming computer and have run into some questions.
The biggest one I have is with the scratch disk setup. I've read the help doc about 10 times and googled every combination of terms I can think of but am still unsure how I should set these for my setup.
I have Premiere Pro CS5 installed on my C:, which is a 128 GB SSD
For storage I have 4 1TB drives in Raid 5, so 2.72 TB total storage.
How do I want to set up my scratch disks for best possible performance?
Question 2: This might be related to scratch disk setup, I'm not sure, but something I have always wondered. Which disk should I save my projects to in this configuration? Does it matter? Then, do I want to render my final video to that same folder or to another disk?
Question 3: I currently have a GTX 460 graphics card and am enjoying the benefits of CUDA acceleration. I have been looking at adding a second in SLI for gaming purposes, but have read that the Mercury Playback Engine is not compatible with SLI. Does this mean that it will still just work with one card and I will see no benefit in premiere, or that all CUDA acceration will cease?
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help.

Alright, so I have the hdd's in the case and am setting up where to place everything, but each of my drives is different, so I am hoping someone can suggest best practice on which drives should hold what. I can rearrange any drive to suit any purpose you guys would suggest, but here is what I currently have set up:
C: - 128 GB SATA III SSD
D: - 150 GB 10k VelociRaptor
E: - 250 GB Caviar Black
F: - 4x 1 TB Spinpoint F4 7200 RPM in RAID 5
Here is how I am currently planning on using these drives:
C: - OS, Programs
D: - Media, Projects
E: - Previews, Exports
F: - Pagefile, Media Cache
When I am finished with a project I move the exported file onto my media server, so that is why I set the export onto the smaller drive and media cache onto the RAID.
Does this look good or would you guys suggest a different orientation for better performance?
And one other question, this time regarding RAM. I currently have 6 GB of DDR3, 3 x 2 GB. I have been reading all about how moving up to 24 GB would be very beneficial, and since it really isn't all that expensive, I am planning on doing so. My question is that, I have watched the task manager while rendering and exporting my videos and I've only ever seen RAM usage hit 1.8 GB. I wondered why it didn't get close to using all 6, but didn't worry about it too much. But now that I am hearing 24 would be helpful, I am wondering if I have something set up wrong that is stopping Premiere from using all my RAM?
Thank you guys so much for the help.

How can i make my external hard drive be the scratch disk with 1 FW input?!

Hello! I use firewire with my external HD AND my camera...however i only have one firewire input...i set my scratch disk for final cut to work with my external HD but when i am importing footage to my computer with my camcorder, i can not have my external HD plugged in, thus the scratch disk has to be set to something else to continue working. So how can i work around this problem?! Should i just change the settings back after i import the footage and it all goes to place?

I don't understand the need to daisy chain. I have one Firewire port on my MacBook Pro, and I use a Firewire hub. I've been connecting two 1TB Western Digital My Book Studio Edition hard drives (one for FCE and iMovie projects; one for the media files I create via export), and a Canon NTSC ZR200 miniDV tape camcorder, or a Sony Digital8 tape camcorder, or sometimes a Canopus ADVC 110, without issues. Why not use a Firewire hub? . . . except to save the small expense.

Dropped Frames in Viewer, and Hard Disk Questions

Hi,
I'm new to FCE (v3.5.1) having just upgraded from iMovie. I'm on a 2GHz Core Duo MacBook with 2GB RAM. I have a 120GB internal drive that has 16GB free. In my initial use of FCE, I've run into two problems.
(1) I'm finding that frames are regularly dropped during playback in the Viewer - as much as half the time. The same video clips playback flawlessly in iMovie and in Quicktime. These frames are on my MacBook's internal hard disk and are each roughly a minute in length.
I should note that these clips were exported from iMovie (I copied them out of an iMovie project file / package). Might this be causing the problem?
(2) Also, I'm finding that the audio playback of these clips (that were copied from the iMovie package) is okay in the Viewer but not in the Canvas (I hear beeping) -- I found mention that the audio format of iMovie and FCE are different, so I expect I need to reimport these clips anyway. Is there an easy way around this?
(3) I know I said two problems, but number 3 is a question, not a problem! Given my hardware setup described above, should I be able to get away with working with the clips located on an external Firewire hard disk? Or should I only work with clips located on my internal drive. Similarly, can I effectively work with a scratch disk that is external FW, or should I keep that on my internal drive?
Thanks in advance,
Tim

(1) I'm finding that frames are regularly dropped during playback in the Viewer - as much as half the time. The same video clips playback flawlessly in iMovie and in Quicktime. These frames are on my MacBook's internal hard disk and are each roughly a minute in length.
Need to know info more about the clips from iMovie.
Clips coming into FCE need to match the Sequence settings. This is set up before a Project begins using the Easy Setups. My guess is there is a mis-match.
2) Also, I'm finding that the audio playback of these clips (that were copied from the iMovie package) is okay in the Viewer but not in the Canvas (I hear beeping) -- I found mention that the audio format of iMovie and FCE are different, so I expect I need to reimport these clips anyway. Is there an easy way around this?
The work around is to render, Command+R or Sequence>Render All from the menu.
iMovie uses DV Stream and is a multiplexed format whereas FCE uses DV. The QuickTime files that FCE likes has the audio seperate from the video allowing them to be edited with or without the video.
3) I know I said two problems, but number 3 is a question, not a problem! Given my hardware setup described above, should I be able to get away with working with the clips located on an external Firewire hard disk? Or should I only work with clips located on my internal drive. Similarly, can I effectively work with a scratch disk that is external FW, or should I keep that on my internal drive?
Using FCE an External firewire is a much better option than your internal.
Search this forum for Canon/LaCie, most users get in strife with this combo. Most other stuff seems fine.
Before unloading $$ it's always best to do a bit of checking around.
Al

Please help me setup CS4 scratch disks etc

Hey everyone
I just bought CS4 Premiere Pro and I really want to set it up correctly.
I am editing 1080p AVCHD video from my Canon HG21 HD Camera, but I need to find out how to properly set up scratch disks etc.
I guess you have the program running on one hard drive, the media that you are editing on another, and a scratch disk on another hard drive?
I don't totally understand how to set this up.
My current rig is an i7 920, 6gb 1600 mhz ram, 4870x2, 3 WD HDD's. The HDD the program is installed on is a 7200 rpm drive but I think the others are 5400? I'll have to check that out.
Thanks for your help.

Hi Harm,
Thanks for your reply! I just checked and all three of them are 7,200 RPM drives, I will set my projects and scratch disks as you advised.
Also just a quick question, I am using the following preset on Premiere Pro CS4 with my Canon HG21 Camera, but how will I know for sure that it's the correct preset to use with the footage that I will be using from the camera? Sorry it's a pretty amateurish question but I am really starting from the ground up and would like to get things right from the start:
AVCHD>1080p: AVCHD 1080p25
For editing AVCHD Formats recorded in 1920x1080 square pixels (non-anamorphic).
16:9 progressive-scan 1080p HD video at 25 frames per second.
48kHz audio.
General
Editing mode: AVCHD 1080p square pixel
Timebase: 25.00fps
Video Settings
Frame size: 1920h 1080v (1.0000)
Frame rate: 25.00 frames/second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
Fields: No Fields (Progressive Scan)
Audio Settings
Sample rate: 48000 samples/second
Default Sequence
Total video tracks: 3
Master track type: Stereo
Mono tracks: 0
Stereo tracks: 3
5.1 tracks: 0
Submix mono tracks: 0
Submix stereo tracks: 0
Submix 5.1 tracks: 0
Thanks again for your help.
Regards.

Optimum program and scratch disk setup

Hi - I am about to upgrade to Premiere Elements 7 (from 2.0) to accomodate AVCHD from a new camcorder. I also just put together a new eSATA RAID array with 2 10k RPM disks cannablized from another machine. My question is what is the best place to load program and define scratch disks. System description is:
Vista OS on C: drive, 230GB 7200 RPM SATA, quad core processor
E: drive 7200 RPM SATA, 250 GB - this one is basically empty now
L: drive 2x 10k RPM eSATA 138GB total, in a striped RAID config
Currently I have Premiere ELements 2.0 and Photoshop CS2 on C: drive with L: = first scratch for photoshop and E: as secondary scratch drive.
I'm pretty sure I want the fast RAID drive for scratch in any case, but would it be better to load the programs onto the E: drive and use C: as secondary scratch? Or would it in fact be better to put the programs on the fastest RAID drive L: and use E: and C: as primary and secondary scratch drives?
If there's any point in defining even more scratch disks I have a 320G striped RAID made from 4 80GB 7200 RPM drives on another computer (IEEE1394 connecting that drive to the other computer), via wired ethernet, and will soon also have a NAS box on the network in a mirrored RAID for backup storage. But I'm thinking the local drives on the main computer above should be adequate for good performance editng video and photo.
thanks!

If you have not looked at the links in THIS ARTICLE, you will find a lot of useful info on the setup and utilization of your HDD's. While it's written with PrPro in mind, most applies directly to PE, as well.
Good luck,
Hunt

Photoshop Scratch Disk Error OSX 10.7.5

I had a Mac with CS5.5 installed. Suddenly i got an Error Message on Startup: "Could not open a scratch file because the disk is unavailable...."
Unable to solve the Problem I Updated to CS6.0 in hope of fixing the Problem that way. It did not.
So i deleted the User and created a new one which worked, for a while at least. Now i have the same Error again!
After searching around a bit i found this Thread: Re: Photoshop Scratch Disk Error OSX Lion 10.7.3
In this Thread FocusCreative22 found the answer to that Problem. He suggested checking "Ignore Ownership on this Volume" in the Volume Info.
My Problem now is that either through having a newer OS version or only having the Startupdrive i dont have the checkbox "Ignore Ownership on this Volume". How to fix this Problem then?

Chris,
Thank you for responding. I think you're onto something. I looked in disk utility to see if I could repair permissions on the scratch volume, as Lundberg suggested, however the option to do so was greyed out due to this message: "Not available because the selected disk is set to ignore ownership". So I went to the partition, pulled up the Get Info box and saw that the "Ignore Ownership on this Volume" box was not checked. I checked it to see what would happen, and although the option to repair permissions is still greyed out in disk utility, now Photoshop starts up perfectly, even with the problematic scratch partition set as the primary Photoshop Scratch Disk.
Is this the wrong way to get to the right answer?
Concerning your other suggestions, I was able to use Go To Folder to get to the /private folder, and I saw that it said I could only read. I was able to add my user account and give it Read/Write permission through the Get Info dialogue box (I fear Terminal unless I have explicit instructions). Is this what I want? I also looked into the /volumes folder and apparently there is nothing within it, unless the folders are hidden I suppose. I checked permissions of my main drive (startup disk, on which all my applications reside) and they claim that I have read/write privileges. However I'm only viewing this in the Get Info box; is that not the right place to see/alter it? Because this whole time the scratch partition also claimed that I have read/write permissions and that was obviously not true, as it only started working right once I checked "Ignore Ownership on this Volume". But it's incredibly confusing because I could save files to the scratch drive from Photoshop; I just couldn't choose it as a scratch drive.
The short question is: is it ok that I simply chose to ignore ownership on these disks, and that I messed with the /private folder, and/or do I need to do anything else?

Scratch Disc Questions using Firewire External Drive & Imac

Hello. I've read through the existing questions regarding scratch disc and Photoshop, yet can't seem to find an answer to my questions. I would greatly appreciate any tips/advice. Here is my setup and situation:
I am running an iMac with a 2.16 intel core 2 duo processor, 3 GB memory, and running OS X version 10.6.4. I am currently using versions cs3 and cs4 of Photoshop, but plan to upgrade to cs5 soon.
The problem I am having is when running Photoshop, my computer becomes very slow. After reading about possible reasons, I came across a couple of sources (including Adobe themeselves) mentioning that the scratch disc should be a designated drive seperate from the drive containing the operating system. Since I am using an iMac that only allows for one internal drive, my only apparent option seems to be an external drive.
Many people say don't use an external drive, but if you are going to; use an eSATA or firewire. The imac does have firewire 800 capabilities. Should I consider this?
Now I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to purchase a macbook for my next computer (what I wanted to do) because it will also only have one drive, not allowing for a seperate drive for the scratch disc. Any thoughts? I've read around the net but haven't found any definitive answers.

Designer,
Photoshop benefits greatly from having a scratch disk on a separate physical drive, not on the boot disk or on another partition of the boot disk. It's almost not worth connecting via Firewire 400 because the transfer limitations don't allow much performance improvement. But using a Firewire 800 connection gives excellent performance.
Running Photoshop on a one-drive machine is a little frustrating due to the performance hit without the separate scratch drive.
Rich

Setting up RAID 0 and scratch disk from blank drives?

Folks,
Howdy again from NC. I've been setting up an AMD Phenom II 955 to handle PPro CS5 as well as possible, within limits. I built four of these machines for my math class, and am going to give CS5 a go on one of them before caving in and migrating my Production Premium to an i7/X58 platform. Maybe I'll get lucky and find this computer works acceptably with PPro, especially if I transcode my T2i AVCHD footage (likely Neoscene).
I put three new disks into my build yesterday and would like some pointers on setting them up, if I may ask. I have read through a number of posts on this, but don't find direct answers, unfortunately. I've never set up a RAID and want to get it right.
I have two Caviar Black drives for my RAID and a Hitachi Deskstar for my scratch disk. The Blacks are new out of the pack and the Hitachi has had zeros written to the drive. How to begin?
Anticipated issues:
* Do I need to format the drives in a certain way? I had planned on going into Disk Management and setting up a volume on each as my first move. Right now, they aren't even recognized under My Computer. Under Disk Management, all three show as unallocated.
From memory, I right click in the unallocated space and select an option for setting up the volume. Prior to this I only used straight-up drives, no RAID, and after writing zeros to a drive selected "New Simple Volume". It seems to me this is the move to make on the single scratch disk.
But how about the two RAIDed drives? We also have options to set up as "New Striped Volume" or "New Spanned Volume". If the answer is to set as as "New Striped Volume" for the RAID 0 I have planned, do I do this before or after installing the RAID software?
* My documentation for setting up the RAID on my motherboard doesn't indicate when to change my BIOS setting for the two SATA channels from IDE to RAID. Should I do this before or after running the software to set up the RAID? Do I need to go into the software setup with the two SATA channels already configured as RAID?
Right now, all SATA channels are configured as IDE.
* After getting my disks set up, I'd like to optimize my system for editing (turning off unwanted features, etc.). I've been looking all over for a link to an outside site I had bookmarked from a prior post, but lost it on re-install. Anyone recall what the favored link was? It started as a long page of instructions in simple typeface.
In the end, my disks are as follows (unless someone makes a case to use them differently):
OS/Programs - 1TB Caviar Green. Yes, I know the deal on green drives, but I needed to use this drive somewhere. I figured using it as the OS drive would be the best spot for the slowest drive. Maybe I botched this and should have used the following drive for the OS? I had transfer rates in mind and thought the Scratch drive should be faster?
Scratch - 750GB Deskstar 7K100 series. This drive was tops 18 months back when I bought it.
RAID 0 - Two 640GB Caviar Blacks (32 meg cache, twin processors). A bit older in the Black lineup, but the drive charts show them working quickly.
To ask one dumb last question, which will really show my newbieness, I use the scratch drive for page files (right? and what else?) and the RAID for holding any media to be worked upon and for encoding the final project?
I've been reading on this forum for over a month and am amazed that as I have the drives for a RAID, I can't find good links to tell me what to do. I know I am asking redundant questions here but have already spent two hours with the search engine and am only getting tangential anwers (ha! math joke).
Sorry to be asking such newbie questions all over again, but my luck with the search engine hasn't been so good of late. Maybe Bill's idea of creating a sticky section for common questions is a good idea.

about 75-80% of the systems we ship, ship with this config (others would be bigger arrays or no array)
1)OS
2) project drive 2 x raid 0
3) render to/export drive 2 x raid 0
4) back up (pick your poison)
while i cant speak to the older WDs (we have not used them for 3-4 yrs until now)
i can tell you with Seagate and now WD we have not seen the issue that applies to this inRaid 0
we are aware of the timeout issue this happens with controller cards and seagate or WD with large raid 5/6
simple answer use enterprise drives for raid 5/6
if you look at all the external raid resellers Sonnet etc they all use enterprise drives (mostly seagate)
so do we for large raids.
(drobo does not so buyer beware (green), we like to sell drobo without drives in it and use ours)
again BACK UP do not assume your raid 3/5/6/10/1 whatever is bullet proof, trust me its not
so even if you have a loss it should be at best nominal
something i dont think i have seen mentioned enough either
the single most common cause of drive failure (or any component failure) is Dirty Power!
dirty power can be spikes but are usually brown outs (very common in large older cities) or even low voltage coming into the home/office
this is the most common.
rather than a clean 120v you could see it as low as 105v
the other is being on a circuit with a large appliance.
ever see your lilghts flicker when the AC kicks on?
buy a good inline filter UPS. add 20% MORE wattage than your power supply
dont forget to add accessories LCDs, Audio interfaces, speakers/studio monitors etc.
Scott
ADK

Canon camcorder + scratch disk questions

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for