Scratch Disk Placement

I am running PS7 on an XP SP2 system with 512 MB ram and a slow processor. I have two internal hard drives and have tried many times to assign the scratch disk to my second drive which is the largest and fastest. When I do this, Photoshop will not open and I have to delete the preference file in order to get the program to run. What could be causing Photoshop not to recognize my second drive on startup? Any help would be appreciated, as I was hoping this would increase performance on this old machine.

12. Dec 25, 2010 3:41 AM in response to: (Frankie_Ferrell)
Re: Scratch Disk Placement
I am running Adobe PS7.1 on my System- specs: Windows XP SP2. 1.52 Gb RAM- 2.7 Processor. 63Gb space on local HDD. 1.3Tb space on remote HDD.
My problem: I am trying to install PS7 on my C-Drive- but after installation- the program fails to initialize due to the error that "My Scratch-Discs" are full. Now- I cleaned- out all my Adobe files after uninstallation- but still- when I reload PS7- it would not initialize due to the same error. I cannot open another file in which I could store the Scratch discs- due to the fact that I cannot open the program at all to set the parameters. Anybody that can help me there?
Don't know if this'll help but here goes anyway....
I made this mistake...in my new i7/6gb 64bit machine...after having slid the performance slider/memory useage allocator in Photoshop Elements7 to 100% (to use all of 1602mg of ram the 32bit program would allow....previously limit was 50% in my 32bit OS machine), I figured that I could do the same with PS6....wrong....PS6 wouldn't even open afterwards....
I had to uninstall/reinstall PS6 and leave the memory useage set to 50%-1919537kb of ram (half of "available" ram of 383907kb)...all works well now...
As for the scratch disk....I made a partition of 20gb in my 2nd drive that will be solely used for that purpose....another smaller partition on that 2nd drive of 12gb is reserved for my page file/virtual memory partition...this way there is no overlap/conflict of useage with any other program (though I've read that with 6gb or more in the machine virtual memory will not be accessed much)...the programs themselves, along with the OS are in the primary drive where temporary files (initial downloads of photos) will be briefly stored until the chosen to be saved are sent to the 2nd drive....the machine and PS seem to work fine that way...
Good luck...and happy new year.

Similar Messages

Could not place picture, scratch disks are full

Hello, after fresh installation of Windows 7 ultimate on a PC (Intel Core-i5, GA-H97, 8GB RAM, 120 SSD for system, 1TB for data), and Photoshop CC 2014, we have a problem:
When trying to add a picture to a new Photoshop document we get the following error message: "Could not place, because the scratch disks are full".
On C: (the SSD) there is 70GB free space, on D: there is 900GB free space.
I've defined both disks as scratch disks, then tried to define either of the disks as scratch disk - nothing helped!
Could you please help us ASAP?
Thanks in advance.

Good day!
Have you restarted Photoshop after changing the Performance Preferences?
Using the System drive as Scratch Disk is not prudent if it can be avoided.
Please read this:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html
Regards,
Pfaffenbichler

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?

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.

How do I prevent Premiere from placing the scratch disk onto the 'same as project" folder

I start a project by resetting the default scratch disc settings from “same as project” (which is on my “G” drive) to another hard drive where I have always stored defaults on CS3 (the “D” drive). I never had to redo my scratch disks when I created a new project in CS3. Now I need to redo them every time. If I open an older project in CS5 it automatically places all scratch disk files onto the G drive. How do I prevent Premiere from placing all scratch disk information onto the G drive before I open an older file? By the time I get around to changing the location, Premiere has already begun saving scratch disk information on the wrong disk.
However I have another related problem. When I import an older project to nest it in a new project, the scratch discs mysteriously change back from the D drive where I set it up to the “G” drive. I finally discovered this when I reopen the project and all previews disappeared and it had defaulted back to the G drive.

Thanks. Now I know that anytime I import a CS3 project file into a CS5 project, that it will change the whole project scratch disk settings to the default without warning.
One wouldn’t think that just one imported file would change the whole overall project file (out of many imported files…not project files that do not); it is odd that Premiere changes the setting of the new overall Cs5 project without warning.

How can I change my scratch disk?

I used to use FCE and always used a scratch disk, i.e., an external hard drive for the actual footage so it wouldn't clog up my computer's drive.
I've been looking for a way to do this in iMovie '09, but can't figure out how.
Anybody know how to do this?

Your external rive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). If not, you can reformat using Disk Utiltity.
On the iMovie Import Screen, you can select an external drive as the target for the import. This will remain the default place for importing events until you change it.
For Events that you have already imported, you can move them to an external drive. This must be done from within iMovie, so you do not break the links to the projects.
In iMovie, click VIEW/EVENTS BY DISK. You should now see your Event Library with small icons for available external disks. Hold down the Command Key as you drag the Event icon to the icon for the external drive in the Event Library List. (If you do not hold down the Command key, it will Copy, not Move).
I also suggest you look in Help at the Consolidate Media command. This is a good way to put all Project assets into the same external drive.

What about Scratch Disk fragmentation?

I edit TIFF image files with lots of layers that range in size from 50MB to 90MB. With only 4GB of RAM, my system relies heavily on scratch disk performance for these large files. I have a non-system internal SATA HDD with an 80GB volume dedicated as a scratch disk.
I have read that it's important the scratch disk be a defragmented volume. I have also heard that Macs defragment files smaller than 20MB automatically, which I don't think helps me much.
My questions are, does Photoshop CS4 delete/remove files on the scratch disk after an edit session ends and PS is closed, and then starts with a "clean slate" when re-opened? Or do all the scratch disk files just pile up in pieces over time that tend to fragment the scratch disk? If so, does the scratch disk need to be re-formatted (erased) regularly? Thanks.

Marian Driscoll wrote:
If there is nothing on that 80GB volume (when Photoshop is closed) then there is nothing to worry about. Fragmentation is only an issue if the drive has files on it.
Thanks Chris and Marian.
I have been monitoring my scratch disk in Disk Utility and have noticed that after closing PS, the amount of disk space indicated as being used drops from about 1GB to around 60MB, with the number of files indicated on the disk dropping to around 40. When I erase the volume using D.U., then there are 32 files indicated as being on the volume.
So apparently, there are files being created by both the OS (around 32 files) and also PS (around 8) that remain on the scratch disk after PS is closed. Maybe these PS files are just "place-holder" files, because the amount of space used by these PS files appears to be less than 1MB. Relative to an 80GB volume, this seems rather insignificant.
Nevertheless, I'm now thinking that it may be a good maintenance practice to erase (re-format) my scratch disk once a month or so just to help optimize it. It's easy to do in Disk Utility.

Photoshop Scratch Disk Error OSX Lion 10.7.3

I have had Photoshop CS5 installed on my system for over a year, and it worked fine all this time under Snow Leopard. Now that I've upgraded to Lion, Photoshop will not open due to these messages:
Could not open a scratch file because the disk is unavailable.
Could not initialize Photoshop because the disk is unavailable.
The scratch disk in question is an 80gb partition of a 1tb internal hard drive. If I delete the preferences file (by holding down cmd-shift-opt when starting PS) then it starts up just fine. If I go into preferences and reset it to use the scratch disk, then next time I try to reopen the program I get the same 2 error messages and I have to ditch the preferences again.
There is nothing wrong with the disks, I verified them. And anyway, I've been using that scratch disk with Photoshop for the last year with no issues. It was only after I switched to Lion that this started happening.
I need to be able to take advantage of the performance increase that a scratch disk offers. Anybody have any ideas on what's happening or how to solve this?

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?

What is the recommended set up for Final Cut Pro re: Scratch Disks etc

What is the recommended set up for Final Cut Pro with regards to Scratch Disk etc.
I have a lot of projects and at the moment they are all over the place on various external HDDs etc.
I just bought a new Firewire 800 External HDD and want to get everything straight but I'm not quite sure where to start...
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank You

Media Manager (available from the File menu bar item) will consolidate all elements of your project together with a linked copy of the project file to a single folder in a location of your choice. There are various options to leave out unused footage, include handles etc. Safest way is to copy the files. Delete the originals when you are sure the copy works.
The user manual has a detailed description of how MM works.

"Disk error -36 occurred while reading or writing to a scratch disk. Sorry, but this error is unrec

This happens doing unremarkable activities. On a: G5/power PC/OS 10.4.11/CS3/6.5 GB ram/93% or 2856 mb to PS/cache level 6. Using dual 1TB hd's, with PS on one hd, and the scratch disk on a 100 gb partition on the other hd. Have to force shut down the entire computer when this happens, turning off the power switch. Have sent in multiple crash reports. Surely Adobe must know about this.
Can someone direct me to other threads on this?

Chris,
Disk error -36 is not good. It's an input/output error, meaning that data is not be properly transmitted to or from your drive(s).
And I would suspect your drives. From the size of your drives, they appear to be new installations on your G5. Maybe one of the drives is failing. Maybe one of the drives has not be configured correctly (should be HFS Extended (Journaled but NOT case-sensitive). Maybe the connection cables (data and power) are not securely in place. Maybe the jumpers on the drive are incorrectly positioned.
I see that you have additional RAM as well. If the RAM is not SPECIFIC to your G5 model, if it is bad, or if it is not properly seated or installed, you could also have a problem.
In addition (unlikely the cause), all your apps should be in their default installation locations in the Applications folder, without being moved, additionally nested or renamed.
Also (less likely a cause, but probably needed at this point anyway), run Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair (boot off the Mac OS X disc to repair your startup drive). Run DiskWarrior as well.
Hope this gives you some starting points.
Neil

Scratch disk error plus canvas image error help

so i recently restored my computer back to factory settings .. so my computer doesnt even have any new downloaded app .. i download photoshop cs6 now im getting scratch disk errors ..which i dont see possible if my computer doesnt have anything on it (besides what it came with) my hard drive has 276 gb i only used 33 .. so why am i having this problem?? i made an external hard drive and that has 8 gb ... also its moving very slow .. also its telling me i cant make an new canvas size 1920 x 1020 with an resloution of 300 which i know is possible because i done it before so if anybody can tell me what im doing wrong or how i can fix this problem please .. i need photoshop for work . and this is impossible .. im using windows 7 toshiba

Without going into much detail, the scratch can grow to humongous sizes. In general, figure on 50 to 100 times or more the size of your largest file multiplied by the number of files you have open.
My preference is not to work with less than 200 GB of contiguous, unfragmented available drive space for scratch on a physically separate, dedicated, internal hard drive as my primary scratch disk.
Also consider that if you rely on your boot drive for primary scratch disk, Photoshop's scratch is sharing that space with the swap files of the OS.
That's one of the issues, and it can be be made much worse if you have a faulty drive. A badly fragmented drive would also be a big problem.
As for that external drive with a pathetic 8 GB of remaining available space, you should back it up, store it in a safe place, a get a new one. Any time any one of your hard drives gets to be 80% full or more, you are already in a heap of problem. With that little space left, you should make sure it's not being used even as a secondary scratch disk.
Hard drive real estate is very cheap these days.

Firewire disk or USB2.0 disk for scratch disk?

I heard many times, everyone recommend Firewire for scratch disk if do video editing with FCP on iMac 27 quad-core i7.
But I feel a bit confused when I use my Sony SDR-12 only with USB2.0 (No Firewire port) to import AVCHD to my iMac. Since it is USB2.0 at the first place while importing, why do I have to upgrade my scratch disk to a higher level Firewire? I assume when manufacture – Sony, etc. default USB2.0 to be their interface, all the other parameters like bit rate etc won’t get any better or worse when I still use USB2.0 scratch disk with FCP.
Is my assumption all right?
Or, if I use USB2.0 scratch disk, the quality of my video or processing time will be significantly downgraded then Firewire scratch disk?
Thanks - Reno

Consumer drives at places like Costco are cheap for a reason. No-names often have older technology or limited specs that are not readily apparent but will show up in use. Even the big names reduce features or specs to get the price down for big-box retailers.
You can find good buys at big box stores, but you can do as well or better from places like newegg.com, buy.com, tigerdirect, etc. My personal recommendations are OWC ... and I wouldn't hesitate to get a Lacie d2 Quadra or d2 Quadra Enterprise class drive. And, the vendors StudioX suggested are top notch.
Your profile says you have a 27" Quad-core, i7 iMac, so you appreciate quality and capabilities. Don't skimp on external FW drives, especially for critical data & uses like video.
Best way to protect yourself is read reviews before purchasing, regardless of where you purchase.

Boot Drive(s), Scratch Disks, eSATA chipsets

It was explained I shouldn't have posted this where a question had already been answered. Let me try again...
REPOST (thanks Hatter, but have further questions):
Setup:
Mac Pro
16GB RAM
Apple RAID card
Sonnet E4P PCIe eSATA card (dedicated channel for each of the 4 ports)
INTERNAL 2-150GB Velociraptors RAID 0 Boot array.
INTERNAL 2-750GB in RAID 0. (7200RPM Hitachi's)
EXTERNAL 5-750GB (7200RPM) RAID 0 in Sonnet Fusion D500P case
Backup drives:
Time Machine:
EXTERNAL 1TB Barracuda in OWC eSATA enclosure with Oxford chipset
Personal data/media:
EXTERNAL 2nd 1TB Barracuda in identical OWC enclosure (Mercury Elite-AL Pro)
Personal data/media (2nd backup)
Seagate 1TB FreeAgent Pro (using Firewire because Sonnet states eSATA can be untrustworthy due to chipset utilized)
Boot drive clones using SuperDuper:
250GB WD SE (1st)
400GB Simpletech (2nd)
Other drives:
500GB WD MyBook (firwire)
400GB Maxtor (USB 2.0)
Questions:
1) Am I getting the best use of my Velociraptors being used in RAID 0 (I have two clones of this array; want speed-quick boot-rapid program response)
2) I'm using the 3.75TB Fusion D500P for RAID 0 video capture via firewire from camera (SD and HD video). Is it correct the firewire MyBook and USB 2.0 Maxtor are no optimal for scratch disks? I should use a RAID array and if the drives are big, partition them? I'm having trouble finding info on this, but I suppose the place to look is the Adobe and Studio Pro forums. I have Premiere CS3, but think I'm going to rely more on Final Cut Studio 2...it's 64-bit. Still learning how to get optimal performance out of Photoshop.
3) Hatter, you mentioned "would be 'concerned' about even Oxford 934 and eSATA off 2-channel Sonnet Tempo. Same with Seagate. And MyBook, FW and USB2. I have some older FW drives, for backup and archive and rarely connected except to make a backup."
Why would you be concerned about the OWC eSATA drives with the Oxford chipset? The Barracuda drives are enterprise drives. BTW, the Sonnet E4P has a dedicated channel for each of the four ports. Are you saying there are reliability issues with the OWC drives and I suppose the concern for your (and mine) MyBook, Seagate, etc drives is that they are not enterprise grade and thus less reliable.
Also Hatter (this is a whole different story), regarding the NewerTech kit, it's my understanding the two SATA ports on the motherboard are not supported by Apple. While they do work for some applications, they do not work with Toast and Blue-Ray drives for burning Blu-Ray discs. You have to use finder for that I think. Apple should release a firmware update and support these connections!
Thanks!

I meant to reiterate the 3.75TB Fusion D500P is connected via eSATA, the video camera is connected via firewire.
Thanks.

Best External Scratch Disk ?

I have a MacBook Pro with a 250GB drive and I wanted to get a portable external hard drive to store all my videos on and use as scratch disk. My question is, does anyone have any suggestions on which external drive would work best? I was looking at a 320GB Iomega eGo with firewire interface. My only concern is the data transfer rate, I don't want there to be any problems when I'm editing off an external drive.

Depends on the type of footage you work with. If it's just DV, any drive with FireWire 400 will work just fine (though you'll of course want to read reviews to determine one with good reliability. NewEgg.com is a good place to start). If you're getting into HD, you'll want FW800 at least. You may also want to use this handy tool:
http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/videospace/
to calculate how big a drive you want based on how large your projects tend to run.
If you're looking for my personal recommendation, I've used the OWC Mercury Elite Pro for a while now and it's served me well.

Startup disk and scratch disk full messages

I use my mac a lot for digital photography. I use iPhoto to catalog, and PS Elements 3 to edit. I've been getting messages that my startup disk is full, and my scratch disk(s) are full; I can no longer save or print images from PSE3.
Please help me understand what these messages mean, and what steps I need to take to empty my startup disk and scratch disk.
Thanks
Greg

Greg:
As big as you can afford. There are 160 G external FW drives that are pretty reasonable. I've used the Mercury elite drives from OtherWorldComputing and have been happy. I'm sure others will pipe in with their good experiences with other brands.
Since the Mini doesn't have FW800 capability you can save a little by getting a USB2/FW400 model instead of the USB2/FW400/800 one. However, if you ever upgrade your Mac it probably will have an FW800 port. The price difference is about $25.
This link is for the Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 800/400+USB2 and shows the prices for each type and size.
The The Mercury Elite Pro Classic is what I have. The price difference between the the two types is about $25.
If you can afford a larger one then do get it as you could then partition it to clone you current drive to one partition and make it a bootable partition in case of problems with your internal drive. Then use the other partition for long term storage, and day to day backups of user documents, etc. Even put you iPhoto and iTunes libraries on it.
With CompUSA going out of business in a lot of places you might find a very good deal on some external FW drives. Be sure to get one with FW so it can be bootable.
LaCie's drives are very popular also. CompUSA has a LaCie d2 Extreme Triple Interface 250GB Hard Drive for $179. If you have a store near you go into it and see what they have on the floor. Some don't have extra FW ports for daisy chaining. The OWC's do.

Scratch Disk Placement

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