Scratch disks and RAM usage

i would like to understand the relationship between scratch disks and RAM usage in Photoshop.
While i was working on a fairly big psb file (2gb), photoshop kept prompting that I was out of memory, but in fact the utilization was only 75% (i had 16gbs total, photoshop was only using 7gb, and i allowed PS to use up to 14gb in total). when it says out of memory, it was actually my scratch disk at fault ( i only set 1 scratch disk, which was my 120gb SSD running out of space).
any idea how I can optimize PS to use up all my RAM first before even touching my scratch disk? (short of using a RAMdisk, please).
thanks!

I am curious about this also. I just reinstalled W-7--have 11 G of physical memory--a ton of hard drive empty space also, and I have been wondering why PS_CC is so slow--since basically I have only put my Security and Browser in addition to Adobe back on the Dell XPS computer..... At least now it does show the downloading percentage (like .psd file) , but that must be what is happening. I do think that some of these "frozen" screens I have been experiencing, was because the program was using scratch disk, instead of the Ram... I came up from CS-5, and can't describe it in detail, but just realize how slow PS-CC is in most everything. Going back and see if reallocating will help...

Similar Messages

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

Where to see CPU and RAM usage in IPAD 1

Hi:-)
While i have Apps running , I would like to be able to see CPU and RAM in use..and ideas how/where?
Thanks

There are several apps in the app store that can show you cpu and ram usage of your device, e.g. "system info"

PS uses scratch disk over RAM

Hi!
My Photoshop seems to use scratch disk instead of RAM.
Here's the scenario: I open up a file, convert it to a smart object and begin tiling it in a new document.
In task manager the memory usage for Photoshop.exe doesn't grov very much, it's around 300mb when I've duplicated my picture a few times. My scratch disk however has a temp file weighing 5gb! Task manager says also that the total usage of my physical memory is only 23%.
I have 8gb of RAM installed and I have my Memory Usage Settings set to Let Photoshop Use 5.4gb.
Now why is it that Photoshop uses my scratch disk even though I have lots of free RAM available? I thought Photoshop only uses scratch disk when the RAM is full?
I have Windows 7 64-bit with Photoshop CS5.

antevante wrote:
Now why is it that Photoshop uses my scratch disk even though I have lots of free RAM available? I thought Photoshop only uses scratch disk when the RAM is full?
It's unclear how big a file you are talking about-doesn't seem to be very big? Photoshop by default will always allocate scratch disk space upon launch. Whether or not it uses it depends on how much ram you have and how big the image is. Photoshop tries to keep it's operations in ram and only goes out to the scratch disk when needed.
However, Photoshop always uses scratch disk space to track history. If the history step is only a small area tile it doesn't take up much space. If it's the whole document, history can very quickly suck up the scratch disk space. By default the History is set to 20 steps, if you do something involving the entire file, the scratch disk usage could end up being 20X the original file size depending on the number of steps you have in history. Note, the History feature doesn't actually steal ram from Photoshop...it's only writing to the scratch disk but it can get real big real quick and you've found out.

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.

CS4, CS5, Scratch Disk and Prefs

I am on OSX10.6.8 with CS4 and CS5 (some of my actions only run on CS4, so I quit and launch back and forth).
I had my CS 4 and 5 Scratch Prefs set to a specific scratch partition on another local disk where I had a small partition dedicated towards it. I was doing some disk maintanance on that other disk and forget to go into CS and reset the scratch to the start-up disk. Now I cannot open CS4 or CS5 because it is looking for a scratch disk that does not exist.
Is a complete re-install the only fix, or is there a command line or other way other way than a complete re-install?

Resetting Photoshop Preferences will fix this issue. Follow the instructions outlined here: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/375776
If you have larger troubles, hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting up Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences/settings file.

Powershell - Daily disk and folder usage; trouble with code to loop through the individual folders

Hi,
I'm very new to Powershell but through the help of this forum and the help on the internet I have scraped together a script that will loop through the disks of a set of servers listed in a text document, and give the capacity statistics in html
format.
I have two questions. I've tried modifying this to also loop though the individual folders on each disk and give the amount of space used to no avail. does any one have any suggestions?
Secondly, how do I get this to append? all I want to do is set up a scheduled task that runs this report daily. I know I will need to add a date column, but I just want the data to append to the previous set of results.
Thanks for any advice in advance.
# Continue even if there are errors
$ErrorActionPreference = "Continue";
# Set your warning and critical thresholds
$percentWarning = 100;
$percentCritcal = 15;
# REPORT PROPERTIES
# Path to the report
$reportPath = "C:\";
# Report name
$reportName = "DiskSpaceReport_$(get-date -format ddMMyyyy).html";
# Path and Report name together
$diskReport = $reportPath + $reportName
#Set colors for table cell backgrounds
$redColor = "#FF0000"
$orangeColor = "#FBB917"
$whiteColor = "#FFFFFF"
# Count if any computers have low disk space. Do not send report if less than 1.
$i = 0;
# Get computer list to check disk space
$computers = Get-Content "C:\serverlist.txt";
$datetime = Get-Date -Format "dd-MM-yyyy_HHmmss";
# Create and write HTML Header of report
$titleDate = get-date -uformat "%d-%m-%Y - %A"
$header = "
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html; charset=iso-8859-1'>
<title>DiskSpace Report</title>
<STYLE TYPE='text/css'>

</style>
</head>
<body>
<table width='100%'>
<tr bgcolor='#0B6121'>
<td colspan='7' height='30' align='center'>
<font face='calibri' color='#E0F8F7' size='4'><strong>Daily Disk Utilization Report for $titledate</strong></font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Add-Content $diskReport $header
# Create and write Table header for report
$tableHeader = "
<table width='100%'><tbody>
<tr bgcolor=#E0F8F7>
<td width='10%' align='center'>Server</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>Drive</td>
<td width='15%' align='center'>Drive Label</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>Total Capacity(GB)</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>Used Capacity(GB)</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>Free Space(GB)</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>Freespace %</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>RAM %</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>CPU %</td>
</tr>
Add-Content $diskReport $tableHeader
# Start processing disk space
foreach($computer in $computers)
$disks = Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $computer -Class Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter #"DriveType = 3"
$computer = $computer.toupper()
foreach($disk in $disks)
$deviceID = $disk.DeviceID;
$volName = $disk.VolumeName;
[float]$size = $disk.Size;
[float]$freespace = $disk.FreeSpace;
$percentFree = [Math]::Round(($freespace / $size) * 100);
$sizeGB = [Math]::Round($size / 1073741824, 2);
$freeSpaceGB = [Math]::Round($freespace / 1073741824, 2);
$usedSpaceGB = $sizeGB - $freeSpaceGB;
$color = $whiteColor;
# Start processing RAM
$RAM = Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $computer -Class Win32_OperatingSystem
$RAMtotal = $RAM.TotalVisibleMemorySize;
$RAMAvail = $RAM.FreePhysicalMemory;
$RAMpercent = [Math]::Round(($RAMavail / $RAMTotal) * 100);
# Set background color to Orange if just a warning
if($percentFree -lt $percentWarning)
$color = $orangeColor
# Set background color to Orange if space is Critical
if($percentFree -lt $percentCritcal)
$color = $redColor
# Create table data rows
$dataRow = "
<tr>
<td width='10%'>$computer</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>$deviceID</td>
<td width='10%' >$volName</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>$sizeGB</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>$usedSpaceGB</td>
<td width='10%' align='center'>$freeSpaceGB</td>
<td width='5%' bgcolor=`'$color`' align='center'>$percentFree</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>$RAMpercent</td>
<td width='5%' align='center'>$CPUpercent</td>
</tr>
Add-Content $diskReport $dataRow;
Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "$computer $deviceID percentage free space = $percentFree";
$i++
# Create table at end of report showing legend of colors for the critical and warning
$tableDescription = "
</table><br><table width='20%'>
<tr bgcolor='White'>
<td width='10%' align='center' bgcolor='#FBB917'>No Warning</td>
<td width='10%' align='center' bgcolor='#FF0000'>Critical less than 10% free space</td>
</tr>
Add-Content $diskReport $tableDescription
Add-Content $diskReport "</body></html>"

The only easy way to create a report like this that accumulates is to design it so the data is output to a CSV file or a database. YOu can then generate the HTML from the persist6ed data.
If you store as XML you can use XSLT (transform) to convert to an HTML report.
I also recommend uing Excel as an HTML report generator. It is much easier and more flexible. PowerShell is not intended to do what you want without designing a whole custom reporting system.
Use the right tool for the right task.
Just because you own a hammer does not mean that the solution to every problem includes a nail.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

XI Installation Disk and RAM recommendation

Hi All,
what is SAP recommendation regarding RAM and DISK for SAP XI Installation along with SQL Server 2005 Database?

Depends on your throughput requirements
Check the SAP QuickSizing guide:
http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000637059&
We had 8gb in each node and shared 320gb across the cluster.
Again, wholly depends on your usage/throughput

Gt70 2pc dominator Lag/stutter and high hard disk and memory usage

After Receiving the gt70 back from repairs (was repaired by msi) and installing some games my notebook started high disk usage and system responsiveness decreased very noticably i thought it was temporarily but it wasn't. When i played games i noticed stutters from time to time and i can see the hard drive Led being lit up completely when it happens, when i go to task manager i can see about 87% memory utilization but isn't about 3gb usage and hard drive being at 100% usage (even in idle most of time) and isn't using 3 mb/s, i'm not an expert with software related problems so i hope you go easy on me and thanks for your help.
EDIT: Sometimes the pc crashes and give me this notification "system thread exception not handled" i searched and says it's due to bad driver and requires booting from windows cd but obviously it is an embedded windows so i don't know what to do. Another problem which is minor is when i try to shutdown it says "please wait" and then boots into windows again, i have to restart and then shutdown or press the power button to shut it down.

You can refer the following links:
http://www.msi.com/faq/nb-740.html
http://www.msi.com/faq/nb-646.html
And also suggest to disable Windows Update, any antivirus activities, or unwanted processes.

External Drive Space, Scratch Disk and other things...

Hello,
I've been editing my first feature on FCP 5.1.4, I have an Intel Mac Pro.
All the footage (shot with a Panasonnic HVX200 using P2 Cards) is about 500GB and it's stored in two different T-Bites for safety, one of which I'm using for editing.
Since I started editing, I've made the mistake of changing the Scratc Disk a few times with the result that some of my Media Files are now stored in one T-Byte, and some in the other T-Byte.
I've tried to transfer all existing media files to both the terabytes so that, when my editor starts to really cut together the assembly I've been working on, he won't need both my external drives (like I do now) and, at the same time, I can continue to work on one of the drives.
The problem is that, although I haven't used any complicated effects or other things that would require a long rendering process- only some color correction here and there (to see how things look like) - right now, both my terabytes are practically full and I cannot transfer any media file anywhere because there is no space available.
I'm not sure if I've done something wrong but how much space do you need to edit 500GB of footage into a feature? And, most importantly, how would you organize the editing so that I can have my external drive to work on and my editor can do the same on another external drive and still have the safety of a back up? Are three or four terabytes necessary?
Have I made mistakes in the way I've been saving/storing the project?
I also have a second question:
How do I open a project made in FCP on an Intel-base MAC from a Power PC-based MAC? Is it possible?
I'll greatly apppreciate some hep with these issues.
Paula
Dual Core intel Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Paula Paula Paula...Man, you have edited yourself into a corner. I am not sure how to tell you to get out of it.
Are you saying that you have the original MXF files on one of these drives? or BOTH? and you are ALSO using them as Scratch Drives? What is going on here?
Here is what you NEED to do. And you might have to get another hard drive to manage this.
-Use one drive for the original CONTENTS and LASTCLIP stuff...the original camera masters. Have them in nice separate folders and on a shelf...in storage.
-Now...you want TWO sets of drives with the same media? So that you and your editor can have the same footage? OK...then you need to have a drive to copy and consolidate all the footage to. So that all of the captured media and render files are on one drive.
-Copy all of this stuff to another drive for the editor. JUST THE CAPTURED FOOTAGE. Keep the original MXF files on the shelf. The render files will differ after time, as he or you will render and those will be on that local drive only, but if you share projects then when you get a cut from the editor, all you have to do is render and you are fine.
HOW TO DO ALL OF THIS? Manage the media and copying and all that stuff...I can't help you there. I don't know how your drives are structured or what is where. This is something you'll have to figure out on your own. Thus the reason for the third drive...to be an intermediate place to work.
I'm not sure if I've done something wrong but how much space do you need to edit 500GB of footage into a feature?
What do you mean by that? How much space does 500GB take? 500GB. Like asking how long is an hour...an hour. 60 min. 500GB is 5000MB. What do you mean here?
If you want you to have footage, your editor to have footage and then there to be a back up, then you need 3 sets of drives...and another set for the MXF files.
Have I made mistakes in the way I've been saving/storing the project?
So far? Yes. Fixable? Yes. Take time? Yes.
How do I open a project made in FCP on an Intel-base MAC from a Power PC-based MAC? Is it possible?
Yes...as long as you both have EXACTLY the same version of FCP. 5.1.4...what have you.
-shane

RAM usage: MBP vs PB

Call me crazy, but I have the feeling that the MBPs use more RAM with the same apps than the PB. I used to have a 15in PB with 2GB of RAM and now I have a 15in MBP with 2GB of RAM. So, technically I have the same RAM in both portables. In both computers I have the same apps launched upon login. Activity Monitor is one of them and always shows the RAM usage. It is slightly higher on the MBP and the more apps opened in addition to those, the more distance you can see comparing one another.
It seems like the every app consumes a bit more RAM within the MBP and all put together just makes more evident the difference. And I wonder why?
And I also wonder, isn't the same thing with the OS, I mean, doesn't Tiger for Intel processor takes more disk space than Tiger for PowerPC? Here I'm not entirely sure, just guessing.
George...

And I wonder why?
If the applications you are using are PowerPC rather than Universal/Intel binaries then your answer is called Rosetta. For instance, under the same conditions Micrsoft Word 2004 will use 200MB or so more on an Intel Mac than it will on a PowerPC Mac.
If you are using a Universal application on both, such as FileMaker Pro 8.5, then they should more or less use the same RAM.
doesn't Tiger for Intel processor takes more disk space than Tiger for PowerPC?
In Tiger's case I believe as there are PowerPC components that are required. The difference with Leopard will be negligible as it will be a complete Univseral binary OS.
Ultimaetly though… after all the dust settles with the transition and PowerPC binaries are no longer needed (ie, everything we use is a Universal or Intel binary) the amount of both disk and RAM usage should be pretty similar.

Need Urgent Help! RAM and Scratch Disk Problem

I was recently working on making a gigapixel panorama. I made the panorama in AutopanoGiga and rendered it as a .psb. I went to go fix some stuff on the file and the first thing I did was content aware fill. The panorama ended up being 4 gigapixels before cropping. So I wanted to try content aware fill on a small portion of the image. I am using a 12-core Mac Pro with 20GB 1333 MHz RAM. I have an SSD as my boot drive and four 2TB mechanical drives, none of which in a RAID.
When I first installed Photoshop on my Mac Pro, I went into the preferences to change the memory and scratch disk settings. The first thing I did was set Photoshop to use 12GB RAM. Then I went to the scratch disk and noticed that only my SSD was set up as a scratch disk. So I unchecked the activate box next to the SSD, activated all 4 other drives, and moved the SSD to the bottom of the list.
So I started content aware fill and saw that it would take some time. So I left and when I came back a little over an hour later, Photoshop gave me a message saying that the scratch disk was full and it couldn't complete the content aware fill. Why did this happen????? I deactivated my SSD and activated four separate 2TB drives!
I went on MacRumors Forums and asked some people, and the only advice I got was to reset my settings. I did that, redid my scratch disk settings, and it is still using my SSD as the scratch disk! Can someone please help??

CAF is processor and memory intensive... most of the flashy demos of this feature have been on much smaller images.
CAF has also been known to kick RAM errors when it simply farts and dies. Is CS5 fully patched?
Wear a helment when you try to hit your head on the ceiling.

New system with 32gb Ram.....CS5.5 using alot of scratch disk

Hi All,
Been away from these forums for a while.
OK. I have just built my new rig (Asus p9x79 pro, 32GB 1600Mhz DDR3, Intel 3820, old GTX285 1GB, Win7 pro.....many hard drives ) as I am working on a very big project producing 440x240cm200ppi digital drawings to be installed as lightbox artworks at the same size.
My old system just could not cope with the demands I was putting on it as It only had 12gb RAM. I have two scratch disks set up x1 30gb SSD (dedicated) and x1 240gb SSD ( has other stuff on it with 75gb free ). I am also using Photoshop CS5 Extended (updated) with RAM usage set to 80% (23976).
While I realise PS will still make use of the scratch disk despite the amount of RAM I was shocked to see the first drive (30gb) was almost full with 5gb space left when I loaded the PSB file with x9 layers. Looking at the meta data in Bridge it tells me the file size is 6.90GB with pixel dimensions of 34646x18898@200ppi. Windows reports that I am only using 20GB of my 32GB......
Shouldn't PS be using more RAM before going to the slower reads on a SSD? Windows Task Manager tells me I have 8150 RAM cached, 12310 RAM Available and 4215 RAM Free. If Photoshop is not using the 12GB would it be wise to make a 9GB RAMDISK for an addition boost...not even sure if that would work, but, I hate the feeling of having all that RAM and 1/3 not being used.

You referred to the answer to your puzzlement yourself when you typed "I realise PS will still make use of the scratch disk despite the amount of RAM" [emphasis added].
Photoshop creates the scratch disk the instant you open an image file or create a new one. It sets its initial size based on its size, number of layers, history states, etc., regardless of installed RAM. It starts using the scratch disks from the get go, moving stuff off of the scratch disk into RAM and viceversa as Photoshop sees fit.
When setting up a scratch disk, figure on at least 100 times (or more) the size of your largest file, multiplied by the number of files you keep open at any given time.
The total amount of scratch disk space on your two drives (30 GB + 75 GB) is not that large, as per the above calculation.
Just for reference, my dedicated primary scratch disk is a 300 GB physically separate internal hard drive, and I also have other drives set up as secondary, etc., hard drives. Other users have a lot more scratch disk space than I do. I normally have no more than two files open in Photoshop at once, occasionally three or four.
Also keep in mind that the percentage of memory you allocate to Photoshop is not a percentage of total installed RAM but of available memory at any given time after the OS and other applications you have running have grabbed the RAM they need. Therefore the calculation you made is not necessarily accurate.
As to creating a RAM disk, I supposed there's no harm in trying, but the real question is whether you are seeing any real performance problems now, rather than just calculating RAM figures that may or may not be that relevant in actual use.
Conceivably, you could also get a much larger SSD as your primary scratch disk.

So I have a (PC) laptop with 8gb of RAM and I'm running CC on it. I haven't set it up on this before so I'm wondering how much should I set the RAM usage to in performance so I can use it but not ruin this laptop?

I just don't know where specifically to put the RAM at in the preferences option.
I mainly use it for digital painting and sketching on this. (not so much painting on this but digital art)

8 GB is about the realistic minimum for Photoshop nowadays.
Set it to about 70% and go for there. Note that it represents a maximum percentage of your momentarily available RAM after the OS and other running application have grabbed what they need., not a percentage of total installed RAM. It changes continually.
The rule of thumb I follow to figure out scratch space says to figure on 50 to 100 times the size of your largest file ever multiplied by the number of files you have open. I have seen the scratch file exceed 800 GB once, an admittedly rare occurrence, but it often exceeds 200 GB when stitching large panoramas and the like.
As an example—and stressing that I'm aware that others have even more scratch space than I do—I keep two dedicated, physically separate hard drives as my primary and secondary Photoshop scratch disks and a lot of GB free on my boot drive for the OS. I also have 16 GB of RAM installed.
Additionally, if you only have a single HD, i.e. your boot drive, you'd need it to be large enough to accommodate both the swap files of the OS as well as Photoshop's scratch.

I am getting a Photoshop CC "scratch disk full" error, but my scratch disk is C:/ and I have 40 gigs of free space - help!?!

Why is Photoshop giving me this error when I'm not working on files that are that big given the amount of free space on my computer? They're around 1.5 megs each, .jpeg files (not even PSD files) and I'm only trying to resize them to smaller, nothing fancy at all. Can't even open and do one without getting the scratch disk full error - but it's not full when I look at my C:/ drive (even in PS when I check the scratch disks under Preferences you can see the multiple gigs free).
Help anyone?
Thanks!
C

The rule of thumb I follow to figure out scratch space says to figure on 50 to 100 times the size of your largest file ever multiplied by the number of files you have open. I have seen the scratch file exceed 800 GB once, an admittedly rare occurrence, but it often exceeds 200 GB when stitching large panoramas and the like.
As an example—and stressing that I'm aware that others have even more scratch space than I do—I keep two dedicated, physically separate hard drives as my primary and secondary Photoshop scratch disks and a lot of GB free on my boot drive for the OS. I also have 16 GB of RAM installed.
Additionally, if you only have a single HD, i.e. your boot drive, you'd need it to be large enough to accommodate both the swap files of the OS as well as Photoshop's scratch.

Scratch disks and RAM usage

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