RAPTOR 74GB Boot & PS Scratch Disk?

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RAPTOR 74GB Boot & PS Scratch Disk?

Hi,

I've just bought a 74GB Raptor and a Maxtor MaXLine III 300GB.

My intention is to use the RAPTOR as the boot drive for my applications and the Maxtor as the main storage for all my files. The internal 250GB stock drive will be moved to an enclosure and used as a backup.

1. How effective would the RAPTOR be as both a boot drive AND scratch disk for Photoshop ?

2. I know that as a drive fills up the efficiency declines. Would partioning the RAPTOR be an option. Perhaps 10-15GBs for the scratch disk?

3. Does anyone know where I can get my hands on one of these?

http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-to-firewire-enclosure-aluminum.html

I live in Ireland and Cool Drives don't ship internationally. I've scoured the web without luck. Any SATA to firewire enclosures that I've found that are available to me arethree times the price of the Cool Drive.

Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2) 2.5GB RAM

Posted on Mar 23, 2006 1:09 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 23, 2006 11:21 PM in response to The Wiz

Hi, Wiz!

You'd perhaps be best served by keeping the scratch disk on a volume other than your startup drive. You'll avoid fragmentation if you're working with large, complex files (especially video files) which will help keep the startup drive "peppy". If you put the scatch disk on a different drive on a completely separate bus from the startup drive, your drives won't be competing for input-output time like they would be on a single drive or two drives on a single bus...

Gary

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Answer 2

Mar 24, 2006 2:03 PM in response to Majordadusma

Gary gives some good advice. I'd also suggest you use the Maxline III as your boot volume, the Raptor for scratch space, and your external as backup, you would have a fairly good setup for PS as well as other applications.

As for the SATA to Firewire, I'd suggest instead to get a SATA external card for your G5, and connected your external via SATA. No SATA/Firewire conversion required, and it will be much more expandable for you in the near future.

Firmtek makes some good SATA cards for the Mac. Be sure and pick ones that are correct for your Mac model (PCI X vs PCI Express).

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/

Tom N.

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Answer 3

The Wiz Author

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Mar 24, 2006 3:47 PM in response to Tom Nelson1

Thanks for the feedback guys.

What would you think off me putting a partion on the Maxtor of 50GB as a scratch disk and keep the Raptor just as a boot drive ?

I think I'll invest in a SATA external card. It makes more sense really. It's just I've spent a great deal to get to the point I'm at. A Quad can be a bit of a 'money pit' at the beginning.

I just wish that Apple designed the Quad so a third drive could be shoe-horned in. Ah well.

Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2) 2.5 GB RAM

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Answer 4

Mar 24, 2006 6:37 PM in response to The Wiz

Wiz:

I just wish that Apple designed the Quad so a third drive could be shoe-horned in.

Here's one way...

I sense that you really want that Raptor for your boot drive! If so, then go for it. Partitioning the Maxtor to provide a scratch disk volume will work. To me, 50GB seems like a lot of space to reserve for Photoshop, though. It's not going to be as demanding on scratch space as Final Cut Pro... moreover, you can assign multiple scratch "disks" in PS, which uses them in sequence if/as required.

There are some negatives to partitioning. The most common is that partitions are sized wrong, leading to some volumes being too small and others being too large, which leads to wasted drive space. Moreover, once the partitions are established, it takes an erase of the entire drive to change them, though there are third-party utilities which will change them on the fly (if you trust your data with that approach). Another is that should the partition map be corrupted, data recovery can be a real bummer, beyond the ordeal that a single volume's corruption will sometimes bring.

That being said, I personally do use partitioning, albeit conservatively. My point is, carefully think though your planned use of the drive/volumes before you lock yourself into the partitioning scheme and remember that having too much space on a given volume is far better than not having enough... just my two cents worth of advice, for whatever it may be worth (probably two cents!).

Gary

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Answer 5

The Wiz Author

Level 1

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Mar 25, 2006 3:17 PM in response to Majordadusma

I did a 'Google'.

"You can assign scratch disk(s) in the Preferences: Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks screen. It’s possible to assign up to four hard disks, or partitions, and Photoshop will see them as one large storage space for the temporary file. Photoshop supports up to 64EB (an exabyte [EB] is equal to 1 billion gigabytes) of scratch-disk space—more than sufficient for most needs!

Regardless of the number of hard disks you assign, make sure the minimum size is three to five times the RAM allocated to Photoshop. Furthermore, the hard drive should be fast, and if it’s partitioned, the first partition should be assigned. Do not assign removable media, such as a Zip drive, or a network drive as a scratch disk. If you assign dedicated partitions that do not store any other files, de-fragging should not be required."

So I've decided to create a partion on my 300GB Maxtor of 20GB. The max RAM that PS can use is 4GB so 5 times that is 20GB. I currently habe 2.5 B RAM which I will increase to 4.5GB in the near furure. The Maxtor has had good reviews for it's speed so that fulfils the other criteria. Ideally I'd like to use a 36GB Raptor as a scratch disk and I may well do that sometime in the future using a PCI card. My only concern about them is that they affect SLEEP. But that's something I'll think about in 6 months time or so. In the meantime I'll back up religiously to the old 250GB stock drive. I had partitions on my old G4 and they never gave me a problem. In fact they got me out of trouble a few times. So 1 partition doesn't concern me to much.

I'm not a pro photographer but I am a keen amateur who does a little bit here and there for money. Mostly I just want an optimized system at a reasonable cost. The Quad will be my computer for the 4 years at least so I want to ensure that it has all it needs to keep me and it happy.

Thanks to you all for your advice. You can't put a price on your support.

Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2) Basic Set Up

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Answer 6

Mar 27, 2006 1:14 PM in response to The Wiz

Wiz,

When Photoshop would only recognize 2 GB of ram your set-up made sense. With your Quad, CS 2, Panther, everything is different ... Forget scratch/partition ...

Use your new hard-drives, Raptor-boot/apps, Maxtor-files ... bump-up RAM to 8 GB and there is no need for scratch/partitions ....

Use the new Raptor 150's (20-25% faster) and you really have a fast set-up ...... Lee

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Answer 7

Curnsie

Level 3

745 points

Mar 28, 2006 7:59 AM in response to The Wiz

Check out safecom for enclosures

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZX J2aWV3&product_uid=99224

They are cheap but a bit noisey

Andrew

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Answer 8

The Wiz Author

Level 1

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Mar 28, 2006 2:21 PM in response to Lee Gregg

Hi Lee,

I think I will continue with the scratch-partition option as 'bumping up' my RAM to 8GB will happen but not for a while. As I mentioned before the Quad can be a money pit and I don't earn a living using it. When I finally get the RAM up to the max I can still use the 20GB scratch space for files. It's no biggie.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and Andrew for the link.

Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2) 2.5GB RAM 74GB RAPTOR (Boot) 300GB MAXTOR with 20GB PS Scratch Partition

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Answer 9

Mar 28, 2006 4:41 PM in response to The Wiz

Wiz, Question ... (I don't know the answer) ... Will Photoshop CS on a quad/Panther set-up like your example, efficiently work since there is no longer a 2 GB performance limit?

Anybody?

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