Scratch Disk on unpartitioned 'C' ?

Question

I have an E510 Pentium D 820 with Dual Core (2.8 GHz). Recently I added memory bringing it up to 4Gigs Ram. I realize it only uses about 3 gigs of it, but it's there anyway.   My problem is that my scratch disk is on C drive (not partitioned), and recently Photoshop has been taking a long time to open raw image files.   I have no viruses, so that's not the problem. The machine boots up all right, isn't slow there, and I have 183 gigs of free space.   I thought I should get another drive for the scratch disk, but I don't know how or if I can install one in this machine because it has a mirror drive. Where would I put it?   Or is there something else I can do to speed the system up?

waygo · Answer

I mean Scratch Disk under Preferences in Photoshop.   Another hard drive is supposed to allow PS scratch disk to operate without eating into the Operating System's resources.

tr4 · Answer

Do you mean a temporary file area ? That what scratch disk meant in the old days and I have not heard it in years Ram drives replaced disks as a quicker means of holding files and it cleaned itself. Now we have performance tab under the system folder in the control panel. Since you changed your ram, you may want to tweak the settings and allocations. Another hard drive is not going to be faster.

waygo · Answer

I don't know much about drives, so have to ask.   I do have a blank plate. What type of hdd should I get? Does it have to match my Raid setup? And do I have to reinstall Windows to do this, or just format the new hdd?   I appreciate any help you can give.

tr4 · Answer

Ok, now I know what you are looking for. partitioning the drive won't help, probably worse. If you only have 1 5 1/4' device, there should be room behind the blank plate to install a drive with adapter plates

tr4 · Answer

You have 2 sata drives in raid configuration and 1 dvd drive on the ide cable. Your choice is to get an ide drive and put it on the cable with the dvd or get a sata pci or a sata2 pci-e card. Then get the drive that goes with the interface you chose. I'd lean towards the sata2 card with an external port so if you wish to add a drive externally, you'll be all set. The 5 1/4 brackets might be the hardest thing to find out of the group. You'll also have to get a data cable if you go sata. The last thing you'll need to make sure of is what available power plugs you have left. If none, you'll need a splitter y cable also. Some may say an external usb drive might be simpler but I don't think you'll get the performance benefit you are after.

waygo · Answer

Thanks. But I'm using all my pci slots, plus the pci-express. I think I've got a power plug left. I'm using an OCZ 520 W PS.   Another question: Shouldn't my existing mirror drive show up in My Computer as a 'D' drive?  The only thing there is the 'C'.

tr4 · Answer

You have 2 C drives and no d drive. Mirror means a copy of the c drive. If it showed up as d, it would not be a mirror. With no slots, USB may be your only option. And you could use it as a backup drive for your data.

waygo · Answer

Thanks for clearing that up.   I've read that using an external hdd isn't nearly as efficient for a Photoshop scratch disk. And it sounds like you're saying that if I can get the third hdd into the empty bay, and fixed in place, it'll work. Is that right?

tr4 · Answer

Yes if its a ide drive. So you'll need a regular 4 pin molex for power and make sure your ribbon cable has a second connector for the drive. You will also need to make sure it is an 80 wire cable as oppose to a 40 wire cable. A 40 wire cable will have a wire identical to the floppy wire, only wider. The 80 pin cable has a smoother appearance because it has double the wires. Make sure the drive is 7200 rpm and the biggest buffer you can get for the size you choose

waygo · Answer

Good. I guess my only concern now will be temperature. The empty bay is between the CD Rom and Media card reader. maybe I could put another small fan in the box.

waygo · Answer

Okay, I'm ready to order the new drive. I'm looking at a Seagate Barracuda 250gb found here; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148141   Does it look alright as an IDE drive for my E510? Any problem sitting on the bottom of the case next to one of the pci cards?

tr4 · Answer

No you cannot let it sit on the bottom of the computer. It could move around and short out the drive or the motherboard. Plus the cable is not going to reach. It has to be near the optical drive. You also need to buy http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811993004 so that you can safely mount the drive. The case should have extra green brackets to attach the adapter to the computer.

waygo · Answer

Thanks for your help, Tr4. I did it, installed a 250GB ATA, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, 16MB drive in the empty bay. Made the CD drive slave and the ATA, master.   It only shaved .2 secs off the time it takes to open a RAW image, but now my C drive is blazingly fast. I guess it wanted rid of Photoshop.   Wayne

tr4 · Answer

Glad it worked out so well for you

Storage, Drives & Media

Scratch Disk on unpartitioned "C" ?

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