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I am getting a copy of CS 7.0 and am trying to determine a strategy for my scratch disk and file storage. I plan to get a second internal hard drive and use it for my scratch disk. Could I also use the 2nd drive to store files without affecting the performance of the scratch disk processing too much. I would setup 2 separate partitions on the 2nd drive.
Photoshop looks at both your ram and your scratch space when it boots, so even massive 250 gig drives completely dedicated to PS will still be slower if you’re running too little ram, and slower ram.
Max your ram, and then give it some decent scratch disks that are physically seperate (partitions don’t count). I’d give PS the whole drive with one partition instead of 2 – I have 3 scratchs assigned to PS here at home (2 160 SATAs and an external 120 Firewire), and it rarely if ever hits the third. At work I have one spare 20 gig assigned just to scratch, and none other assigned, and it’s just as fast as with 3 more – and I work in 100-300 meg CMYK files.
Go ahead and store files on the scratch partition, as long as they’re not files you’re working on at the same time in PS. I put long term storage stuff on my scratchs when I have to, but never current files, anything the system keeps track of (fonts, music, whatever).
Also keep in mind PS will *always* access the scratch disk, as it stores the history of the file while it’s open, it’s undo state, and other bits of data. With enough ram, you should hit the scratch less, but it *will* hit it. Scratch is crucial, but your ram, processor and video card are just as important – and some of those cards that rock for games flat out suck for 2-d, and can be a bit of a bottleneck for PS.