Need recommendation for partitions

[AshleyQuick]

Hi. I'm preparing to install windows 2000 on a 10 gig drive. This machine will primarily be used for graphics...Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Freehand. How would you set up the disk so that the page files and Photoshop scratch disks are optimized? Thanks

Ash

[mouse]

If you've only one hdd then you can only use that for the scratch disk so you'll not get the advantage of using different IDE channels. In theory you should partition the drive so that Windows' page file and PS scratch disk use different volumes, I've not found using the same volume to cause any problem.

How much ram do you have? If you've over 512mb then you'll probably be okay. In PS 7.0 you can set it to use a certain % of ram, I've not found PS to use more than 50% of my 512mb, I allow it 75%, so I *assume* the scratch disk doesn't come into play.

If you've less than 512mb ram I'd suggest buying more, what with DDR prices crashing. :)

[meow]

Just curious, what is "PS scratch disk"? Does it have it's own swap file or something? :confused:

[mouse]

Originally posted by meow
Just curious, what is "PS scratch disk"? Does it have it's own swap file or something? :confused: Basically yes.

Here's what Photoshop 7.0 Help says:When your system does not have enough RAM to perform an operation, Photoshop and ImageReady use a proprietary virtual memory technology, also called scratch disks. A scratch disk is any drive or a partition of a drive with free memory. By default, Photoshop and ImageReady use the hard drive that the operating system is installed on as its primary scratch disk.

You can change the primary scratch disk and, in Photoshop, designate a second, third, or fourth scratch disk to be used when the primary disk is full. Your primary scratch disk should be your fastest hard disk, and should have plenty of defragmented space available.

The following guidelines can help you assign scratch disks:

* For best performance, scratch disks should be on a different drive than any large files you are editing.
* Scratch disks should be on a different drive than the one used for virtual memory.
* Scratch disks should be on a local drive. That is, they should not be accessed over a network.
* Scratch disks should be conventional (non-removable) media.
* Raid disks/disk arrays are good choices for dedicated scratch disk volumes.
* Drives with scratch disks should be defragmented regularly.

[meow]

Thanks. :thumbsup:

[AshleyQuick]

Mouse - I have two hard drives (I already have two partitions on the primary). The second is a 60 gig drive that I can partition if need be. Also, I have 768 mb ram.

What would you do with this??

Ash

[mouse]

I'd run the hdd's on seperate IDE channels; the IDE controller can only access one isk at a time so using a different channel for each disk gives a theoretical benefit. Use drive D: (assuming C: is Windows) for the scratch disk. I doubt you'll need much scratch disk with that amount of ram though.