Need more RAM or scratch space

[alphaod]

I have this dilemma. I've been working with making bigger panoramas.

My Mac Pro is choking with 24GB of RAM and I thinking of going to 48GB. Then my 128GB SSD dedicated to scratch is out of space because it's been filled. Then things just break.

I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to 48GB since it might not be enough. Then the next step would be 96GB, but that's over $1200 right now.

I don't really use my Mac Pro much anymore (since I'm on the move quite often) and I'm not really sure I want to dedicate more money into it being 3 years old. My alternative is to get perhaps a 256GB or 512GB SSD for scratch. The advantages here is it's a lot cheaper and quite a bit more space. The disadvantage is it's a lot slower than RAM.

What are people's thoughts on this?

 

[wonderspark]

I should think 48GB would solve it.

When I really want to get crazy, I make a RAM disk for my Photoshop scratch location. Just open Terminal and paste this in:

diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "Scratch" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://3496290`

It makes a 1.78GB RAMdisk. You can fiddle with the numbers at the end to make it larger or smaller. Maybe that will help?

 

[bearcatrp]

Using a SSD for a scratch disk works great for me. Looking at different tips for photo or video editing, this is recommended in most. If your not using the pro much, won't waste the money on more ram but as was posted above, a ram disk work good too.
Not sure if this would work on the mac but on my win7 system, I moved the page file to a ssd drive and works pretty good. When I had my 2008 mac pro, have read about some folks trying it on the mac, but never got around to doing it.

 

[JavaTheHut]

How large are your psd files? What version of PS? Your on a 6core with 4 slots?

I run 1~1.5GB psd files and never seem to scratch with 32GB Ram in a 12 core. but have been getting closer to putting in 64GB so I can run a RAMDisk for the active working file say 8GB for some head room. RAMDisk seems to be blazing fast

 

[Boomhowler]

Am I missing something? Isn't only the scratch disk used when you run out of memory? So, by using memory as a scratch disk you shorten the period until you have to use the scratch disk, which is the memory, which you wouldn't have to use if you hadn't created the scratch disk in the first place... or?

 

[philipma1957]

I have this dilemma. I've been working with making bigger panoramas.

My Mac Pro is choking with 24GB of RAM and I thinking of going to 48GB. Then my 128GB SSD dedicated to scratch is out of space because it's been filled. Then things just break.

I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to 48GB since it might not be enough. Then the next step would be 96GB, but that's over $1200 right now.

I don't really use my Mac Pro much anymore (since I'm on the move quite often) and I'm not really sure I want to dedicate more money into it being 3 years old. My alternative is to get perhaps a 256GB or 512GB SSD for scratch. The advantages here is it's a lot cheaper and quite a bit more space. The disadvantage is it's a lot slower than RAM.

What are people's thoughts on this?

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I have a cheaper link I will look for it



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[barkmonster]

Am I missing something? Isn't only the scratch disk used when you run out of memory? So, by using memory as a scratch disk you shorten the period until you have to use the scratch disk, which is the memory, which you wouldn't have to use if you hadn't created the scratch disk in the first place... or?

Logic is sometimes too much for some people if you wave big numbers in front of them

 

[wonderspark]

I admit that I can tell no difference when using a RAM disk versus my RAID for my scratch space, and it's fair to assume that's because I haven't used up all my RAM. Most I've seen used when running Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere all at the same time was 29GB.

I just thought that *maybe* Photoshop does something weird with scratch space, and perhaps setting aside some space in RAM for that possible weirdness would help. I don't know, since I didn't write the code for Photoshop, but I concur that your logic is sound.

 

[borostef]

I have this dilemma. I've been working with making bigger panoramas.

My Mac Pro is choking with 24GB of RAM and I thinking of going to 48GB. Then my 128GB SSD dedicated to scratch is out of space because it's been filled. Then things just break.

I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to 48GB since it might not be enough. Then the next step would be 96GB, but that's over $1200 right now.

Choking with 24 GB of RAM? If that is true, and I know it isn't, than Mac OS is the worst operating system for managing RAM... And I know it isn't... 96 GB of RAM... really? Do you manage International space station data? If not, you are doing something else wrong.

 

[JavaTheHut]

Am I missing something? Isn't only the scratch disk used when you run out of memory? So, by using memory as a scratch disk you shorten the period until you have to use the scratch disk, which is the memory, which you wouldn't have to use if you hadn't created the scratch disk in the first place... or?

Yes - Using a RAMDisk for a scratch disk is pointless.