Should I set an external scratch disk for use with Photoshop?

[Siderz]

I'm mainly a video guy, but I also do Photoshop stuff, either for the videos or just for fun.

I haven't set Photoshop to use my external drive as a scratch disk though, I'm wondering if it's all that necessary with Photoshop? And considering my specs?

I have a 2012 iMac:

• 3.1GHz i7
• 16GB RAM
• GeForce 650M 512MB
• 1TB Fusion Drive
• Adobe Production Premium CS5.5

As it is, it turns out that I have enough RAM that I don't need a faster hard drive to encode video. I tested it between my FW800 G-Drive 1TB against a LaCie 240GB SSD Thunderbolt RAID, and they both render at the exact same speed.

 

[Consultant]

Unless you work on files larger than hundreds of MBs, you probably don't need a separate scratch disk with photoshop.

 

[Arelunde]

I always have my PS scratch disk on an external drive. The scratch disk takes up a lot of space, especially if you are actively using PS. There's no difference in performance with scratch on an external vs. internal drive. So, why bog down your primary drive with storage.

Plus, having the scratch on an external is a form of insurance, should your main drive crash.

 

[vigorblade]

My main drive with my OS and other apps is a very small 60GB SSD drive (When I first got it the SSD prices for a larger capacity drives were too high for me), so yes, I use a second drive as a scratch disk for photoshop.

 

[blanka]

I use 4Gb of my RAM as my first scratch disk. 10 times as fast as SSD!

----------

I tested it between my FW800 G-Drive 1TB against a LaCie 240GB SSD Thunderbolt RAID, and they both render at the exact same speed.

You tested it with video-encoding? That is very easy on the hard-drive. Try a multilayer (16 bit CMYK) photoshop file with 200 steps of history and a 2500pixel pencil and start drawing short strokes to see if the drive is getting in trouble. That is a real pain for the scratch disk.

 

[Siderz]

I use 4Gb of my RAM as my first scratch disk. 10 times as fast as SSD!

Pretty sure the point of a scratch disk is to put data from the RAM to the hard drive when there isn't enough RAM...so setting the RAM as a scratch disk isn't going to do anything.

You tested it with video-encoding? That is very easy on the hard-drive. Try a multilayer photoshop file with 200 steps of history and a 2500pixel pencil and start drawing short strokes to see if the drive is getting in trouble. That is a real pain for the scratch disk.

wut...how could a video be less intensive than a single picture? Also I literally just sold that SSD, so it's too late now.

Is there a PSD available that I can try this with?