sc21 Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 Elements 2.0 lets you choose your scratch disk setting. It comes preset to your Startup, but you can switch it to drive C. Then there's the Second, Third, and Fourth, which you can set to C or None. What's the best way to set this up? I got a 80GB with 25GB free. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimvanson Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 Steve -- most people only have the one drive so for them it stays on the startup which is usually the "C" drive.<P>If you have a second drive then set the scratch on it, not the "C" -- more then two disks just keep setting then "E", "F", etc.<P>Of coarse you would not attempt to set on a removable disk or your DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimvanson Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 Steve -- I should have added that it will not help if you partition your startup ("C") drive into a "C" & "D" and then put the scratch on "D".<P>You will only see an increase in speed if you use a second physical drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted September 10, 2004 Share Posted September 10, 2004 The read write performance of a HDA and controller comb varies with track radius many times. Usually the controller today is a UDMA133 class; and the HDA is also a 133UDMA class. The actual typical 7200rpm drive will transfer data usually at about a 1/3 to 1/4 of the controller. Here the HDA is the limit; a faster controller does nothing. The read write performance for a large 100meg file will be faster at the outer radius; than the inner radius; by about a 2x ratio; in many cases. The actual media transfer rate might be 35megs/sec at the OD; and 20 at the ID. A 80 gig modern UDMA 133 class HDA can be formatted into 4 20 Gig logicals. The C will be faster than the D a tad;; the E slower;,the D the slowest. Placing scratch on the faster zone; the ID; logical C; is faster than the slower Id; ie zone logical E............<BR><BR>This is a mild increase in performance. Also having a clean data free scratch disk will help abit; if your HDA is too full and or fragmented Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimvanson Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 Kelly may be correct that a single drive partitioned "C", "D", etc <I>may</i> yield a slight performance increase if the scratch disk is placed on the outer partition.<P>There is also something to be said for a single area for the scratch disk that will not become fragmented -- BUT -- I've found you are in for a world of hurt if you load your OS onto a drive other then "C" -- windows does not want to exist on "D" with a scratch disk set on "C".<P>Yes it can be done but any saving in time will be offset by your constantly having to tell Windows where it lives.<P>If you're worried about speed get a second disk. Partition it so that PS takes the outer partition and use the remainder of that drive for storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 One old box we rebuilt here is a 400Mhz Celeron limited to 256megs of ram. It came with a 5400rpm drive 5 years ago when new. After a HDA crash; we rebuilt the box with a 40 gig 7200rpm drive; with C 9gigs for programs; d 2 gigs; e: 2gigs; and F: the rest about 26 gigs ; for data. The dinky D logical was assigned as the first scratch. A larger logical would be better. Later we made the box a dual boot unit; and added Win2000 to logical E. It took about 1.3 gigs of the 2 gig logical. We added win2000 to use some newer software. The old box started at win 98; and was upgraded to win98se. ALL of the goofy USB weirdnesses went away with the win 98 to win98SE upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 With my zoo of computers; adding a second HDA for a scratch drive only helps if the controller/HDA combo's transfer rate is quicker. Our ancient Pentium Pros work quicker with a modern UDMA 133 PCI controller for the second HDA; since the old stock motherboard is an old busmaster interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc21 Posted September 11, 2004 Author Share Posted September 11, 2004 Thanks, Jim, and Kelly - you are a powerhouse of knowledge. So, with one drive, does it matter whether it's set for Startup or C? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimvanson Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 Startup or "C" -- Interesting option as in most cases (as in yours) they are the same (It could theoretically be different if you were plugging away on a network).<P>I try and avoid confusion so the single drive machines I look after all have it placed on "C" although they could be set on Startup -- it's the same thing in our cases.<P> Enjoy yourself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc21 Posted September 11, 2004 Author Share Posted September 11, 2004 Thanks, Jim. Being someone who thinks Startup is just that pop-up menu thingy over on the left of the screen, I appreciate the tip that they're the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 Jim; thanks for pointing out the Startup or "C" issue too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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