Win XP Hard drive setup for Photoshop ?

[erik_a]

Is it best to have the fastest hard drive for the Win XP OS and Programs or for

use as the Photoshop Scratch Disk?

 

I am setting up a new computer and have one 7200 rmp drive and one 10,000 rpm

Raptor drive.

 

Which would benefit more from the faster hard drive?

[Ed_Ingold]

The 10K drive has a slightly faster seek time but generates twice as much heat. Consequently 10K drives tend to last much less than 7200 rpm drives. Personally, I find 7200 rpm drives are fast enough and much safer and more economical. Using the maximum amount of RAM (2 or 3 GB) is much more important for performance.

[kaiyen]

The cache on the drive is also more important, I find, along with it being SATA 3.0, of course. So make sure to get a 16MB cache on the drive (do they make 32 yet?). My scratch disk is "only" 100GB, 7200 RPM, but is 3.0 SATA with 16MB cache. I actually use a 3.0 SATA 80GB system drive - single platter so it has faster seek times.

[garrison_k.]

"Consequently 10K drives tend to last much less than 7200 rpm drives."

 

respectfully, this is the third time you posted this mis-information over the last couple months. WD has always aimed the raptors at the server market and are considered enterprise drives. the mtbf (mean time between failure) rate of 1.2 million hours is higher than any common $100 7200 drive that you are suggesting as an alternative. raptors also come with a five year warranty compared to one year on common 7200 drives.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=wd+raptor+mtbf+rate&btnG=Search&meta=

 

 

There is no other drive that I'd use for dependability in a labor intensive graphics box. It also happens to be fast.

 

Erik, need more information on which drives you are speaking of. There's newer 7200 rpm drives that out perform older raptors now. I'd put the OS and apps on the fastest drive of the two.

[Ed_Ingold]

I have installed two 10K Raptor drives, and both failed within two years. In my experience, 7200 rpm drives outlast 10K drives about 5 to 1.

[Ed_Ingold]

The difference between a device with a 5 year warranty and a one year warranty is the implicit cost of the warranty.

[garrison_k.]

I'm sorry to hear that, Edward. However, they are a top choice in high-end box used by demanding users without going to scsi.

 

My first pair, the original released 36gig versions, have been running for years without a hick-up.

 

I'll be building a new box around the new Velociraptors in a month or two and will be the third box I've trusted them to a raid 0 config.

[garrison_k.]

You can not argue the mtbf rates. Suggest a 7200 rpm drive and look up the mtbf and compare.

[erik_a]

Thank you everyone for your help, I will use the Raptor for OS and programs.

 

The other drive is a 250gig Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS and is SATA 3.0 however I think it only has 8mb of cache. My third drive for storage is a 500gig Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16 with 16mb cache, however the drive test seem to show the Seagate as being faster.

 

I will most likely put the windows swap file on one and the photoshop scratch on the other in a small partition at the front of each drive.

 

FYI I also use a separate external SATA RAID5 setup for archiving.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Just use a fast 10k drive for the scratch area; ie where speed matters; and there is a dont care if it croaks in a year.

[kory gunnarsen]

Check out this info for speeding up PS. Really helpful and explains a lot about

specifically speeding up Photoshop.

 

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=318243&sliceId=2

 

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=320005&sliceId=2

 

-Kory Gunnarsen