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Macbook Pro with Dual hard drives. Scratch Disk, Memory 64bit, Raid, Set Up Questions


G

garlandstudios

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Hello, this is my first post.

I just upgraded from the original 2006 17" Macbook Pro to a refurbished 13" Macbook Pro 2.53GHZ 4GB Ram (2009 model).

I bought the MCE Tech Optibay and installed it (if you dont know anything about it, ask me, its amazing.) So now I have 2x 500GB 7200RPM Seagate hard drives installed.

I am running Snow Leopard, CS3, Lightroom 1.4.

I have the main hard drive set up with Snow Leopard and all the Applications. I keep all my files on external firewire 800 drives, except files I am currently working on.

The second hard drive is set up as a scratch disk for Photoshop CS3 and that is it.

I am looking to upgrade to CS5 and Lightroom 3 here within this month or so. Or if I get anxious, tomorrow, haha.

I want to know the best setup I can do with my current set up with CS3 and for my future setup with CS5.

Any info will appreciated.

-Would some kind of raid set up with my internal drives be better? How does raid work with scratch disks?

-If I upgrade to 8GB memory in my macbook pro, would I even see a difference in performance if I didn't have a scratch disk? Since CS5 and Snow Leopard can use more memory in 64bit.

I think thats all I have on my brain right now. I may have more questions, or I can guarantee I will have more later.


Is using all that 500GB as a scratch disk a waste. Should I partition it?

What would be the best to store on the other partition? Photos I am working on?

Is it just haveing the OS on a seperate drive than the scratch the only main thing to worry about?

Which would be better, storing the current files i am working with on the same drive as the OS or a partition on the scratch?

I may end up moving the current work files to externals too, but i like not having to tug around the externals to do just a little work.


I have searched for all these questions for years. I have yet to find an easy simple to read and understand guide. Everyones system is different.

Thanks alot.
 
Ok I think I understand what you are asking, but correct me if I am wrong.

You have two physical hard drives installed in your computer, not just one with 2 partitions right?

Let's say your OS and the application files for Photoshop are on drive 1.... then you would want to use drive 2 as your scratch disk. It doesn't matter if you partition it or not, because you can just make a folder on it for Photoshop and any other Adobe programs to use. You can still use hard drive 2 for storage, you don't need to keep all 500gb free for scratch disk.

So whether to partition it or not is up to you, but it's not going to make much of a difference.

What you want to avoid when possible is running your OS/App files on the same physical hard drive as your scratch disk, even if it's a different partition.
 
yes exactly.

i have two separate 500GB each internal hard drives in my macbook pro. (one took the place of the superdrive)

i have OS/APPS on one.

then i have the other strictly as a scratch.

so lets say i have a folder of images from a photo shoot i did yesterday. i want to work on the files. would there be a performance difference in storing that folder of images on the same disk as the OS/Apps or the same disk that is set to a Scratch disk.


also. would there really be a need for a scratch disk if i upgraded to 8gbs of ram, when using CS5 since it being 64bit can take advantage of more that 3gb of ram. or would it still make a positive performance difference to have a scratch disk.
 
Upgrading your RAM will give you more of a performance boost. The 64 bit version of Photoshop can use more than 3gb... it's only a 32bit system that can't use more than 3gb. I always get as much RAM as possible.

You would not notice a lot of difference between storing the working files on one drive or the other.... the thing that matters is having the scratch disk different than the OS/App drive.

I personally like to keep my OS/Apps on a smaller SSD hard drive, and keep all my files on other drives. A fast SSD for your OS/Apps will give you a big performance boost, especially when launching programs like Photoshop, but it's not the main reason I keep all my files on different drives. Mainly it is to make things easier if I ever have problems with my OS and need to re-install my OS or wipe that drive... I can do it quickly without worrying about my important files, all I have to do is re-install my apps and import my preferences back in.
 
Can't agree more with Gaus. I recently got an SSD for my main OS drive.... wow what a difference! it used to take Photoshop at least 10 seconds to launch with all my plugins, now it's up in less than 3 seconds.
 
yeah i was going to go with an SSD when i swapped out and installed the 2 hard drives. they were just out of my budget. i had some other equipment that had to get replaced as well. so i just went for the 7200rpm drives for now. so ill be stuck with them for a bit.


what about a raid set up with the 2 internal drives i got. would that add any performance over my current set up?

i have been reading about people using a raid set up with the scratch disk included in that raid. i never really read in to it any further. i have yet to ever use a raid set up for anything also.
 
A raid 0 array would be faster, but it's dangerous because if one drive fails you lose all the data on both of them. With the failure rate of drives these days I would not recommend it, unless you make frequent backups.

Keeping your OS and Applications on one drive and using the other for storage and scratch disk would be my choice.
 
I have been lucky not to lose any hard drives yet, but if you read the reviews on places like newegg there seems to be a high number of drive failures now that all the drives are being made in China, even with trusted brand names.

I think part of it might have to do with bad power supplies in many peoples computers undervolting to HD's. I don't skimp on my PSU's and always go for good brand names like Seasonic or Corsair in my desktop PC's. I don't know what type of PSU a Macbook has in it, but it's probably not a lot of wattage and I would have to agree with Yutosi.... if your data is important just keep them in as separate drives, or do a raid 10... but then you lose half the storage space.
 

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