New PC. Where to put Photoshop CS6 Scratch disk?

[thatsright]

I am building a new Windows 10 system with 16GB of DDR4 memory. I’m building it for Photoshop CS6 pretty much. I DO NOT DO ANY GAMING or tweaking. I currently have 3 HD’s I will be carrying over. A Intel X-25 (circa 2009) with ~ 500mb read and write speed maximum. The other two are a 7200 and 5400 SATA6 spindle drives where I keep all of the image files I work with. The new rig will have the Samsung 256 GB 950 PRO SSD with read ~2100mb and write 900mb.

I’m planning on installing Photoshop on the Samsung SSD which would also have Windows on it. Photoshop requires a ‘scratch disk’ to write temp files too-think of it as a page file for Photoshop. Adobe says the scratch disk needs to be put on a separate HD than your OS and NOT the HD that has the Windows page file. I’d like to put the scratch disk on the Samsung SSD as this will be the fastest HD of all, which unfortunately would also have the Win page file. Now questions after my rambling:

1. Is it possible to put the Win 10 page file on the older Intel X-25 SSD? Then put the scratch disk on the faster Samsung SSD which also has the OS and Photoshop installed?
2. If no to #1, can I put the scratch disk on the intel SSD which is not as fast as the Samsung?
3. If yes to #2, should I just buy a new SSD and put the scratch disk on that as the Intel one is rather old? Or, put it on the Intel SSD and wait until it really kicks and then get a new drive?


Sorry as the above is a lot of info. I have posted in other forums, but thought perhaps some of you have had this issue. Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[Anteaus]

I think you would be fine putting them on the same SSD. Those rules were made for systems with HDDs and less system memory. If you ran out of RAM and went to swap the performance would drop. Many with that much ram run a token swap file for compatibility purposes only.

As to your questions, yes, you can put the swap file anywhere including one of the slower HDDs. Personally, I would just set the swap file at a static size of say 4GB and put the CS6 temp folder on the same drive. You can always change it later should you hit performance issues. I doubt you will notice anything.

 

[ronbo613]

I use CS6 every day. I leave the pagefile on the system SSD, with 16G RAM it is not used very much and the scratch discs on a WD 1TB 7200 rpm hard drive. Works fine. If you have an SSD, that would work. I usually save work on a different drive than the scratch disc and system drive just to balance out the load, everybody has a way they like to set things up.

 

[thatsright]

I use CS6 every day. I leave the pagefile on the system SSD, with 16G RAM it is not used very much and the scratch discs on a WD 1TB 7200 rpm hard drive. Works fine. If you have an SSD, that would work. I usually save work on a different drive than the scratch disc and system drive just to balance out the load, everybody has a way they like to set things up.

Where do you put the Windows page file?

 

[ronbo613]

Where do you put the Windows page file?

On the SSD with the operating system and programs. With 16G of memory, I don't think it's ever used. Anyway, I think worrying about wearing out an SSD is not really a factor any longer.

I put the operating system and programs on the SSD with scratch discs and save folders on other drives. Less chance of something getting messed up. Make a disc image in case anything goes wrong and within an hour you're back in business.

 

[thatsright]

On the SSD with the operating system and programs. With 16G of memory, I don't think it's ever used. Anyway, I think worrying about wearing out an SSD is not really a factor any longer.

I put the operating system and programs on the SSD with scratch discs and save folders on other drives. Less chance of something getting messed up. Make a disc image in case anything goes wrong and within an hour you're back in business.

Yeah I think I'll first try to put everything on the Samsung SSD: O/S+Page file and Photoshop+scratch disk. If still any issues, I'll put it on the 'ancient' intel SSD. Even if putting everything on the M.2 SSD and there ARE issues, I'm wondering if I'll ever even notice with that fast of a SSD/CPU/Mem.

 

[ronbo613]

Yeah I think I'll first try to put everything on the Samsung SSD: O/S+Page file and Photoshop+scratch disk. If still any issues, I'll put it on the 'ancient' intel SSD. Even if putting everything on the M.2 SSD and there ARE issues, I'm wondering if I'll ever even notice with that fast of a SSD/CPU/Mem.

I use Photoshop and Premiere CS6 for photo and video editing with the computer in my signature, which is fairly old. For Photoshop, there is no slowing at all so you won't have any issues. Try out your setup and if you don't like the way it works, try something else.