Pro photographer's spec - scratch disk advice!

W

Wildflower246

New member
I am almost ready to purchase my custom laptop from PCSpecialist which will be used solely for photo editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, dealing with large volumes of RAW files. Chosen spec below, however I am not feeling confident about my choice with the SSD hard drive(s).

I have researched that it's helpful for photographers to have two drives in this configuration:
First: high storage volume and fast speed SSD
Second: smaller storage volume but equally as fast to use for temporary files/ as a scratch disk.

PCspecialist tell me they don't sell scratch disks.

This is the advice from Adobe about scratch disk set up: (which I am confused about because point 1 seems to conflict with points 2 and 3?)
  • If your startup disk is a hard disk, as opposed to a solid-state disk (SSD), try using a different hard disk for your primary scratch disk. An SSD, on the other hand, performs well as both the primary startup and scratch disk. In fact, using an SSD is probably better than using a separate hard disk as your primary scratch disk.
  • Scratch disks should be on a different drive than any large files you are editing.
  • Scratch disks should be on a different drive than the one your operating system uses for virtual memory.

I have also seen in my research that having two SSD drives can cause issues with Windows.

Is the solution to go for one single 4TB SSD drive? Would this satisfy the advice from Adobe?


Spec:
Chassis & Display Recoil Series: 16" Matte QHD+ 300Hz, 500nits, sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)

Processor (CPU) Intel® CoreTM Ultra 9 24 Core Processor 275HX (Up to 5.4 GHz) 36MB Cache

Memory (RAM) 64GB Corsair 5600MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 32GB)

Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 5070Ti - 12GB GDDR7 Video RAM - DirectX®12.2

1st M.2 SSD Drive 2TB SAMSUNG 9100 PRO M.2, PCIe 5.0 NVMe (up to 14,700MB/R,13,400MB/W)

2nd M.2 SSD Drive 2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
PCS are technically correct, as there is nothing specific called a 'scratch disk', it is just a drive used solely for your application's cache/scratch usage.

But, as per the Adobe advice, you'd want 1) for OS & apps, 2) for files, and 3) for scratch/cache...but that chassis doesn't support 3 SSDs...so you're stuck a little unless your working files are on an external drive?
 
W

Wildflower246

New member
That makes sense.

My plan was to have my working files stored on the internal drive, then once the edit was complete they'd go onto an external.
I'm happy to rethink this, if there's a better set up to be had!

So let's say I have my working files on an external, I would then use 1 SSD for OS & apps and the other for scratch.
Going on that basis, I'd probably look at 1. 2TB and 2. 500gb

Does that seem a better option?
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
In your shoes I would look towards

1TB Fast Primary - Windows & Apps only (Not a work drive or storage drive in any way).
2TB Fast Secondary - Work drive, temporary asset storage etc.
500gb-1TB 2.5" SSD drive (or M2 if available) - Scratch drive. 500GB is plenty but it just depends on pricing etc. You could also use this for longer term storage as the scratch drive won't need a lot of space. Just keep it lower than 50% and performance will be 100%.

Given that the chassis is the limitation on the storage (it seems extremely limited to me) I would opt for the Recoil 18 over the 16.

I wouldn't restrict my options or expansion ability by choosing a chassis that didn't meet or exceed requirements.

Side note. I wouldn't opt for Samsung either. They were the go-to for years but they need to re-prove themselves after the abysmal 980 and 990 releases.
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Wildflower246 said:
That makes sense.

My plan was to have my working files stored on the internal drive, then once the edit was complete they'd go onto an external.
I'm happy to rethink this, if there's a better set up to be had!

So let's say I have my working files on an external, I would then use 1 SSD for OS & apps and the other for scratch.
Going on that basis, I'd probably look at 1. 2TB and 2. 500gb

Does that seem a better option?
Click to expand...
It would be the better option if you can't get a chassis with 3 SSD slots.

If you need an external solution, then if you get a fast enough external SSD or enclosure (40GBps USB4 / Thunderbolt 4) then you probably won't even notice the difference in performance.

USB4/Thunderbolt 4 (40GB/s)
Corsair 2TB - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-EX400U-USB4-Portable-External/dp/B0DR381N86
Sandisk 2TB - https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-Portable-Powerful-Performance/dp/B0DN688B7V
Ugreen Enclosure 1 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-Cooling-Aluminum-Compatible/dp/B0CLV3D3H6/
Ugreen Enclosure 2 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-Aluminum-Support-Compatible/dp/B0D3WT2T8C/
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
TonyCarter said:
It would be the better option if you can't get a chassis with 3 SSD slots.

If you need an external solution, then if you get a fast enough external SSD or enclosure (40GBps USB4 / Thunderbolt 4) then you probably won't even notice the difference in performance.

USB4/Thunderbolt 4 (40GB/s)
Corsair 2TB - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-EX400U-USB4-Portable-External/dp/B0DR381N86
Sandisk 2TB - https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-Portable-Powerful-Performance/dp/B0DN688B7V
Ugreen Enclosure 1 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-Cooling-Aluminum-Compatible/dp/B0CLV3D3H6/
Ugreen Enclosure 2 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-Aluminum-Support-Compatible/dp/B0D3WT2T8C/
Click to expand...

Surely can't just be me drooling over that TBT200 from Corsair? They've very cleverly, and obviously deliberately, included it in the advertising for the drive. I went straight in for a nosey at it!

They're almost doing an Apple o_O
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top