Disc space problem with P/shop (Page 3): A quick update on my issues. Firstly, forgive my tardiness, I have been rather busy with other matters. A new 1tb SSD fitted and is now the C:...

Jolly Roger Loc: Dorset. UK

A quick update on my issues.
Firstly, forgive my tardiness, I have been rather busy with other matters.
A new 1tb SSD fitted and is now the C: drive.
Windows 10 installed.
Everything is performing fine now.
Thanks to all who contributed their ideas and recommendations.
Roger

riderxlx Loc: DFW area Texas

Thanks for the update Roger;
this is good to hear. Glad you are up to speed now.
bruce.

Jolly Roger wrote:

A quick update on my issues.
Firstly, forgive my tardiness, I have been rather busy with other matters.
A new 1tb SSD fitted and is now the C: drive.
Windows 10 installed.
Everything is performing fine now.
Thanks to all who contributed their ideas and recommendations.
Roger

Jolly Roger Loc: Dorset. UK

riderxlx wrote:

Thanks for the update Roger;
this is good to hear. Glad you are up to speed now.
bruce.

Thanks Bruce.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Jolly Roger wrote:

Photoshop is on my C; drive (Windows 7) It has bee... (show quote)

First, you need to buy an external drive. If you are not storing your photos that are not currently being edited on the C-drive, move all your photos to an external hard drive. If you are only storing your photos there, you will not need an SSD. If your C-drive overload is also because of a lot of program files, I would additionally buy and external SSD or larger internal hard drive for my most used programs to help with execution speed. In any case, get your excess photos off your C-drive.

In addition, you should consider a second external drive to backup your photo storage drive. That is because, even if you use cloud backup, you need to save you photos to a third location as a failsafe.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

amfoto1 wrote:

No. Don't move Photoshop from your C drive...

Instead, go into Photoshop preferences and assign it a "Scratch disk" on that separate drive. This is where PS will write occasional saves of your files while you work on them and will help keep your C drive from filling up. It also uses the Scratch Disk as a temp location when you copy something from one image to another.

It's always a good idea to provide PS with a separate scratch disk and will really help with PS performance (as well as other programs, if PS is filling up your C-drive with stuff it would normally stash on a Scratch Disk).

I have a second 3 TB drive in my computer. I created a 100GB partition on that, which is dedicated as Photoshop's Scratch Disk (the remainder of that drive is used strictly for photo storage, and I mirror it on an external 3TB drive for safe keeping). I just looked and my Scratch Disk partition presently contains over 23,000 files totaling around 20GB of space. If you've never used partitions, it's no big deal. It just "fools" the computer into thinking there's another drive there and treating it as such (next time I build a computer, I will probably install a small SSD just for PS's Scratch Disk.... that would probably be ideal).

If you don't give PS a Scratch Disk, it will put those files on your C drive. In fact, is you haven't created a Scratch Disk, they are probably there now. Do a search for a "PSAutoRecover" folder... usually it's in the same place that PS is using for Scratch.

Whether you set up a specific space for PS to use or just have it use any available space on a second drive, to set up a Scratch Disk start PS, go into the Edit menu, then into "preferences" at the bottom, and then look for the "Performance" tab. There you will find a window where you can tell PS what to use as a Scratch Disk.

On the "preferences" page you also can control the amount of RAM PS can use and the size cache it can create (which is separate from the Scratch disk)... you also can check if PS is recognizing and using your graphics card, if you have one... I'd leave all those at their defaults until you see if the Scratch Disk solves the problem. You can always come back and try other settings later, if you wish (I'd just experiment with them one at a time).

Your programs... especially the most intensive ones like Photoshop, should remain on your C-drive. They will work best if you keep them there, alongside your operating system.

Look at what space is available on your C-drive. I agree with a previous response.... when it gets too full, performance will suffer badly. However, I don't agree with the numbers. Usually a C-drive will work well up to about 90% full, after which you'll start to see it's performance badly effected.

A disk clean-up might help (and part of that will be giving PS it's own, separate Scratch Disk).

It also might help to defragment the drive. That's a long, slow process with the huge size of drives these days. Because of that, I recommend running defrag overnight, while you sleep! Just set it up before you go to bed... make sure the process has actually started though. Nothing worse than getting up in the morning and finding the job didn't start because the computer was waiting for you to answer a question!

No. Don't move Photoshop from your C drive... br ... (show quote)

The scratch drive is a good suggestion, but remember that LR and PS used in combination only adds a small record in the metadata and you can do it in a way where you will not need excessive duplicates of your PSD, JPG, TIFF, etc. files. So, if you store all but the photos you are currently editing on another drive, you will free up much more space on your C-drive than any other solution.

Jolly Roger Loc: Dorset. UK

bpulv wrote:

The scratch drive is a good suggestion, but remember that LR and PS used in combination only adds a small record in the metadata and you can do it in a way where you will not need excessive duplicates of your PSD, JPG, TIFF, etc. files. So, if you store all but the photos you are currently editing on another drive, you will free up much more space on your C-drive than any other solution.

Hi bpuly.
Please see my update comment, top of page three on this topic.
I have a different drive for all files and folders. In addition another drive for Programs. Unfortunately some programs don't give the option to select where to save them to, hence the original Drive C: being overloaded. Also I have 2 external drives which are used for backups.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Jolly Roger wrote:

A quick update on my issues.
Firstly, forgive my tardiness, I have been rather busy with other matters.
A new 1tb SSD fitted and is now the C: drive.
Windows 10 installed.
Everything is performing fine now.
Thanks to all who contributed their ideas and recommendations.
Roger

Good to hear. Happy editing!

Jolly Roger Loc: Dorset. UK

dsmeltz wrote:

Good to hear. Happy editing!

Thanks dsmeltz.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

Jolly Roger wrote:

Photoshop is on my C; drive (Windows 7) It has bee... (show quote)

I forgot to mention earlier. Out sounds you are like me, program GAS. I am in the process of cleaning drive of programs I have gathered over time and do not use. If you have a lot of programs like I did, I would rethink them and uninstall all the ones you do not use. The ones you use consistantly should be on the C drive.

As for programs not allowing to install on a different drive....I don't remember this. What I remember is a window will pop up showing the install path and that is where you change it. The problem is, I usually just hit the enter key and accept the default, thus an over stuffed C drive.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Jolly Roger wrote:

Hi bpuly.
Please see my update comment, top of page three on this topic.
I have a different drive for all files and folders. In addition another drive for Programs. Unfortunately some programs don't give the option to select where to save them to, hence the original Drive C: being overloaded. Also I have 2 external drives which are used for backups.

Are you using a desktop or a laptop? If you are using a desktop PC, you can drop in a larger C-drive and solve the problem. In fact, you could consider a SSD to speed things up. If you have a laptop or iMacs like I do, upsizing an internal C-drive can be challenging. I have a multiple drive system too, but mine are designed to split the backups. My computers are 27" iMacs with internal 1Tb internal SSD or hard drives. The internal drives are backed up to an external 5Tb USB drive using Time Machine. Only the OS, programs and files I am currently editing are on the C-drive and are backed up daily to both an external 5Tb hard drive using copy and paste and to a 5-bay Drobo (25Tb total RAID), one drive of which is periodically exchange with a drive in my bank safe-deposit box so I have safe offsite storage of my photographs. Once completed, everything is saved and backed up it is moved to the 5Tb drive and the Drobo and the the completed job is erased from the C-drive. If your C-drive does not have enough space for all your programs and one or two working jobs, you do need to consider some type of upgrade. Using external drives for programs slow execution speeds too much.

Jolly Roger Loc: Dorset. UK

frankraney wrote:

As for programs not allowing to install on a different drive....I don't remember this. What I remember is a window will pop up showing the install path and that is where you change it. The problem is, I usually just hit the enter key and accept the default, thus an over stuffed C drive.

Hi Frank
Seriously some programs do give an option to select the location for downloading. Others do not. That is why when I had the computer built, I only had a 256gb SSD for the C: drive thinking it would be sufficent. But because of programs automatically downloading to the C: it got 'swamped'.
Hopefully that issue never returns.