Intel Core 2 Duo (Extreme Performance) Platform
• Asus P5KC Core 2 Quad/ Intel P35/ DDR3+DDR2/ CrossFire/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 2.5GHz 1333MHz 6MB LGA775 EM64T CPU, Retail
• Antec Sonata III 500W Quiet Super Mini Tower Case (Piano Black)
• 4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2 800 Dual Channel
• Samsung HD753LJ 750GB SATA2 7200rpm 32MB Hard Drive
• Lite-On LH-20A1H-185 LightScribe 20X DVD+/-RW Drive (Black), Bulk w/o Software...(2)
• 1,44 3.5 Floppy INT Black
• EVGA nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB 2DVI/HDTV PCI-Express Video Card
• Integrated 8-Channel Audio Controller
• 10/100BASE-T On board Fast Ethernet LAN Controller (Build On Motheboard)
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, (1-Pack DVD), OEM
We also have a USB 2.0 Seagate external harddrive that we keep most of our photos stored on. We move them to the harddrive before working on them. We are using Photoshop CS3 adn would like to make the program as fast as possible. I have read that having a second hard drive dedicated as a scratch disk will help immensely. My question is this. What type of drive should I buy? Also, I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 21 200GB UDMA/100 7200RPM 8MB IDE Hard Drive I may be able to use as my scratch disk (not sure if connections will work with this motherboard though). Would I see any significant performance boost by using this IDE drive as my scratch disk or would I better better off sticking with my current internal hardrive stated above? I'm not against buying a good second hard drive but don't want to if this IDE drive will work. If a second drive is recommended, what do you guys recommend given my current setup?
I would like to setup the machine with Raid drives and all that, but I don't know enough about how to do that I don't think.
Any suggestions? Also, one last quick thing, I sometimes get the scratch disk full error and sometimes CS3 just crashes. It also is slow sometimes. Please help. Thanks everyone!!!!!!
Bob
As much as I would love to switch to vista 64, your talkign about a significant investment. I did however ask for a motherboard when my cpu was being built that can handle both vista 32 and 64...so I have that covered. However, I don't feel like shelling out a ton of $$$$ on PS 64, Lightroom 64, vista 64, and any other program that is currently 32 bit on my cpu. That seems like alot bigger investment than I'm ready to make. ALso, I doubt all the bugs are worked out of 64 bit software as of right now. I ordered a floppy disk drive just to have it as I find they don't scratch as easy as CD's...lol. Also, they are just big enough to hold important docs such as password lists and stuff.
Thanks again and I welcome any other suggestions from anyone else as I'm new to the technical/cpu aspect of photoshop. Thanks!
Bob
Another thing to consider is a back-up system. You say you keep all your photos on an external USB drive then move them to the HD before working on them. Where are they stored when finished? Might they be needed again for reprints and so on? If that drive breaks down you could lose a lot of work! I have images archived to an external HD but I also back them up to 2 copies of DVD's which are kept in different locations to cover all eventualities. I've got stuff going back years, I started off with floppies, then zip discs, then CD, now DVD.
Use the external as storage and get an enclosure for the IDE (a few quid) and use that as a backup for the storage.
Plenty of free backup software out there - I use Cobian.
Also backup to Optical media and store offsite if you can.
Even if you don't go to CS4 you'd still benefit with 64 bit and 8 gigs
of RAM. That's a lot of extra RAM to go around with multiple apps open
and it won't cost you very much at all. RAM is dirt cheap these days.
Bob
If I wanted to do the RAID thingie, would I be able to do that on drives
with two different RPM's?
Probably, but you'd lose the speed - it would just be cached on the faster drive.
The recommendation is always to use identical drives for RAID0.
A much better use of two drives is one system and one scratch/image files. Partition the latter so that scratch is the first partition, and put your images on the second.
Bob,
I think 64 bit is the way to go once Windows 7 comes out. I"m not really sure I trust the stability of Vista enough to move up to 64 bit. I already have enough problems with 32 bit.... The good thing is my Mobo supports both which is great....
Bob
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296>
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - OEM
$159.99 after rebate.
I am really starting to think 64 bit may be the way to go...I just want to make sure LIghtroom, Photoshop, and also, all my hardware including possibly a new raptor 10k hard drive work....
But there's no quick way to 64 bit from 32. Just create the system using
the 64 bit version of Vista and off you go.
If you have very old peripheral you might have some driver issues. The
only thing I had to replace was an 8 year old scanner.
Bob
My plan is:
Get a new HD just like original and use as scratch disk and image storage.
Keep OS on current HD
In the future, upgrade to Vista 64 and PS 64.
My question now is, how big of a performance boost is there to have additional 7200 drives for other things like swap drives? Thanks again to everyone for their help.