Author Topic: Help. Hard disk and ram. Technical question. (Read 5680 times)

Alatriste · « **on:** May 28, 2008, 15:41 »

I have just bought a computer (monitor is waiting until I decide for apple cinema display 20" or nec multisync 20wgx2pro)

Computer is:
processor: core2quad 9300 2.5
ram: 4gb ddr2 800
hard disk 1: 1x 72gb 10.000
hard disk 2: 2x 500gb 7.200 RAID 0

Where would you instal OS and Photoshop for more speed? HD 1 wich is 10.000 rpm or HD 2 wich is 7.200 rpm but RAID 0?

And where would you set the photoshop scratch disk? hd1 or hd2?

I have the choice of changing the RAM to ddr3 or/and 1066mhz is there any appreciable difference?

Thank you for your comments

madelaide · « **Reply #1 on:** May 28, 2008, 17:29 »

I recently learnt that Vista 32bits (such as the Home version) can not really use the 4GB RAM because of address limitations. It actually only uses 3.35GB, the rest being used by other system components. So it seems useless to buy the 4th GB.

You would need Vista 64bits (option in business versions) and possibly a specific type of hardware (but I can't advise on that).

A friend who recently purchased a notebook on Dell was advised by them to buy only 3GB.

Regards,
Adelaide

melastmohican · « **Reply #2 on:** May 28, 2008, 17:38 »

With Windows Vista SP1 Microsoft will force the operating system to show the full amount of system memory installed, and not only the memory that Vista has available, but it does not mean that Vista SP1 will resolve the 4 GB of RAM limitations of the 32-bit Vista operating system.

Core2Quad supports Intel 64-bit architecture...

jsnover · « **Reply #3 on:** May 29, 2008, 00:07 »

Read this article on adobe.com, if you haven't already, about Photoshop performance on XP/Vista.

In particular, the parts about locating the scratch disks (best to put it on a fast, defragmented disk, preferably not the one where windows has its page file.

DanP68 · « **Reply #4 on:** May 29, 2008, 00:19 »

Great article and advice Jo Ann. Funny that I can run the most intensive 3D games on my system, but Photoshop brings it to its knees. I really wish I had a Mac sometimes.

leaf · « **Reply #5 on:** May 29, 2008, 01:49 »

put the operating system on the 10,000 drive.

You don't want the operating system on a raid drive. When things go fidely with a power cord, or the computer crashes and it has to repair the raid drives etc etc.. you don't want one of the drives in error to be the system drive. If you are using an RAID 0 also make sure that you keep your stuff backed up well. RAID 0 improves performance but actually makes safety of your files worse because there are now 2 drives to die, and if one of them dies, information on both of them is lost.

I would use the RAID 0 drive for your scratch disk though since the cache drive should be something other than the system drive.

Alatriste · « **Reply #6 on:** May 29, 2008, 15:27 »

Quote from: leaf on May 29, 2008, 01:49

put the operating system on the 10,000 drive.

You don't want the operating system on a raid drive. When things go fidely with a power cord, or the computer crashes and it has to repair the raid drives etc etc.. you don't want one of the drives in error to be the system drive. If you are using an RAID 0 also make sure that you keep your stuff backed up well. RAID 0 improves performance but actually makes safety of your files worse because there are now 2 drives to die, and if one of them dies, information on both of them is lost.

I would use the RAID 0 drive for your scratch disk though since the cache drive should be something other than the system drive.

Thats what I call a good and direct advice. Thank you Leaf!!!

Where would you instal Photoshop??

leaf · « **Reply #7 on:** May 29, 2008, 17:03 »

install everything on your system drive... C drive, which is the 10,000 rpm drive

then my documents can be on another drive - makes it very easy to transfer later on. I would also check to see how much speed you are really getting out of using a raid 0 in compared to the risk of having your files there.

Alatriste · « **Reply #8 on:** May 30, 2008, 02:15 »

Ok. Thanks.

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Author Topic: Help. Hard disk and ram. Technical question. (Read 5680 times)

Alatriste

madelaide

melastmohican

jsnover

DanP68

leaf

Alatriste

leaf

Alatriste

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