Getting ready to order... still have a couple questions

[LightField]

Another way to explain my issue is that normally I think people work with large PROJECTS on their PCs.. large projects with many small files. For example a video is a HUGE project full of relatively small files.. even high definition video has relatively small single images. Processing high def video you are using a fairly small amount of info at a time that can be swapped out while you are watching it and shuffled around.

With my project I am using a relatively small amount of info for my entire project compared to a high def video.. but in my case it's a huge bonus to have ALL the info for my entire project (each comic and all my relevant research) in my RAM.. because then I can access all of it instantly.

Plus the individual files I will be working on, that make up my comic, are immense compared to something like high def video image or even groups of images.

This is the way I understand it at least...

Also remember that these art programs keep many many copies of each layer of your image so that you can go back and undo changes... and I make many tiny changes at a time (pencil strokes or paint brush strokes or paint layers). The more undos you have available the more flexibility you have undoing mistakes. That also creates huge files.

 

[Sleepingforest]

After a bit Googling, I am forced to concluded that RAMdisks are less useful than a SSD. You're pretty much guaranteed to run out of disk space if you allocate less than 64GB--then the computer is forced to use virtual memory in your HDD, and usage times are dramatically increased. Thus it is best to have a large SSD rather than a RAMdisk.

If your files are really that huge, you won't have enough RAM to store them--again, an SSD would be more effective. RAMdisks are simply too small and too expensive to be practical compared to an SSD.

 

[LightField]

After a bit Googling, I am forced to concluded that RAMdisks are less useful than a SSD. You're pretty much guaranteed to run out of disk space if you allocate less than 64GB--then the computer is forced to use virtual memory in your HDD, and usage times are dramatically increased. Thus it is best to have a large SSD rather than a RAMdisk.

If your files are really that huge, you won't have enough RAM to store them--again, an SSD would be more effective. RAMdisks are simply too small and too expensive to be practical compared to an SSD.

Are you basing this on that article you linked to because that is using a MAC... I haven't heard of issues like this on a PC but I am still reading the article.

Also, is this dealing with just one program? Because I will be doing heavy multi-tasking.

 

[LightField]

Here is a guide from Adobe on how to optimize your system for Photoshop... it echoes what I have heard from people who do this work.

Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still want to improve performance, consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.

As noted above, an SSD doesn't improve performance if the efficiency indicator is already high. The lower the efficiency indicator, the greater the improvement an SSD offers.

Solid-state disks
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Okay, I admit having more RAM is better, but not as a RAMdisk. I still think it is best for you to max out your RAM and have an SSD than to have an HDD, especially if you have more money in only a month or so.

Just drop the HDD out of my last build and get 2 more sticks of the 8GB RAM I linked to. That's still roughly $800.

 

[LightField]

OK, thanks SleepingForest.. sorry to be a pain. I think I am just in a unique situation... most the time I think you are right with your philosophy. And I can mess around with how much RAM I have allocated and if there is some space that I never use I can try the RAMdisk.

I think the issues with RAMdisk not being efficient may have to do with the management software. But I think this has developed recently with the improved software being used but that's just my guess based on what I have read. But as you said, that is dependent on the type of projects you are doing too.

Also, in my situation I have a large harddrive that I haven't been using because it isn't backed up. so that is something I need to do and I want to make sure to get that 2 TB drive. That's just my own personal situation tho.

 

[Sleepingforest]

No, it's fine. You and I are in a learning experience together!

 

[mfenn]

OK, thanks SleepingForest.. sorry to be a pain. I think I am just in a unique situation... most the time I think you are right with your philosophy. And I can mess around with how much RAM I have allocated and if there is some space that I never use I can try the RAMdisk.

I think the issues with RAMdisk not being efficient may have to do with the management software. But I think this has developed recently with the improved software being used but that's just my guess based on what I have read. But as you said, that is dependent on the type of projects you are doing too.

Also, in my situation I have a large harddrive that I haven't been using because it isn't backed up. so that is something I need to do and I want to make sure to get that 2 TB drive. That's just my own personal situation tho.

Using a RAMdisk as a scratch disk makes absolutely NO sense for 64-bit Photoshop.

IF you were to make a RAMdisk and use that as a scratch drive, then all you are accomplishing is these two things.

1. Increasing Photoshop's memory usage. Why? Because it has to keep one copy in real working memory and another copy on the scratch disk (which is also memory, but Photoshop doesn't know it).
2. Slowing down Photoshop's processing. Why? Because it takes many more CPU cycles to access something that is on disk (you have to go through the normal disk access mechanisms, 10,000's of lines of code) instead of getting it directly from memory (10's of lines of code).

RAMdisks as scratch disks are relics of the 32-bit era when Photoshop, like all 32-bit applications, wasn't able to directly address more than 4GB of memory (really less than 4GB, but that get's technical). RAMdisk's gave programs a way to access memory so that it didn't look like memory, and thus got around the address space limitations. They serve no purpose today and are counterproductive.


To repeat, using a RAMdisk as a scratch disk makes absolutely NO sense for 64-bit Photoshop. If you are running out of memory in Photoshop, first max out your RAM and then get an SSD for a scratch disk.

 

[LightField]

mfenn, I just read about someone who claimed to be doing it for years and it worked great... I have seen other accounts of this as well. Not sure what the disconnect is?

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3290252

The original question was about the Photoshop Scratchdisk use. That is very different from the Windows pagefile. I agree that a pagefile on a ramdisk is useless. But assigning an ultrafast ram disk as Photoshop scratchdisk is really working. I have been using this on my Photoshop workstation for almost 4 years now. And it is FAST. With present RAM prices, it is also affordable.

 

[LightField]

Also, I am considering using a RAMdisk as a way of storing all my relevant research to a project so it is always ready to be instantly accessed. That is if I have any RAM that I am not using regularly. And with this setup I could modify how I use it depending on the project and needs. So I view the RAMdisk as a small ultra fast SSD.

 

[mfenn]

mfenn, I just read about someone who claimed to be doing it for years and it worked great... I have seen other accounts of this as well. Not sure what the disconnect is?

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3290252

That thread doesn't really have anything to do with what I said. Of course you need to have some scratch space defined within Photoshop for the program to function. That does not mean that it is actually read from as long as you have enough memory.

The person you quoted gave no technical explanation of why they are doing what they are doing, or by what mechanism they think that it is benefiting them, so I cannot directly refute their points without going to their machine and reconfiguring it for them.

As for your more general point (bolded), just because somebody formed a habit years ago, doesn't mean that is still the correct course of action today. Like I said above, a RAMdisk was relevant in the past but no longer makes any sense.

Also, I am also considering using a RAMdisk as a way of storing all my relevant research to a project so it is always ready to be instantly accessed. That is if I have any RAM that I am not using regularly. And with this setup I could modify how I use it depending on the project and needs. So I view the RAMdisk as a small ultra fast SSD.

This is an exceptionally terrible idea. One power outage and all of your work is gone. Windows Vista and above includes very good transparent RAM caching of files. Don't try to defeat it by putting random files on an unsafe location like a scratch disk.

 

[LightField]

This is an exceptionally terrible idea. One power outage and all of your work is gone. Windows Vista and above includes very good transparent RAM caching of files. Don't try to defeat it by putting random files on an unsafe location like a scratch disk.

The RAMdisk software has a feature that loads all the files you want on your RAMDisk at startup and saves it at shutdown. I would think they have some feature that keeps your data backup up as well.

Is it possible that you are thinking of earlier RAMDisk management software and it has advanced more since?

Primo Ramdisk has image mirroring so you never have to worry about power outages wiping your data. In addition to automatically loading your ramdisk data at startup, it has options to update the mirror at an interval of your choosing, or you can choose realtime mirroring.

Basically I view it as a way of automatically loading the info you need for a specific project into RAM automatically instead of having to do it manually... And it's on a drive that is much much much faster than a normal SSD.

If you were someone that worked on huge projects it probably wouldn't be beneficial. But for me I think it would be ideal for my use and this is why it jumped out at me when I discovered it.

My only question is processing power. You might need exceptional processing power or graphics management to utilize it fully. Not sure.

 

[Sleepingforest]

If the RAMdisk is actually mirroring constantly, then it is bottlenecked by your drive trying to keep up as a mirror anyway. Please, just use an SSD.

 

[LightField]

If the RAMdisk is actually mirroring constantly, then it is bottlenecked by your drive trying to keep up as a mirror anyway. Please, just use an SSD.

You should read this Adobe page... it talks about how the work you have in RAM is backed up to harddrive automatically while you are working. It just takes up more RAM to allow you to backup up data while you are working. This is likely the same process the RAMDisk uses.

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html

That also explains WHY Photoshop is such a resource hog... because it needs to store multiple copies of data to do things like this. But RAM itself couldn't work as fast as it does if what you are saying was an issue. I bet Processors work in similar ways or they use RAM in similar ways.

 

[LightField]

If the RAMdisk is actually mirroring constantly, then it is bottlenecked by your drive trying to keep up as a mirror anyway. Please, just use an SSD.

You should read this Adobe page... it talks about how the work you have in RAM is backed up to harddrive automatically while you are working. It just takes up more RAM.

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html

That also explains WHY Photoshop is such a resource hog... because it needs to store multiple copies of data to do things like this. But RAM itself couldn't work as fast as it does if what you are saying was an issue. I bet Processors work in similar ways or they use RAM in similar ways.

 

[Termie]

I really don't think a RAMdisk is worth bothering with. You need to load it every time you restart the computer, and your work can be lost instantly. Furthermore, despite being faster than an SSD, it's actually not that much faster, on the order of 3x. But it's volatile, so you lose a lot to get that speed.

If you want 32GB and a pro version of Windows, that makes sense. But skipping an SSD on a system this expensive just makes absolutely no sense. Really, take the collective advice of a lot of people here.

The whole concept of RAMdisks is simply antiquated, just as mfenn said above. I ran one many years ago when I had a system with 4MB of RAM and no hard drive - now that was sweet! But we're many generations beyond that now.

 

[LightField]

I appreciate all the help... but I am on a limited budget and I need to optimize things as best I can for my purposes. I think you would have to be in my situation to fully understand. I can understand the concept of playing it safe.. but really with what I am doing a SSD is overkill.

The primary purpose of a SSD from my understanding is loading things into RAM. Once that is done the benefits of the SSD are gone. I will be loading the same programs and all the info for each project and leaving them running constantly.. I am not going to be doing other things much until the project I am doing is done.

BUT.. one thing that would be huge to me is having a hyper fast system. That is the whole purpose of the RAMdisk and people who use it for that purpose rave about it.

If the RAMdisk idea doesn't work I'm out 20 bucks for the RAMdisk software and how else does it really hurt me?

Here is another good description of RAMdisks.. and he views it the same way I do..

So, really, how often do you actually restart your system? I've got a 1GB RAMdisk set up and that takes about 9 seconds to repopulate but that process happens alongside the OS restarting, Superfetch repopulating, etc etc so it's not even noticeable.

I understand your example of 117 tabs (which is somewhat excessive for anyone), but realize that all of them - all 117 of them - will not be restored from the disk cache after a reboot and restart of the browser: each one of them will pull content from the website they're linked with and that is where your system lags and slows down. Just as a short test, I loaded all 29 of the sites in my Bookmarks Toolbar (Firefox 4 here, portable) + 31 random bookmarked sites so I had 60 tabs loaded and done. I use Tab Mix Plus' session manager so all I had to do was close Firefox when the tabs were done. Then I waited about 1 minute before restarting Firefox.

Now, considering my Firefox portable installation runs directly from RAM, the cache is directly in RAM, and all program data sits in RAM as well, one would think even 60 tabs should load up pretty quick, and they do: when I restarted Firefox, I used the session manager to reopen all 60 tabs, and that's when it choked to shit because at that point the browser is pulling data from 60 sites at once, or at least attempting it. I have Firefox set for 24 HTTP connections max and 12 per site (well above the HTTP spec) so it still takes time, even on a RAMdisk. On my 50Mb/s connection, it took roughly 1 minute and 43 seconds to get back to having 60 tabs completely loaded and restored by the session manager which is as fast as it's going to get.

If that was happening off the hard drive it probably would have taken 5x as long with all the disk reads and writes necessary to get the job done, so ~10 minutes compared to just under 2.

And you say this "super fast technology" is slowing me down? Right.

What IS noticeable is that my browser is incredibly responsive since it runs directly from RAM, it never touches the hard drive except when I do an actual shutdown process (haven't done that in weeks) or a reboot because of a patch or update of some kind (last reboot was Tuesday, several days ago).

There is realistically zero reason for anyone to effectively shut down a PC anymore; if you want it off, then use hibernation to bring everything back up precisely as it was when you started the shut down instead of a cold start situation where you have to reload everything fresh.

All I know is that in the big scheme of things, my system is way faster and more efficient as well as smoother in operation because I use a RAMdisk for temp files and caching as well as several apps that exist, operate, and run completely from RAM without ever touching the vastly slower hard drive. Still don't have an SSD but I'll get one at some point but even those are dirt slow compared to RAM. bigdogchris' impromptu benchmark info there proves it - the reads are close to 6GB/s and writes close to 9GB/s.

Ain't no SSDs out today, even several of them in a RAID 0, come close (I know the newest Intels with 500MB/s reads can, but consider the cost of 10 of those in a machine and a RAID controller too... yikes).

Been using RAMdisks since the mid-80s and will continue to do so probably as long as I have a computer. I had an Amiga 500 back in 1985 or so that could warm boot directly from the RAMdisk. So much for progress: 25 years later and the most modern PCs still can't do that - wonder why..

 

[LightField]

They even said the exact same thing on the Adobe site for Photoshop...

Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still want to improve performance, consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.

Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

Note that they say READ time is the only benefit of the SSD...

The write process happens in the background and doesn't seem to benefit from speed.. art programs and Photoshop are designed to work like this... So this is why I want to design my system based on that initially until I make some money and then I can expand my system.. To me this is the benefit of building my own system rather than buying a pre-built.

 

[Sleepingforest]

But if you read the VERY NEXT PART it says that:

Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.

Since the image is being put into RAM by Photoshop already, a RAMDisk is redundant. When the RAMdisk runs out of space, instead of going onto a fast SSD, it will go to a slow HDD.

 

[LightField]

But if you read the VERY NEXT PART it says that:


Since the image is being put into RAM by Photoshop already, a RAMDisk is redundant. When the RAMdisk runs out of space, instead of going onto a fast SSD, it will go to a slow HDD.

I don't think my RAMdisk will run out of room, though. That's the whole key.

This is why I said if I worked on immense projects then this system wouldn't work. If I worked on many large projects constantly and had to reload them constantly this wouldn't work.

That is why I was saying when I saw this system I realized it was perfect for what I am doing. That's why I said SSDs are overkill for my situation. Sure it would be a nice luxury if I had the money.. but right now I would rather not skimp on other things in the PC.

What I will be doing is using tons of research that I constantly need to reference.. use that for making issues of my comic.. then when One comic is done I am done with it and it goes on the large storage drives... rinse and repeat.

The research I need and the comics I make and finish and then move on are temporary, but I won't need big drives for these projects. That was also why i was trying to explain about weighty files but not weighty projects...

Working on videos = weighty projects and heavy processing.

Games and 3D work = heavy processing.

The kind of work I am doing is heavy on RAM and the research I am doing is heavy on multi tasking.. also RAM based.

I am just hoping the processor and graphics card will be enough for my purposes now.

I am wondering if I should get the same processor I have in my build but the
"k" version so I can overclock it later.... but not sure how beneficial that would be to me.

 

[LightField]

Let me put it this way... if I can have everything I need in RAM... then why do I need an SSD?

Later, I wouldn't mind some SSDs, because then I can have everything I need and the kitchen sink.. but I don't need the kitchen sink right now.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Listen: Photoshop puts the image you want to work on in the RAM, right? And it saves a version of it every time for the "undos." It then uses the scratch disk for extra space if it can. The reason it allows you to use a scratch disk is because the disk with the OS on it is slower as the OS keeps accessing it to perform background tasks.

A scratch disk is where Photoshop offloads data when the RAM is full. Thus using a RAMdisk as scratch is 100% redundant. You are better off simply using it as RAM.

You are guaranteed to require a scratch disk. No LGA1155 board has enough slots to allow you to do everything in RAM. It is best to have a fast drive as a scratch disk. An SSD makes more sense than a HDD if you can fit it in--which you can.

When you get only extra RAM, you ARE NOT getting everything you need. You are dramatically slowing things down once you reach the limits of your RAM, which is guaranteed to happen. Getting an SSD is not like getting a kitchen sink. It's like getting a foundation for your house. The extra RAM is the kitchen sink.

 

[LightField]

If Photoshop doesn't use all the RAM it could then why does Adobe tell you to max your RAM before getting a scratch SSD?

Also, the way I understood it is that the scratch disk is just to appease Photoshop because it makes you assign one. If you never exceed the RAM limit then it isn't an issue, right? Which is why Adobe says do it only if you exceed your RAM.

Are you using that RAM limit in reference to the article about Mac systems?

Also, are you talking about 64bit Photoshop?

Also, why does Adobe say this -

Solid-state disks
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I'm not saying that Photoshop doesn't use all the RAM.

I'm saying that you cannot possibly buy enough RAM to keep Photoshop happy and your motherboard does not have enough room.

Plus, Photoshop has the follow advice about scratch disks:

• For best performance, 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.
• RAID disks/disk arrays are good choices for dedicated scratch disk volumes.

Thus, you would ideally have a scratch disk that is seperate from your main OS/image storage drive.


Additionally, when using an SSD

To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.

Also, you said that you have a 2TB external hard drive, correct? You can use that as a stopgap measure while you get a real hard drive for bulk storage. That enables you to build something like this:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($259.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-P45 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($67.24 @ Amazon)
Memory: Mushkin Essentials 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($34.98 @ Outlet PC) Buy 4x
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 650 1GB Video Card ($95.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $723.10
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-04 01:07 EST-0500)

Maxed out RAM, and a SSD. Everyone wins.

 

[LightField]

Do a search in this book... they say the opposite.. they say the 64bit uses more then 4GBs - http://books.google.com/books?id=-PAKPDmfrvEC&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=64+bit+photoshop+ram+limits&source=bl&ots=nIpgZJXTV8&sig=rI3AJzHxSosgv2DyOMWt-hpvKMs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xTk0UZPyDI288wTA2oGgCA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=64%20bit%20photoshop%20ram%20limits&f=false