Seeking advice on HDD setup

[dboxmeyer]

Hi there,

I'm putting together a new PC and I'm trying to determine the right drives to use. The primary use for the PC is running Photoshop and other digital photo software.

I currently have one 500GB 7200RPM drive (Dell OEM model - no idea on specifics) which I was going to move to becoming my data drive.

I'm considering adding one or two additional drives to support the Operating System, Applications, Pagefile and Photoshop scratch disk. I figure I need one drive for the OS / Apps / Pagefile with a min size of 120GBs. I can either use the existing 500GB drive for both data and photoshop scratchdisk, or I could purchase another drive to use soley for the scratch disk (only need ~30GB).

Does anyone have any advice on the small capacity drives I'm looking for? It seems like every review is for a 640Gb or 1TB drive. Are there any smaller capacity drives that give good performance for running an OS and applications? I'm sensitive to price, but it is a secondary concern to performance. If paying for a larger capacity drive will provide a significant boost in performance, I'm willing to spend the money even though I don't see how I'll use the capacity.

Also, does anyone have any opinion on running the photoshop scratchdisk on it's own seperate drive vs. as a partition on the data drive? If so, any specific models you would recommend? I was considering a raptor drive, but have been told multiple times that the boost in performance doesn't justify the added cost. Again, price is a consideration - but not the only factor.

Since I'm only using the PC for photoshop (etc) and not for gaming - is the hard drive choice crucial or am I just making my life difficult? The performance I'm looking for is: faster boot time, faster application loading and quicker response in photoshop (which uses the HDD for a scratchdisk.)

Any suggestions for models or setup are most appreciated. I think I have the Newegg site memorized at this point, but can't seem to figure these issues out!

Thnks,
-Dave

 

[Mondoman]

For a basic setup, just get a decent 320GB drive for $70-80.
For faster boot time, faster application loading, etc, you need to increase the data transfer rate, which you can do by running RAID 0 or RAID 0+1. Some implementations of RAID 1 may also improve read performance.

 

[dboxmeyer]

Thanks for the advice Mondoman.

I guess what's really still bugging me is how much of a performance boost I'll be missing by having Photoshop's scratch disk on the same drive as my data files. The only way to offset this would be a third drive. Given the fact that there aren't any fast but inexpensive low capactiy disks, I'd have to by at least a 160GB drive for just the scratchdisk - which feels like a waste.

Unless someone has specific experience with running a photoshop rig - I think I'll stick with your advice and just by one additional drive (giving me a total of two internal drives.) However, rather than the 320GB option, I think I'll spend another ~$30 and buy one of the WD6400AAKS which everyone seems to rave about.

Any further advice would be most appreciated. Thanks!

 

[PascalT]

I've always put my scratch disk on the same drive as my PSDs. Not sure it slows down performance but i'd be curious to know.

I'm itching to just buy 3x raptors and use them for massive photoshop speed.