Speeding up saving

[Adrianr]

As Photoshop seems intent on stopping everything I do whilst it saves something, and I'm always working with large 800mb+ 16bit files, is there anything I can do short of throwing in an SSD or two to speed up the process?

I'm thinking of maybe setting up some sort of temporary fast workspace where I drag in the files I have to work on and can reside there whilst I'm editing. Then when I'm done shift them over to proper storage in one big lump.

However before I go and drop a few hundred on that lot, is there anything else I can do in PS?

[pavel123]

To the best of my understanding SSD does not work that great with PS because of the difference in read/write times. Another option is to use SAS drive, although can say that from personal experience
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/what_is...isk_drive.html

[mistermonday]

A high speed drive, physically separate from the drive which contains the operating system, and which is defragmented and has a large percentage of it capacity free, will make a big difference. SSD's are still relatively slow for this type of storage.
Regards, Murray

[Adrianr]

Interesting. Has anyone seen how RAID0 helps? At this rate I'm going to have more hardrives than the local PC world

[Jerryb]

hi,
Well I don't know what you presently have for pc stats.... that always give clues to what you can do to improve your system performance...

but first.. if your looking for speed forget about SSD's !! there slow.. read times are best so so.. and write times are terrible.....

a seperate internal drive.. will give you lot more speed and bang for your bucks... now i would go with a good fast sata 3 at least 7200 rpm if not 10,000 rpm ....

if your looking at a external drive.. well the very least a Esata drive... or if there out yet the external usb3 hard drives.... but your internal are still still faster..
note: usb 2 are just way toooo slooooow...

other thing you can do...
1. definitely disable all those startup... be surprised at how much they slow things down!!! plus you regain some precious ram...!
2. if you have a seperate hard drive... you may want to look at moving your swap file over to it....!!

well those are my thoughts.....

Originally Posted by Adrianr

As Photoshop seems intent on stopping everything I do whilst it saves something, and I'm always working with large 800mb+ 16bit files, is there anything I can do short of throwing in an SSD or two to speed up the process?

I'm thinking of maybe setting up some sort of temporary fast workspace where I drag in the files I have to work on and can reside there whilst I'm editing. Then when I'm done shift them over to proper storage in one big lump.

However before I go and drop a few hundred on that lot, is there anything else I can do in PS?

[Jerryb]

hi,
i just saw this post....

i don't think raid0 will help you...... at least not as far as performance....
also if you use software, instead of hardware, to run the raid setup... you'll lose cpu power..... and that one thing you don't want.... ps you want all the ower you can get... i think overall it might get to expensive......

did some searching and you might find this article about raid....
http://compreviews.about.com/od/stor...aRAIDPage1.htm

Originally Posted by Adrianr

Interesting. Has anyone seen how RAID0 helps? At this rate I'm going to have more hardrives than the local PC world

[weshoot]

Hi AdrianR -

You didn't mention what else you have: processor, ram, etc.

I just changed to a new HP PC with i7-950 chip, and 12-gigs of memory, and two SATA internal 1-GB hard drives (non-raid configured) and it is light-years faster compared to the 7-year-old Pentium 4, 3-gig memory system I used before, even though they almost almost the same speed in GHZ (3.06GHZ vs. 3.07GHZ). It is faster bringing up files, making changes, and saving those files. Rather than try to have all these fast drives, invest in a fast computer and a lot of memory. It works wonders.

Gary Silverstein
http://www.weshoot.com
http://www.bilbord.com
http://feelfreefoto.com

[Jerryb]

hi,
you have a nice system... it something similar i am going get here soon i hope... hope it doesn't break the bank.. smiling.... you got at least sata2 and probably sata 3 .. i assume you got good graphics card with at least 1 gig of ram .... anyway

and your right you were far better off investing in a new system than trying to tweak and pour money in that old p4 which probably wouldn't have gotten you any significant performance for the money spent..

even the intell dual cores were 40% than the p4....!!! and the i7 quads are little bit faster and optimized for grapahics and video...

the only only other thing i can think of to speed up your system really...
1. the visual special effects.. disable them unless you want the visual candy..
and aero also.... that will speed things up how much not sure...

2. you might look at services.. but generally there a only coupld of thngs there that maybe running that you can't use.... so be carefull there....
note: i already mentioned about startup that seperate from services..

you might want to bring up your system rating ... and see what it tells you..
sometimes they'll point to area that you can tweak... if your not familiar with the rating score... check out this site
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...perience-Index

you might look into enabling disk write cach if your not enable.... sometimes they improve the performance of your hard drives.... if not familair here a little artical on it....
http://www.windowsreference.com/wind...s-server-2008/

Originally Posted by weshoot

Hi AdrianR -

You didn't mention what else you have: processor, ram, etc.

I just changed to a new HP PC with i7-950 chip, and 12-gigs of memory, and two SATA internal 1-GB hard drives (non-raid configured) and it is light-years faster compared to the 7-year-old Pentium 4, 3-gig memory system I used before, even though they almost almost the same speed in GHZ (3.06GHZ vs. 3.07GHZ). It is faster bringing up files, making changes, and saving those files. Rather than try to have all these fast drives, invest in a fast computer and a lot of memory. It works wonders.

Gary Silverstein
http://www.weshoot.com
http://www.bilbord.com
http://feelfreefoto.com

[gholmes1936]

I have an external 1 TB hard drive that I have made into 2 partitions. I use one of them for my PS scratch disk. Works like a charm for me. Oh and it is a Firewire drive. I am using a Mac OS10.6.2 system, on a 2.8 GHz with an Intel Core 2 Duo, iMac 2009

My internal H.D. is only a 500GB but it is half full only. Don't know fi this helps or not, but it is a FWIW.

[Adrianr]

I currently have a 3.2ghz Quad, 16Gb of ram, OS is on a 320GB x 2 RAID0 setup (single platter drives) with a seperate 320GB drive for scratch (also single platter). Files are currently saved to the RAID0 during mid-document saves and shifted to external storage when completed.

JerryB - With all due respect (I genuinely don't mean to be rude) have you used an SSD before? Whilst the read/write throughput on some models isn't the most astounding the random read/write's (the thing that really alleviates the hardrive bottleneck for general system performance) is rediculously far ahead of standard spindle drives. I know where the advantages in one lie for an OS drive (which is what will be going in next), I was just curious if anyone had used one as a temporary save (like another scratch) for mid-document saves before eventually shifting it over to a NAS or similar external storage.

It sounds like getting a 500GB single platter drive for this would be the best option if all that's required is a fast write speed for large files. I'm not looking into anything SATA3 as I'm not changing my motherboard. I refuse to move to a system with less RAM and getting more than 16GB of DDR3 in any system is a cost I cannot justify at present.

[gholmes1936]

It sounds like need a couple of hours of Hard Drive lessons from you Adrianr! Any chance? <<<smile>>>

[Jerryb]

hi ,
Your not being rude.. a good discussion brings out good information and also maybe correcting misconceptions or wrong info.... myself.. i always learn.. either it verifies or maybe it corrects misinformation or it brings me up to date on info...

to answer your question... have i used them?
1. yes i have worked with them... but was not impressed with them
2. I don't use them in my system because i want high performance might add cost considerations...

background-- I started looking at ssd 20 years ago!! YEP...! they actually been around for about 25 or 30 years!!!! I was thinking of putting one in instead of a spindle , in the late 80's, untill i started looking at the numbers,,, ie: read and write speeds and cost!!
and those numbers, even though there been significant improvement, relatively speaking hasn't changed, at least for the different kinds ssd's...

now i don't know about light years ahead of spindles... in some respect it will depend on which flash ssd you get... first regardless which type you get there expensive 2-8 times more expensive for a similar size spindle...

you have your mlc type.. and and probably the most prevelent , it a lot cheaper than your slc's .. and it a lot slower writes compared to a good spindle.....

now the slc's they do have real good write times faster than a lot of spindles ... but they cost a lot more than your mlc's let alone your spindles..

so i guess.... it would come down is it worth it putting in a slc ssd !! how much performance increase would you actually get vs the cost....

now i am no expert on this area... just what i read... a traditional raid setup don't seems to work well with ssd's however.. saw several articles where they used a ceratin kind or raid setup where they got outstanding performance with some of there programs... compared to the spindles.

that about it from me.. smiling...

Originally Posted by Adrianr

I currently have a 3.2ghz Quad, 16Gb of ram, OS is on a 320GB x 2 RAID0 setup (single platter drives) with a seperate 320GB drive for scratch (also single platter). Files are currently saved to the RAID0 during mid-document saves and shifted to external storage when completed.

JerryB - With all due respect (I genuinely don't mean to be rude) have you used an SSD before? Whilst the read/write throughput on some models isn't the most astounding the random read/write's (the thing that really alleviates the hardrive bottleneck for general system performance) is rediculously far ahead of standard spindle drives. I know where the advantages in one lie for an OS drive (which is what will be going in next), I was just curious if anyone had used one as a temporary save (like another scratch) for mid-document saves before eventually shifting it over to a NAS or similar external storage.

It sounds like getting a 500GB single platter drive for this would be the best option if all that's required is a fast write speed for large files. I'm not looking into anything SATA3 as I'm not changing my motherboard. I refuse to move to a system with less RAM and getting more than 16GB of DDR3 in any system is a cost I cannot justify at present.

[Adrianr]

Originally Posted by Jerryb

hi ,
Your not being rude.. a good discussion brings out good information and also maybe correcting misconceptions or wrong info.... myself.. i always learn.. either it verifies or maybe it corrects misinformation or it brings me up to date on info...

to answer your question... have i used them?
1. yes i have worked with them... but was not impressed with them
2. I don't use them in my system because i want high performance might add cost considerations...

background-- I started looking at ssd 20 years ago!! YEP...! they actually been around for about 25 or 30 years!!!! I was thinking of putting one in instead of a spindle , in the late 80's, untill i started looking at the numbers,,, ie: read and write speeds and cost!!
and those numbers, even though there been significant improvement, relatively speaking hasn't changed, at least for the different kinds ssd's...

now i don't know about light years ahead of spindles... in some respect it will depend on which flash ssd you get... first regardless which type you get there expensive 2-8 times more expensive for a similar size spindle...

you have your mlc type.. and and probably the most prevelent , it a lot cheaper than your slc's .. and it a lot slower writes compared to a good spindle.....

now the slc's they do have real good write times faster than a lot of spindles ... but they cost a lot more than your mlc's let alone your spindles..

so i guess.... it would come down is it worth it putting in a slc ssd !! how much performance increase would you actually get vs the cost....

now i am no expert on this area... just what i read... a traditional raid setup don't seems to work well with ssd's however.. saw several articles where they used a ceratin kind or raid setup where they got outstanding performance with some of there programs... compared to the spindles.

that about it from me.. smiling...

This forum really is a refreshing mature welcome from some of the others I frequent. After reading back my previous post I was half expecting to have my head semi-bitten off!

Cost issue aside (no-way I could justify an SSD purely by looking at the £/GB figures) I won't go into all the reasons I think SSD's are worth it (Unless you really want me too!) as this is just a thread for ascertaining the fastest possible set-up for mid-work saves of large PSD files. Just needing a drive with a very high write throughput does sound like it makes sense, but then with computers what seems like the obvious answer so often isn't.

If there is nothing I can alter within Photoshop to improve save times then I think i'll start with a simple 500GB single platter drive and work my way around from there. As I'l be installing an SSD for my operating system anyway I can see what saving files directly to that is like in contrast too.

Cheers for your input

[DJSoulglo]

Use your SSD for a scratch disc. They're not reliable enough for saving stuff.

It takes forever to save files, the sort of average file I work on is about 4-6 Gig, so saving is always a problem. There is no solution. I have a dual quad core 3 Ghz Mac, with 14 Gigs of RAM, 2 Gfx cards, etc. It still takes forever.

One way to speed up PS I recently discovered is to take 4 Harddrives (Sata) and make them into 1 striped Raid. This speeds up PS work about 15-30%. Just by killing the time it takes to write your pagefile. I tried it as well with SSD's, but sadly I blew them out in about 4 days :P So I have some reservations about SSD's.

Also 15K RPM drives (SAS) are blindingly fast. They're also noisy as hell and give off enough heat to fry eggs on the side of your Mac/PC.

The best solution: just accept the time it takes to write your files. ENd of the day it's more important to have the files than it is to have your computer crash REALLY fast.

[Jerryb]

hi adrianr,

not sure why people have to get rude,,, maybe it a ego thing or they just don't realize how they come across.... i have seen that lots of times... when there having difficulty winning a discussion.... smiling...

as far thruput and write speeds... you probably know this already...
don't go by peak speeds look for substain speeds!!! peak speeds can easily mislead on what fast...

asf ar as ps... i can't think of anything you can really do with ps itself...
maybe moving the swap file but that about it...

there is something called priority processing level but i don't think that would effect transfering files..... but it something you can look into....
what it is you can set the priority processing levle of a program

well any that about it

[Adrianr]

Originally Posted by DJSoulglo

Use your SSD for a scratch disc. They're not reliable enough for saving stuff.

It takes forever to save files, the sort of average file I work on is about 4-6 Gig, so saving is always a problem. There is no solution. I have a dual quad core 3 Ghz Mac, with 14 Gigs of RAM, 2 Gfx cards, etc. It still takes forever.

One way to speed up PS I recently discovered is to take 4 Harddrives (Sata) and make them into 1 striped Raid. This speeds up PS work about 15-30%. Just by killing the time it takes to write your pagefile. I tried it as well with SSD's, but sadly I blew them out in about 4 days :P So I have some reservations about SSD's.

Also 15K RPM drives (SAS) are blindingly fast. They're also noisy as hell and give off enough heat to fry eggs on the side of your Mac/PC.

The best solution: just accept the time it takes to write your files. ENd of the day it's more important to have the files than it is to have your computer crash REALLY fast.

Wow, very interesting to hear about your experience with SSD's! If anything with no moving parts all my friends have found them to be more reliable, especially in laptops. I've already had numerous spindle hardrives fail on me so I don't really rate their reliability either. Certainly sounds like a bad batch if you had 4 fail in 4 days! :o

15K SAS drives are off the cards due to a multitude of reasons, maybe if I started working on files as large as yours I would look into it (If you don't mind me asking what sort of files are they? And how does Photoshop handle in general when you're editing files that big?)

I seem to remember a review by (I believe) Lloyd Chambers, benchmarking the speed of performing tasks in Photoshop with a RAID0 scratchdisk and differing number of drives. I think he got to about 6 before no more improvment (or very little) was seen. I'l try and dig it up.

[gholmes1936]

Help! What does SSD and SAS mean. I told you I needed lessons!

[weshoot]

I believe you can find the meaning of SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_attached_SCSI

and I believe that SSD means Solid State Drive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Gary Silverstein
http://www.weshoot.com
http://www.feelfreefoto.com
http://www.bilbord.com

[DJSoulglo]

Originally Posted by Adrianr

If you don't mind me asking what sort of files are they? And how does Photoshop handle in general when you're editing files that big?

I make pretty pictures for advertising :P The reason the files get so large is that art directors like to fiddle and that everything has to be comped together.

Most of the stuff I do you have to build every single person in the ad out of 4-9 parts, which then later will be changed/reshot, so you have to keep every single thing layered and ready to roll. Also the image must be good enough quality for a 4x4 meter retail situation. Outdoor is actually easier than that, since they just print at a lower DPI.

I've only ever had problems with one file, a background for a champions league campaign. It was big, but then had to be extended, and then extended again. The file ended up being 12.7 Gigs. That... was unworkable. ANything else is usually ok. Photoshop isn't too zippy after a while, but it works fine for anything under 10 Gigs. After that it just gets stupid. Waiting for a brush stroke, that sort of thing.