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SSD and Photoshop Scratch Problem

S

strausd

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
2,998
1
Texas
So I got an SSD for my Mac Pro and it has been good so far. I was using Photoshop to make some changes on a panorama, its a .psb that is over 17 GB. I have set up Photoshop so that my scratch disks are all 4 mechanical drives, and I unchecked the SSD as a scratch disk. I tried using content aware fill on a part of the image and left for a while. When I got back on, it said Photoshop encountered a problem because the scratch disk was full. I have 4 2TB drives set up as scratch disks and it looks like Photoshop only used my SSD, which was never checked as active! I had 80GB available on the SSD and it got filled up.

I need to get the project done soon but am a little worried about working on it anymore because I am afraid it might mess with the SSD.

I have three questions.

1. How can I make this not happen again?

2. Where are the Photoshop temp files so I can delete them and get some space back?

3. I have an OWC SSD with the SF controller with garbage collection. Will this slow it down if I need to write something to it?


And sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum, I just thought Mac Pro people would know Photoshop pretty well, especially since this pertains to having multiple internal drives.

Thanks in advance for the help.

EDIT: In Finder on the SSD, it now was that there is 58.51GB available. Every like 30 seconds to a minute, it will increase by about a GB. Is this because it is automatically deleting the temporary files? Wouldn't it be able to delete them much faster? Since it takes a while for a gig to show up, could it be because the SF garbage collection is kicking in and doing its sort of build in TRIM command on the drive?
 
In regards to question two:

Instead of worrying about .temp files, have you tried purging the cache directly from Photoshop?
 
strausd said:
How would I do that?
Click to expand...

Menu: Edit > Purge...

When working on super large files, I also tend to mess around with my history and cache level settings to make life a little easier. I'm not sure about the problems with your scratch disk settings not being remembered... how is your RAID formatted?
 
once you checked the regular disc did you restart PS ? do that for the new settings to take effect ?

also is your SSD dedicated scratch ? if so keep it checked as the first option then your other one as the second option

I always have at least 2 checked off as scratch if one fills it kicks to the next one

the cache cleans itself out usually when closing the document or closing PS is a way to kinda reset it if you will

when a document is open you can select Purge from the edit menu and purge histories and clipboard this can be a handy step to use in large actions that do a lot ?
 
Blue Velvet said:
Menu: Edit > Purge...

When working on super large files, I also tend to mess around with my history and cache level settings to make life a little easier. I'm not sure about the problems with your scratch disk settings not being remembered... how is your RAID formatted?
Click to expand...

They are all separate drives, no RAID.

And doing the Edit>Purge, will that clear everything AND keep it from happening again? Because my main issue is now that it has happened and filled up the SSD, I don't want it happening again.

Honumaui said:
once you checked the regular disc did you restart PS ? do that for the new settings to take effect ?

also is your SSD dedicated scratch ? if so keep it checked as the first option then your other one as the second option

I always have at least 2 checked off as scratch if one fills it kicks to the next one

the cache cleans itself out usually when closing the document or closing PS is a way to kinda reset it if you will

when a document is open you can select Purge from the edit menu and purge histories and clipboard this can be a handy step to use in large actions that do a lot ?
Click to expand...

I set that up on Photoshop about 3 weeks ago and turn my computer off each night.

SSD is boot drive, not dedicated scratch.

All 4 of my 2TB mechanical drives are checked as active for my scratch disks on Photoshop, SSD is not checked.

Purging doesn't sound like it will keep this from happening again. For some reason is didn't use my drives for scratch, it only used my SSD. Its like all that were checked as active were inactive, and vice versa. Because once the only inactive one was full, it got an error and had to quit. Which it should never have even touched that drive.
 
strausd said:
I set that up on Photoshop about 3 weeks ago and turn my computer off each night.

SSD is boot drive, not dedicated scratch.

All 4 of my 2TB mechanical drives are checked as active for my scratch disks on Photoshop, SSD is not checked.

Purging doesn't sound like it will keep this from happening again. For some reason is didn't use my drives for scratch, it only used my SSD. Its like all that were checked as active were inactive, and vice versa. Because once the only inactive one was full, it got an error and had to quit. Which it should never have even touched that drive.
Click to expand...


unless something strange is happening with the paging ? that is very strange

you are correct purging is just simple purge steps ? in large actions you can put a purge between things to make them faster though :)

only thing I can think is to kill your preferences ? which is a bummer cause you have to redo a few things layout wise etc.. but unless that might help ?

shift comand option on start of PS ? I think thats it ?
 
Honumaui said:
unless something strange is happening with the paging ? that is very strange

you are correct purging is just simple purge steps ? in large actions you can put a purge between things to make them faster though :)

only thing I can think is to kill your preferences ? which is a bummer cause you have to redo a few things layout wise etc.. but unless that might help ?

shift comand option on start of PS ? I think thats it ?
Click to expand...

Holding those down will reset all of my Photoshop settings?
 
strausd said:
Holding those down will reset all of my Photoshop settings?
Click to expand...

yeah sadly thats the bummer its wont hose your actions and such just resets your menu positions and a few things ? its a way that can help solve problems though :) google it maybe ?

I am pretty sure thats the keys my brain is a bit over done this week with work :)
 
Honumaui said:
yeah sadly thats the bummer its wont hose your actions and such just resets your menu positions and a few things ? its a way that can help solve problems though :) google it maybe ?

I am pretty sure thats the keys my brain is a bit over done this week with work :)
Click to expand...

I don't really change much, most things are close to default. If I do this, it should reset my settings for scratch disks right? And that might fix it? I'm just confused why it didn't work the way its supposed to in the first place...
 
strausd said:
I don't really change much, most things are close to default. If I do this, it should reset my settings for scratch disks right? And that might fix it? I'm just confused why it didn't work the way its supposed to in the first place...
Click to expand...

Do you think it's using virtual memory and that's what filled up your SSD? Is it possible to manage virtual memory in the PS preferences?
 
strausd said:
I don't really change much, most things are close to default. If I do this, it should reset my settings for scratch disks right? And that might fix it? I'm just confused why it didn't work the way its supposed to in the first place...
Click to expand...

sometimes its a who knows ? not sure if it is paging like I and now reel2reel says ? but reseting is something I have done a few times ? it cant hurt :)

how much room is left on our boot ? I try even on SSD to not fill up my boot over half full leaving room for it to breathe as I say :)
 
reel2reel said:
Do you think it's using virtual memory and that's what filled up your SSD? Is it possible to manage virtual memory in the PS preferences?
Click to expand...

That's the only thing I can think of.

Honumaui said:
sometimes its a who knows ? not sure if it is paging like I and now reel2reel says ? but reseting is something I have done a few times ? it cant hurt :)

how much room is left on our boot ? I try even on SSD to not fill up my boot over half full leaving room for it to breathe as I say :)
Click to expand...

It HAD 80GB of the 120 free. I do the same thing.

The reason I am worried is because of this. I never planned on that happening to my drive, which is why I set the scratch disks as all other drives so that this would NEVER happen, but it still did, which is why I am so confused about this.

Does anyone know if the garbage collection on the SF controller will help in this situation?
 
I reset everything, changed my settings, quit Photoshop, and opened the image again. IT IS STILL USING THE SSD AS A SCRATCH DISK!!!!!!!

I see that my memory is full and my SSD just went down 3GB. WHY IS IT DOING THIS?!?!
 
strausd said:
I reset everything, changed my settings, quit Photoshop, and opened the image again. IT IS STILL USING THE SSD AS A SCRATCH DISK!!!!!!!

I see that my memory is full and my SSD just went down 3GB. WHY IS IT DOING THIS?!?!
Click to expand...

strange ? they are not names the same ? or did you change the names but maybe something happened ??

yikes I think I would boot off a clone ? then see if it hits that clone ?

if still happens I would delete PS and reinstall ? sill happens avoid the garage and all large heavy tools while I sit on the couch watching some dumb show trying to cool down :)
 
Honumaui said:
strange ? they are not names the same ? or did you change the names but maybe something happened ??

yikes I think I would boot off a clone ? then see if it hits that clone ?

if still happens I would delete PS and reinstall ? sill happens avoid the garage and all large heavy tools while I sit on the couch watching some dumb show trying to cool down :)
Click to expand...

The SSD is named Macinstosh SSD, and the drives are named CB 2TB 1, CB 2TB 2, CG 2TB 3, and CG 2TB 4. They are easily distinguishable.

I posted on some Photoshop specific forums to see if anyone there knows. If nothing, then I will put the 1TB drive that came with the MP in and run Photoshop on that and see what happens.
 
It randomly started working... No idea how or why. But I saw one of my drives gradually go down from 1.5TB to 1.43TB. Once I quit Photoshop, it jumped right back to 1.5TB. The settings are the exact same as they were. I have no idea why it did not do this in the first place :/
 
strausd said:
It randomly started working... No idea how or why. But I saw one of my drives gradually go down from 1.5TB to 1.43TB. Once I quit Photoshop, it jumped right back to 1.5TB. The settings are the exact same as they were. I have no idea why it did not do this in the first place :/
Click to expand...

Maybe the preferences were corrupted. Using FCP almost every day, I'm quite used to corrupted pref's. Trashing FCP preferences (and thumbnail caches) solves all kinds of random performance issues. So possibly changing up some settings fixed whatever was hosed.
 
The first time you did it, did you set the scratch disks and restart Photoshop? Or did you set it and start working, because anytime you change a preference in PS you have to restart the program.
 
Ok, I'll recap.

3 weeks ago I got my Mac Pro and put Photoshop on it. That day I changed the prefs on Photoshop to use about 12GB RAM. I also deactivated my SSD as the scratch disk and activated all 4 of my 2TB internal drives. I moved the SSD to the bottom of the list just to be safe. And all that was 3 weeks ago, and I turn my computer off every night when I go to sleep.

So today, I tried using content aware fill on a small portion of this 4.4 gigapixel image. I left to let it "chew through" the image. When I checked, I got the error saying the scratch disk was full. I was like what the heck happened so I went to my prefs and checked, they were the exact same as 3 weeks ago: SSD unchecked, 4 other drives checked and higher on the list.

So I went on the forums here, got advice to reset everything. I did the keyboard command thing and Photoshop asked me if I wanted to delete the prefs file, and I did. I redid my preferences and made sure (again) that the SSD was unchecked and that the other drives were checked and higher on the list. I opened the giant image again and see my RAM fill up, and see 3GB of my SSD vanish. I had no idea what was going on and checked my prefs again, just the way I left them.

At this point I just didn't even care. I kept working on the image, not caring about the scratch disk problem. I quit and reopen the app several times, my best guess would be around 9. Then I worked a lot on the image, with 4 Finder windows open showing different drives. As I worked on the image, the SSD space availability never changed, but I saw one of my mechanical drives go from 1.5TB to 1.43TB. When I was done working on it, I quit Photoshop and saw the space available go back to 1.5TB.

At this point, I was crazy happy. But before this whole thing happened, my SSD had about 81GB available. After all this, my SSD never got back up there, it only got to 78.9. So after everything started working, I tried restarting my machine. And now finder says 80.98GB available for my SSD.

I have no idea how all this happened, but it did and I am content.

The end :)
 
I bet it was a strange pref issue ?


one thing to remember is the second you launch PS it grabs a small portion of HDD space for its scratch ! even if it never uses it ? think of it as getting ready space ?
 
That would explain why I saw the SSD dip down a little more. Nothing major, like maybe 1 MB tops.
 
LR and PS Scratch disc

I have the OCZ Vertex 120GB for Boot drive.

I do use Lightroom in Develop Module most all the time and have never used Bridge.

I have created a RAID 0 with my two WD Caviar Blacks 2TB for data.

Sooo, what would be the best way to use the WD 640 Caviar or Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1TB as a scratch disc for Lightroom and Photoshop?

Thanks.

PS.
Any tutorials on how to change the pathway of my Lightroom Irdata and Ircat files?
 
covrc said:
I have the OCZ Vertex 120GB for Boot drive.

I do use Lightroom in Develop Module most all the time and have never used Bridge.

I have created a RAID 0 with my two WD Caviar Blacks 2TB for data.

Sooo, what would be the best way to use the WD 640 Caviar or Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1TB as a scratch disc for Lightroom and Photoshop?

Thanks.

PS.
Any tutorials on how to change the pathway of my Lightroom Irdata and Ircat files?
Click to expand...

the catalog you just put where ever ? it really does not make any effect on how quick the sliders come into view in develop mode so depending on what you do or how you organize photos you can keep them with your photos

so when you create a catalog your lrdat files are part of that you can tell them where to be ?

your cache in LR you go up to preferences and its the 4th tab over I think ? and you can set where the cache is and the size
put it in a folder like LR Cache
otherwise you will have a lot of files in the base directory :)

I would use the F3 since its quicker just partition off how much you want ? 200 gigs should be plenty but that depends on how many files you like to keep working on etc.. :)
 
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