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ToddDS
Inspiring
August 17, 2020
Question

Scratch Disk for Premiere vs. Photoshop?

  • August 17, 2020
  • 7 replies
  • 491 views

Hi.

 

I am about to try my first "Production" set up, with a new PC, so I am setting up PP and PS for the first time on these drives. And I want to get the Scratch Disks optimized.

 

First, Premiere Pro:

 

The official instructions for PremPro say to use a different harddisk for the Scratch Disk and suggest having seperate folders for Video Capture, Video Preview, Audio Capture, Audio Preview, Media Cache, DVD Encoding.

 

Is that correct? Is that the preferred way to set that up, those subfolders inside a Premiere Pro Scratch Disk folder?

 

Photoshop:

 

But the official instructions for Photoshop says using the SSD of the main harddrive for the Scratch Disk is preferred over using a non-SSD harddrive. This, despite Support Community posts saying the opposte (e.g. SSD's have limited write capability, alwasy better to have the Scratch Disk on a seperate drive, etc.)

 

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

7 replies

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
August 18, 2020

Easy to find ... though I think there's a typo in the text you quoted. But it's the same process as getting to a project scratch disk setup.

 

 

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
T
ToddDSAuthor
Inspiring
August 18, 2020

1) Why does Adobe default the scratch files to the same folder of the Production if that is not where they should be?

 

2) I cannot find where to set the scratch disks. 

 

The official instructions on line are out of date as it say "Preferences > Scratch Disks" which no longer exists.

 

The current instructions say:

 

Specify scratch disks
 

You set up scratch disks in the Scratch Disk pane of the Preferences dialog box. Before changing scratch disk settings, you can verify the amount of free disk space on the selected volume. by The amount appears in the box to the right of the path. If the path is too long to read, position the pointer over the path name. The full path appears in a tool tip.

 

  • Choose Project > Project Settings > Scratch Disks. 
     
    That is a cut and paste by the way, so the typos are Adobe's, not mine.
     
    I do not get a "Prefecences dialog box." I can only find the Prefences pulldown menu under Edit.
     
    I cannot find anything that says "Choose Project" under Edit > Preferences
     
    Please advise.
Peru Bob
Community Expert
Peru BobCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 18, 2020

Moved to the Video Hardware forum.

    MyerPj
    Community Expert
    MyerPjCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2020

    You can test out various settings by simply making that, and them some timing runs. With your setup, I would just leave everything on the c: drive. And if you are working on say a current project, if you have your working files on the SSD, then put them into storage, etc. I have a 1tb Barracuda, I put it in on the bottom of my case and I have switches I can turn various drive on and off, I think I've only turned it on once this year, to do a quick backup, usually I backup onto a nas or usb drive. But with the setup you have currently, swapping files in and out from the ssd to the Barra. might be doable.

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      August 18, 2020

      Hmmm ...

       

      If that older drive is 7200rpm, that might be a place to park cache folders. If there's any way you can add even a 250GB ssd in there, on the system, that would be major for putting your cache files on.

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
        R Neil Haugen
        R Neil Haugen
        Legend
        August 17, 2020

        Video editing is a LOT more demanding of hardware than stills editing.

         

        It's good to have at least three "internal connection speed" disks for Premiere presuming SSDs ... OS/programs for one, another for cache/previews, and a third for media and maybe project files.

         

        Neil

        Everyone's mileage always varies ...
          T
          ToddDSAuthor
          Inspiring
          August 17, 2020

          OK. Thanks. I see now that the official instructions for using the Production flow aspects of Premiere say specifically that the Scratch Disk will be in the Production folder, by default,  not on a seperate disk. And it says nothing about changing that.

           

          But should I change that? The current Production folder resides on the 😧 Media drive, which is a Baracuda 2TB storage drive.

           

          I am not doing very compicated things. Basic screen capture demo videos of how to use software, with some still screen shots to allow the voice over instructions to stay current with the pre-shot video, and some basic fade-ins and outs and crossfades for transitions when the video is wating for load or processing bars to go by. And in some instances a premade video logo. That is it.

           

          That should be pretty easy on the system. However, this is my first "Production" and there will be 23 or 25 videos in total. Most only a few minutes in length. Others may be 10 minutes or more.

           

          What I have hardware-wise is this:

           

          C Main: SSD - Samsung 860 EVO 136 GB free

          D Media: Baracuda 7200 with 1.7 TB free 

          E Backup: some older storage drive with 900+ GB free but it may be 7200 rpm too.

          MyerPj
          Community Expert
          MyerPjCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          August 17, 2020

          So, did you want help with your hardware? I don't see anything at all regarding that? Try to include the important bits too...

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