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catherinem99185110
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August 24, 2021
Question

Best way to save Psd files

  • August 24, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 1037 views

Where is the best place to save photoshop design files? 

 

On computer hard drive, an external hard drive, removable pen drive, or icloud server? 

 

I use both a Mac and PC so it would be good if I could save and open my files on both computers. 

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    1 reply

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 24, 2021

    It really depends on file sizes and how much total space you need. I'll just say that whatever you do, have a backup system. Drives can fail and anything can happen. We all lose files on occasion.

     

    Working across platforms is beginning to become a problem. Not because of the files themselves, which are completely platform-agnostic, but because you'll need external drives to move the files - and Mac/Windows file systems are becoming increasingly incompatible. Previously you could use exFAT-formatted disks for platform compatibility. But with later MacOS versions, an increasing number of people are having problems with exFAT-formatted disks. You are now supposed to use the the native APFS or HFS+ file systems, none of which can be read by Windows without third-party drivers.

     

    So it really comes down to finding some storage that can be read by both MacOS and Windows. Cloud storage avoids that problem, but quickly becomes impractical with bigger files. Photoshop itself doesn't care.

      War Unicorn
      Community Expert
      War UnicornCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 24, 2021

      Could this be alleviated by NAS (network-attached storage)? I have a couple drives attached to my router and can access them from any device with the proper setup. (e.g., I have access from Windows 10 and my Android phone running the Solid Explorer app. Have to know how to set it up in both cases, though. It's not hard...I think. I mean, I build my own systems, so...)  xD

       

      ON EDIT: *Very important thing to mention*: Don't save your PSDs via a network. Save first locally, then transfer to network storage.

      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 24, 2021

      Yes, that could be a way around it. Although NAS comes with its own set of problems. We've had a number of puzzling cases where users reported that their files simply vanished. I think most of them involved NAS storage.

       

      And then there's the stalling issue, where the save simply stops at anywhere between 0% and 99%. But that's when saving directly, which, as you point out, you should never do anyway.

       

       

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