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Temp files with plenty of memory available

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 20, 2022
5 replies
5225 views

I just got an error that my scratch disk is full. As I checked, there were three Photoshop temp files in there, although I have plenty of RAM available (about 40GB). Even after starting Photoshop with no file open, a temp file is immediately created. What's that about?

Here's a screenshot of the three temp files ...

Windows

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Correct answer Kevin Stohlmeyer

The GPU is an RTX 3060 with 12GB. So that's not the reason either. Maybe it's the Ryzen CPU. Let's wait and see if the developers can get on top of that.

Again RAM is not scratch disk. Stop comparing the CPU - the "scratch disk is full" error indicate disk space not RAM or CPU.

D Fosse

Community Expert

@Atanas5CCF

Neither is "proritized", and you misunderstand the way this works. It's just a matter of capacity. If you're working with big files, there is no such thing as "enough memory". Total memory requirement will always exceed that, often by orders of magnitude.

The scratch disk is Photoshop's main memory. Everything goes there, all the time. RAM acts like a fast access cache, the content gets shifted and moved as needed. Switch to another document, for instance, or go back a while in history, and RAM contents immediately needs to change. 50 history states, each potentially adding the full file size, for several open documents - it has to go somewhere, and you need to have immediate access when needed.

This was critical in the old days when we had slow spinning drives. Today, with ultra-fast generation 4.0 NVMe drives, the speed difference is not really significant. I'm sure you still get measurable differences, but in practical use, it's insignificant. You're simply not able to press the buttons that fast - the machine is waiting for you a lot more than you are waiting for the machine. In short - the bottleneck is largely gone.

And there's one more crucial thing about the scratch disk that you're not seeing. It's what enables Photoshop to work with virtually unlimited file sizes without choking the whole system. Photoshop can handle anything you throw at it, and as long as you have enough scratch disk space, it won't miss a beat.

Kevin Stohlmeyer

Community Expert

@Atanas5CCF you're replying to a 2+ year old thread...

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

https://www.howtogeek.com/302544/how-to-manually-clear-out-photoshops-massive-temp-files/

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Scratch disk is always allocated, whether there is enough RAM or not. Make sure you have several hundred GB free space on your scratch disk. If it's an SSD never let it get over 90% full or performance will plummet.

Andreas ReschAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the answer. Not going to buy huge SSD's though, just so that Photoshop can fill them up with unnecessary temp files. Maybe some of that AI nonsense shouls be directed towards file and memory management.

davescm

Community Expert

'.....just so that Photoshop can fill them up with unnecessary temp files.'

You misunderstand. Scratch files are not 'unnecessary' but are fundamental to the way Photoshop works. Photoshop uses scratch files as working memory and constantly swaps the data in RAM with that scratch file. Scratch files are used even with large RAM.

Depending on what size the files you are working on, how many files are open, what their content is in terms of layers/smart objects etc, and what exact operations you are carrying out 40GB may be enough scratch space or may be woefully too small. The error message suggests too small in your case.

I have 256GB RAM here and my primary scratch disk has over 800GB free (secondary scratch over 1TB free).

One thing to check though - close Photoshop and those temp scratch files should disappear. If on or more remain, then PS may have crashed at some point and left file(s) behind. If so, it is safe to remove them whilst Photoshop is closed.

Dave

jane-e

Community Expert

@Andreas Resch

How much free space do you have and how big are the files you are working with?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-scratch-disk-is-full.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html

Jane

Andreas ReschAuthor

Inspiring

Free space was about 45GB. But that's not the point. The question is, why is there that much disk space allocated with about 40GB of free RAM (with some file being openened)?

jane-e

Community Expert

@Andreas Resch

It's advised to have a minimum of 100 GB free disk space. More is required with larger files (you didn't answer the file size question). I have 1TB free space.

Sometimes folks get the message when they accidentally choose 1000 inches instead of 1000 pixels, for instance. I'm not saying that that is your issue.

When you get the "scratch disk full" message, you need to either clear space on the drive you are using for scratch space or set up a another drive for scratch space. Read the two help files for details.

Jane

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