Computing power question

[Doc_Pit]

I'm running Photoshop CC 2018 in Windows 10 Pro on a Dell 7710.  When I bought the Dell in Nov/2015, it was considered a pretty heft machine: 32GB DDR4 ECC, Nvidia Quadro M5000M w/8GB GDDR5, 2 256GB M.2 PCIe SSDs, Intel Xeon E3-1535M v5 Quad Core, etc., etc.  I have Photoshop set-up to allow 25000 MB, Huge Pixel Dimensions, History States=20, Cache Levels=8, Tile Size=1028K, with 3 scratch disks, all SSDs.

Here's my problem: If I work on a 4.5 GB file, and I do a save, it can take 5-10 minutes.  I literally take care of email while waiting for a save.  I sometimes work on files considerably larger than 5 GB, and, of course, a save, or even a conversion to Smart Object, can be interminable.

I'm sure there must be people out there working on files much larger than mine.  Does everyone have that problem?  If money were no object (yeah, right) would a 128 GB monster machine process those files quickly?  Just curious.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Something is wrong there.

Are you saving as PSB (because of the large file size?

Do you have compression disabled in Preferences?  The file sizes are larger, but they save much more quickly.  Even so 5 to 10 minutes sounds way too long.

Tell us some more about the scratch space.  How big are the Photoshop Temp files on your primary scratch drive?

I've just set up a 20K pixel square 16 bit document. Filled a layer with noise and copied a couple of times.  You can see the 14Gb temp file on the Scratch drive.  I wonder how long to save?

Compression disabled.  PSB size on drive 14Gb

Compression enabled.  This is a six core 3930K 32Gb system

OK, I got bored after five minutes.  I'll leave it saving and report back after it finishes saving (tomorrow )

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

There you go. 14 minutes.

Much smaller size on the drive, and the temp file has got a bit bigger.  If drive space is not an issue.  Turn off compression.

[Doc_Pit]

Many thanks for your responses.

Trevor,

            I tried saving a file w/ and w/o compression. With compression, the file took 12 minutes to save at 7.59 GB.  Without compression, the file saved in a few seconds to 20.8 GB.  One option might be to save w/o compression during a session, then resave with compression when I’m done for the day and can walk away while the file saves.

            Photoshop describes the scratch file as 19.9G/23G (Must admit, I don’t understand the nn/nn.)

I get accumulated PhotoshopTempnnnnnnnnnnn files on my C:\ drive, Temp folder, but those are empty folders.

            Regarding scratch space: My scratch disks, in order, are C:\ (internal 128.13 GB free), D:\ (internal 197.77 GB free), and M:\ (external 189.38 GB free).  All are SSDs. Question: WOULD I DO BETTER TO USE THE D:\ DRIVE INSTEAD OF C:\ AS MY FIRST SCRATCH DRIVE, GIVEN THAT THE OS IS ON C:\?

[JJMack]

I can not say I work on Large PSB file much if at all.  Working on a file over 4GB in size is not what I do. Searching my external disk the one I keep my images on the only files I have that are over 4GB in size are  Windows Installs and Windows backup files. Even Video file are under 2GB in size. The largest PSD file I have is under 1GB in size.  I do not think mant edit document as large as you do,  On disk  your Photoshop documents are most like compressed down to 4GB  how large are your documents in Photoshop?   Try changing your Photoshop Preferences File handling  disable compressing PSD and PSB file see if saving even larger file speeds up saving.

[JJMack]

You want Photoshop scratch space on SSD if possible. You do not want your C: boot disk to fill  up  your system will not be performing well if it does. Their need to be free space for you system to use for temp files and new user data.  Photoshop uses its scratch disk in order so if your D: is also SSD  IMO it would be better to have D: as Photoshop first scratch disk. I have seem PS use over 100GB of scratch spece.

[Doc_Pit]

I'll switch that.  Thanks, JJ.