Photoshop is not recognizing my USB drive for a scratch disk

[Mark37430984r9lw]

I am running the latest build of Photoshop 2024 under Windows 10.  Windows recognizes the 128 GIG Sandisk USB flash drive and assigned it a drive letter.  Photoshop has access to the drive, as I can save files to it, however, it is not available as a scratch disk.  I've tried both exFAT formatting as well as NTFS.

What do I need to do to get Photoshop to recognize the USB flash drive as an available scratch dish?

Relaunching Photoshop and rebooting dod not resolve the issue.

[Ged_Traynor · Accepted solution]

@Mark37430984r9lw USB flash drives are not recommended for scratch disk

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

[jane-e]

@Mark37430984r9lw 

Follow Ged's link to see which drives Adobe recommends for scratch disks. I've moved your post to Discussions because this is not a Photoshop bug.

Jane

[Mark37430984r9lw]

I saw this artivle, and will be purchasing recommended media, BUT, the article says USB flash are not recommended.  It does not state they are not supported, so in the meantime, I'd like to get the drive recognized.

[jane-e]

@Mark37430984r9lw 

If you select "not really" at the bottom of the page, you will be given a text box to say why.

Jane

[frazzlesnap]

I tried switching between a spare 2TB Seagate FireCuda 530 in an external USB3.2 enclosure and a 256GB Corsair Survivor, and I can confirm that flash drives are not supported. Until I saw this thread, I'd never even considered trying such a thing.

[Lumigraphics]

It won't work. You need an actual hard drive or SSD.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@Mark37430984r9lw there is no way to allow a USB drive as a scratch disk.

[Mark37430984r9lw]

I just got a SanDisk 2TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD, and Photoshop allows me to use it as a scratch disk.

Prior to my OP, I had read the relevant article on the subject:

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html, however, from the verbiage:

Drives not recommended for scratch disk

• Thumb drives

I had assumed that thumb drives would work but were not recommended due to slow access speeds, as in the past, I stopped a transfer to one  due to the unbearable slow copy speed.

Adobe should update the article to make it clear that thumb drives will not get recognized as scratch disks.

In any event, I appreciate all of the prompt assistance.  This ended up being a good thing for me, as I need the extra storage for other stuff, a lot of being RAW files I'm going to be keeping.

[jane-e]

Drives not recommended for scratch disk

• Thumb drives

I had assumed that thumb drives would work but were not recommended due to slow access speeds, as in the past, I stopped a transfer to one  due to the unbearable slow copy speed.

Adobe should update the article to make it clear that thumb drives will not get recognized as scratch disks.

By @Mark37430984r9lw

I'm glad you have your scratch disk working again. I've reported the page for you. 

Jane