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PhotoShopGuy4
Participant
February 15, 2020
Question

Second SSD for scratch disk and/or project files?

  • February 15, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 917 views

Hey guys. I'm getting a new PC for Photoshop work, and wondered if it would be better to get one large SSD for everything, or to get two separate smaller SSDs, one for OS+Photoshop, and the other for project files and/or scratch disk. Thanks!

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1 reply

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 15, 2020

I don't think that makes much difference. One will work as well as the other. I have two working systems, one of each configuration. That was just because one motherboard had two M.2 ports and the other had one.

 

It was different with spinning drives where the read/write head could only be in one place at a time and had to physically move back and forth.

 

 

P
PhotoShopGuy4Author
Participant
February 15, 2020

Cool cool.  Do you recommend an M.2 drive instead of SSD?  I was looking at the Intel 660p, but saw that it doesn't have a very high endurance (tbw) compared to SSDs. I was looking at the Samsung 860 pro instead.  My last build lasted over 10 years, and I'd like this one to as well.  What do you think?

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 15, 2020

Absolutely. SATA SSDs (the traditional kind) are very slow compared to the new NVMe drives (aka PCIe M.2).

 

NVMe drives plug into dedicated ports in the motherboard. So it starts with the motherboard. Most new ones will have M.2 ports, but some have one and some have two. The better ones also have heatsinks. The drives are small, and I assume temperature under load is a consideration.

 

I use Samsung 970 EVO plus. Don't know if they are "better" than others, but they seem to have a good reputation.

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