26 Replies Latest reply: Feb 14, 2010 1:48 PM by Mark A Goodwin RSS

    Additional HD Drive

    Mark A Goodwin Community Member

      Hi all,

       

      Can anyone tell me please.

       

      Having just bought a new SATA internal drive for my MAC Pro Dual Quad - (Snow Leopard) - do I need to purchase a RAID card for the machine to enable the new drive to work?  Or will the computer run both hard drives without the RAID card.

       

      Many Thanks

       

      Mark

        • 1. Re: Additional HD Drive
          Gyno-jiz Community Member

          Your Mac Pro will run two hard rives fine (as separate drives). You can set them up with a software RAID in the OS if you'd like. But probably separate will be fine for your needs.

          • 2. Re: Additional HD Drive
            Mark A Goodwin Community Member

            Thanks JM!

             

            So I guess the benefit of using raid would be to what?...String them both together to provide...faster usage? or greater capacity or what?

             

            Not that it matters to me now that I know I can install the new HD. It's just that if it would be a benefit speed wise it may be worth considering.  I mainly use the machine for Photoshop and obviously the faster I can get it to run the better.

             

            Thank you again for taking the time to respond

             

            Regards

             

            Mark

            • 3. Re: Additional HD Drive
              Gyno-jiz Community Member

              Optimizing PS for speed:

              http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404440.html

               

              I would say if you don't know why you need RAID, you don't need it.

               

              You can read more about it here:

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

              • 4. Re: Additional HD Drive
                John Smith for example Community Member

                Make a RAID 0 array with the disc utility. RAID 0 will give you more speed. Depending on your setup and work you may or may not feel the difference, but as it comes at no additional cost it would be silly not to do it unless you have a specific reason. If you choose not to use RAID, then at least put the Photoshop and the system scratch on different discs.

                • 5. Re: Additional HD Drive
                  Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                  Many thanks chaps!

                   

                  Good advice greatly appreciated

                   

                  Mark

                  • 6. Re: Additional HD Drive
                    Lundberg02 Community Member

                    Do you want speed, backup, or capacity?

                     

                    You can get a La Cie 2 tB external with FW400 chaining, FW800, USB 2.0 and e SATA interfaces for 219 free ship from Tekserve, comes with everything cables, software, manual. If your computer has an eSATA port, you get all you want in one box. Speed, capacity, backup, RAID types, and onetouch app launch.

                    If backup is mission critical you need external anyway.

                    Use one internal for apps and one for scratch and data.

                    I believe RAID 0 from disk utility requires two identical drives.

                    • 7. Re: Additional HD Drive
                      Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                      Hi Chaps

                       

                      I received such good advice from this post, I thought I would run this past you for your thoughts.

                       

                      Bought an internal Samsung 1.5TB HD. Partitioned it so that I have 500GB for normal data storage and 1TB for Scratch and photo store.  I also have the original Mac HD of 650GB running the applications and the system.  Lastly I have a 500GB External running Time Machine.

                       

                      I have 8GB of Ram and it's running Snow Leopard 10.6.2 with CS4.

                       

                      I can't believe how slow it is. It slower than my previous G5, and it is freezing and crashing all the time. Especially in PS, I spent 6 hours on a job yesterday and just when I finished and tried to save I got the Beech Ball and that was it! Lost. I can try to flip from one screen that I am working on (say) and then go into Bridge to look for another pic and I can get the dreaded Beech ball and I am forced usually to shut the machine down. I cant even Opt + cmnd +esc to force quit, I have to literally shut it down at the power switch.

                       

                      I am fed up with doing a PRAM start that doesn't help

                       

                      I have gone through disk utils and checked for permissions, repairs etc and all is fine.  The addittional ram was installed by Apple before I took delivery.

                       

                      Does anyone have any suggestions please?

                       

                      Regards

                       

                      Mark

                      • 8. Re: Additional HD Drive
                        Lundberg02 Community Member

                        RAM is not allocated properly, or you need to test for bad RAM. Your box should be faster than light.

                        • 9. Re: Additional HD Drive
                          Niles Ridgeman Community Member

                          Yah, I agree, something is up with you system. But check the ram allocation.

                          Multiple partitions on you new disk are just helpful for your own organization - won't help with scratch disk performance (it all goes down the same wires/controller).

                          • 10. Re: Additional HD Drive
                            Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                            Interesting stuff.  Thanks guys.

                             

                            However, the up rated Ram from 4 to 8 was done by Apple at their store.  How can I check if they have done things properly? Any suggestions on how the Ram should be allocated? And finally, is this something I can do myself?

                             

                            Thanks

                             

                            Mark

                            • 11. Re: Additional HD Drive
                              Niles Ridgeman Community Member

                              RAM allocation in photoshop. Preferences:Performance - theoretically should be around 70%, but you should read the stuff in the link above about optimizing performance.

                              • 12. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                Many thanks Niles

                                 

                                I usually keep the ram for the scratch at around 70% although I understand if I have anything over 2GB I can go higher. I have 8GB but I am still keeping at between 70 and 80%.

                                 

                                I feel there is something seriously out of place.  Whenever the machine 'sleeps' when I wake it, the partition which is the 'Data-Store' is always missing from the desktop.  The main drive Mac HD is there, also the Scratch-Store is there as is Time Machine (External). I always have to shut the machine off at the power button! The alt+cmnd+esc does not work.

                                 

                                I have checked the all the disks and the partitions with disk Utilities, and repaired permissions etc and verified.  I have run CleanMyMac, and today after subscribing to Mac Protection Plan, I ran the app they sent me which is ToolTech Deluxe, which appears to be able to locate any faults on the drives.  All without any further success.

                                 

                                The only thing I haven't done as yet is check for a Graphics Card update.

                                 

                                Meanwhile the machine continues to run slow and crash for no apparent reason.  Last night whilst I was working on a PS Photo file I suddenly got an error message telling me that Bridge had shut down!

                                 

                                I guess the next stage is to get is back to the supplier!

                                 

                                Thanks once again for your help

                                • 13. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                  Niles Ridgeman Community Member

                                  Yikes. I don’t envy you all that.

                                   

                                  That kind of system wide stuff (in my experience) is usually memory problems. Google "OSX memory testing" - I think “memtest” is good, but look around. I doubt it’s the disks, probably the ram.

                                   

                                  I’d be inclined to make it Apple’s problem if you can’t figure it out. Apple care should cover you. Get them on the phone until they admit it has to come in.

                                   

                                  Graphics cards (assuming they are apple supplied) don’t need updating (anything they need will come when you do regular updates). It’s not that.

                                   

                                  Best of Luck!

                                  • 14. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                    Lundberg02 Community Member

                                    This statement makes no sense:

                                    "

                                    I usually keep the ram for the scratch at around 70% although I understand if I have anything over 2GB I can go higher. I have 8GB but I am still keeping at between 70 and 80%."

                                     

                                    Allocate 3+ RAM to Photoshop. The system will use the rest of the 8gB. That's where your problem with speed is. Plus the fact that you don't understand memory.

                                     

                                    Run fsck -fy if it still functions in SL.

                                    Relaunch the Finder if a disk doesn't show up.

                                    Repair permissions.

                                    • 15. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                      Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                      Run fsck -fy if it still functions in SL.

                                      Relaunch the Finder if a disk doesn't show up.

                                      Repair permissions.

                                       

                                      Wow! And you say my statement don't make sense.

                                       

                                      OK.  Adobe say that "you should use no more than 70% of your available ram for the scratch disk. Unless, you have more than 2GB! If you have more than this you can go up to 95%".  I said that even though I have 8GB of Ram I am still only using between 70 and 80% max of this amount, therefore well below the recommended amount.  Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. 

                                       

                                      1. I have repaired disk permissions a number of times. 
                                      2. Sorry I don't understand  what you mean by 3+
                                      3. neither do I understand fsck-fy in SL (or are you swearing at me)?

                                       

                                      As you may have guessed I am not THAT technical any skills that I may have lie in other areas. 

                                       

                                      But thank you for taking the time to respond!

                                      • 17. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                        Community Member

                                        Mark A Goodwin wrote:

                                         

                                         

                                        Adobe say that "you should use no more than 70% of your available ram for the scratch disk.

                                         

                                        Really?  Where do you think Adobe says that?  I fear it would be a nonsensical utterance anyway.  The scratch disk has nothing to do with RAM.  RAM is not used for the scratch disk.  Photoshop's scratch disk is created on a designated hard drive.

                                         

                                        Wo Tai Lao Le

                                         

                                        我太老了

                                        • 18. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                          Community Member

                                          As an example, I keep more than 300 GB on separate, dedicated internal hard drives just for Photoshop's scratch disk.

                                           

                                          我太老了

                                          • 19. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                            Community Member

                                            Mark A Goodwin wrote:

                                             

                                             

                                            even though I have 8GB of Ram I am still only using between 70 and 80% max of this amount, therefore well below the recommended amount.  Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.

                                             

                                             

                                            As you may have guessed I am not THAT technical any skills that I may have lie in other areas.

                                             

                                            Ah, that explains some things.  Thank you.

                                             

                                            The 70% to 80% you're setting in preferences means you are telling Photoshop to use no more than 80% of whatever memory may be available at any given time, after the OS and other running applications have taken what they need.  That has absolutely nothing to do with "scratch".

                                             

                                            Wo Tai Lao Le

                                            我太老了

                                            • 20. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                              Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                              Thanks JM

                                               

                                              That explains a lot.

                                               

                                              Cheers

                                               

                                              Mark

                                              • 21. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                                Thanks for the feedback  Wo Tai Lao Le 

                                                 

                                                My scratch disk has 1 TB of space.  I was under the impression that I had to allocate an amount of Ram to that disk not excfeeding 70% of Ram that is available.

                                                 

                                                Please see attached screen grab of my Preferences panel.

                                                 

                                                Regards

                                                 

                                                Mark

                                                • 22. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                  John Joslin Community Member

                                                  Mark A Goodwin wrote:

                                                   

                                                  My scratch disk has 1 TB of space.  I was under the impression that I had to allocate an amount of Ram to that disk not excfeeding 70% of Ram that is available.

                                                   

                                                   

                                                  You don't allocated RAM (memory) to the Scratch Disk (Hard Drive).


                                                  They work together under Photoshop but are not related.

                                                  • 23. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                    Junk Mailer Community Member

                                                    I think you are confused about the difference between memory (RAM) and storage (disk space, as you would use for a scratch disk). Find an article on the web that teaches basic computer hardware components and I think you'll understand this better.

                                                     

                                                    -JM

                                                    • 24. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                      Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                                      Thanks JM.  Can you explain to me please what is meant then by this view in Prefrences

                                                      • 25. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                        Niles Ridgeman Community Member

                                                        Okay, now we've got that out of our systems. Your prefs are fine. It's safe to say Ram allocation and scratch disks are not your problem.

                                                         

                                                        Feel free to put them out of your mind.

                                                         

                                                         

                                                         

                                                        So any luck with the RAM testing?

                                                        Still having the slow down and errors?

                                                        • 26. Re: Additional HD Drive
                                                          Mark A Goodwin Community Member

                                                          Thanks Niles.

                                                           

                                                          I looked for memtest and unless I am wrong, memtest will not test 10.6.2 it only goes up to Leopard.  Plus to be honest I was a wee bit jittery about typing in stuff when I know so little about how the darn machine works in the first place.

                                                           

                                                          However, In trying to upgrade my Spyder color calibration programme earlier, Spyder insisted I upgrade Snow leopard even though I was convinced I had the lates version.  However, I did up grade S Leopard again, and for the moment, at least the machine appears to be performing quite well.  I am yet to use to photoshop so that will nbe the next test.

                                                           

                                                          Thanks once again for all your input

                                                           

                                                          Regards

                                                           

                                                          Mark