Which External Hard Drive do I get?

Gilly B

Gilly B

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Gillian
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Not sure if this is in the correct area of TP, if not I am sure a Mod Bod will move it.

Having just re-read Janice's thread back in June about running out of memory and needing extra space etc, I am now in a similar postition. Yesterday, in between 'spamming up my posts to reach 500', I was actually working. Every RAW image I was converting was making my PC slower and slower. There was one point when I was merging layers and the damn thing just hung there and eventually had to shut the PC off and re-start.

I thought I would check the space left and :eek: only 9GB left. I had no alternative but to sit and copy everything (photos) onto DVD's - 2 of everything. I now freed up 59GB. Seeing as I have got 2 events in the next 10 days, I had better get something sorted this wee.

My question to you peeps is: What make external hard drive (400 or 500 GB) can you recommend? I know I should be using network drives, but I can't afford it at the moment. Thanks Gillian
 
A 300G+ USB2 drive can be yours for about £80 (try www.play.com)
They just plug straight in and off you go.
(tho I do re-format mine to be NTFS not FAT32 which they usually come as, since this is far more efficient)

Very easy soln to expanding your storage capacity.
 
On a more PC oriented forum I'd suggest buying a caddie and bare drive separately but that might not be a road you want to go down. Lacie seem to do some good units, especially now that they've moved away from Maxtor drives inside.

One thing that I will sugest very strongly - don't go for anything above 500Gb. The bulk of bigger units use multiple disks to make up the capacity with the data being spread across them. If one of those drives fails then the entire content is lost.
 
Thanks Oldgit. What is the difference between the one in your link and a Western Digital My Book which is mentioned in Janice's thread quite a bit? :shrug:
 
rpstewart said:
On a more PC oriented forum I'd suggest buying a caddie and bare drive separately but that might not be a road you want to go down. Lacie seem to do some good units, especially now that they've moved away from Maxtor drives inside.

One thing that I will sugest very strongly - don't go for anything above 500Gb. The bulk of bigger units use multiple disks to make up the capacity with the data being spread across them. If one of those drives fails then the entire content is lost.
Click to expand...

Umm... Lacie, I will look that one up. Jimmy Lemon (I think) suggested a bare drive and caddy previously to Janice as he had just bought one. I looked at it and thought :eek: :eek: There is no way I can fiddle with that. Thanks rpstewart.
 
Gilly
I've got 2x Maxtor 320gb USB2 drives - one for pc & t'other on the mac. They're great, very fast to access & about £80 from Dixons/Comet. Google the name & I'm sure you will find one. Both get pretty hard use & never missed a heartbeat.
The Lacie equivalent (320gb) is currently £59.99 from www.dabs.com - product code 44LFDM.
Phil

Also just remembered that on the PC I've cleared the D: partitioned disk to use purely as the scratch disk for PS7 which has made a huuuge difference...
 
Phil T said:
Gilly
I've got 2x Maxtor 320gb USB2 drives - one for pc & t'other on the mac. They're great, very fast to access & about £80 from Dixons/Comet. Google the name & I'm sure you will find one. Both get pretty hard use & never missed a heartbeat.
The Lacie equivalent (320gb) is currently £59.99 from www.dabs.com - product code 44LFDM.
Phil

Also just remembered that on the PC I've cleared the D: partitioned disk to use purely as the scratch disk for PS7 which has made a huuuge difference...
Click to expand...

Thanks Phil, I will look it up. With regard to the above paragraph - :eek: what does all that gibberish mean:shrug: scratch disk :thinking: I am not thick or blonde - just middle aged :LOL::help:
 
Gilly B said:
Jimmy Lemon (I think) suggested a bare drive and caddy previously to Janice as he had just bought one.
Click to expand...

Wasnt me - sounds way to complicated for me :p

I have just bought an External HDD though. I got one of these . Its 500gb and Maxtor and has some very usefull software that comes with it, that lets you schedule backups automatically, sync the external Hard drive with folders on your PC, so when you add something to that folder it backs it up automatcialls (which I what I have it set to for my photos folder). It does look a bit like a brick however :p

EDIT - oh yeah the one I linked to is £115 - but I think its worth it.
 
If you have firewire on your PC, then I would always go for that over USB2. I have both, and I hardly ever user the USB2 drive anymore due to speed. If protablility is an issue, then you need to go for a 2.5 inch drive (WD passport drive for example).

Personally I have a Lacie 320gb firewire drive for backups. I use a free program to sync my lightroom database, and my photo directory(100gb+) to it
then use acronius true image to do a backup image of my OS install. Total time for backup per week is about 30 min.

If you are running a desktop computer then you should really be thinking about increasing your internal storage capcity then using removable drives as they will be more responsive, and then match your desktop cabacity with the same as removable storage for backup.
 
JL - That looks stable and sounds good too. The reason I quote you and your link was in Janices thread 'Drive Nearly Full' you have a link to a bare hard drive which scared me. So you didn't buy that then, you bought the Maxtor. I will print out all the information and study it tonight.

Thanks guys.
 
Gilly B said:
Thanks Phil, I will look it up. With regard to the above paragraph - :eek: what does all that gibberish mean:shrug: scratch disk :thinking: I am not thick or blonde - just middle aged :LOL::help:
Click to expand...

Well Im middle aged and I know what a scratch disc is...I just partitioned my C drive to have a special area for the Photoshop scratch disc! :geek:

A scratch disc is where you scratch your sensor and then get so annoyed you slip a disc!! :D :LOL:
 
Gilly
Most PC's have their one physical hard drive separated into 2 - the one usually called the C: drive carries the programmes, applications & operating system. The second, usually called D:, contains all your files (word, excel, pictures etc). Because PS is so memory hungry, you can copy all your documents from the D: drive to your external drive (which will be assigned a different letter by the PC), and set up PS7 to use the D: drive for processing where there will be much more useable space available.
In PS go to Edit->Preferences->PlugIns & Scratch disk to see how it is currently configured & you can change the settings from there.
 
Gilly B said:
JL - That looks stable and sounds good too. The reason I quote you and your link was in Janices thread 'Drive Nearly Full' you have a link to a bare hard drive which scared me. So you didn't buy that then, you bought the Maxtor. I will print out all the information and study it tonight.

Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

Ah yeah I remember now. I bought an Internal hard drive for inside my pc at the same time as the external :) The external pretty much acts a copy of that internal hard drive now (just in case)

As others have said above me the scratch disk is just the area that photoshop uses to do its stuff, if this gets full photoshop will slow down, like you found.
 
Buy a Seagate FreeAgent - USB or Firewire or both - PCWorld have some good offers on £20 off - plus they offer a 5 year warranty - no one else does :)
 
Janice said:
Well Im middle aged and I know what a scratch disc is...I just partitioned my C drive to have a special area for the Photoshop scratch disc! :geek:

A scratch disc is where you scratch your sensor and then get so annoyed you slip a disc!! :D
Click to expand...

I don't think that's very funny Janice.... :razz: Only because I believed it:(

Ah! I have just googled scratch disk, and now have an idea what it is - don't know if I have one though ?:shrug:

Phil T - I know I have the drives partitioned (my Brother did that) plus an extra drive inside. I have got them all jumbled up and only remember not to put photos on the C: drive. I must get organised.

A colleague in work has just suggested that the slowing down could have been due to RAM :bang: or lack of it :bang: or both


I give up :sulk: :exit:
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
Ah yeah I remember now. I bought an Internal hard drive for inside my pc at the same time as the external :) The external pretty much acts a copy of that internal hard drive now (just in case)

As others have said above me the scratch disk is just the area that photoshop uses to do its stuff, if this gets full photoshop will slow down, like you found.
Click to expand...

Ah, JL - you have probably hit the nail on the head there. If I have a scratch disk for potoshop and it is full, then how do I empty it? where do I look to find it?:shrug:
 
Don't give up!!! RAM is the real-time memory used to run the applications, the rest is just used for storage of files. Lots of programs = lots of RAM used. So either reduce the number of programs running (you'd be surprised how many run in the background that you don't notice), increase the RAM (i.e. buy more of it) and give PS it's own drive as a scratch disk.
Easy really - you'll get loads of help from here.
 
Gilly B said:
A colleague in work has just suggested that the slowing down could have been due to RAM :bang: or lack of it :bang: or both


I give up :sulk: :exit:
Click to expand...

That's almost ceartainly where the problem is , 9 Gb of HD is more than enough room for Photobloat to scratch & sniff to it's hearts content
.
 
StuvUk said:
Buy a Seagate FreeAgent - USB or Firewire or both - PCWorld have some good offers on £20 off - plus they offer a 5 year warranty - no one else does :)
Click to expand...

Agree with the above. Just got myself a 250Gb FreeAgent and it's excellent. Fast, quiet, keeps nice and cool and the orange stripe glows nicely. Comes formatted as NTFS.
 
mrgubby said:
That's almost ceartainly where the problem is , 9 Gb of HD is more than enough room for Photobloat to scratch & sniff to it's hearts content
.
Click to expand...

Are you PC Buffs doing this on purpose to confuse the hell out of me. There's me just coming to terms with scratch (sensors) disk (slipped) and you come up with P-h-o-t-o-b-l-o-a-t!!! What's that all about? Bloated Photos? I just googled it and thought AAARRRRG! :bang: ....and who's sniffing what?:shrug:
 
Gilly B said:
Are you PC Buffs doing this on purpose to confuse the hell out of me. There's me just coming to terms with scratch (sensors) disk (slipped) and you come up with P-h-o-t-o-b-l-o-a-t!!! What's that all about? Bloated Photos? I just googled it and thought AAARRRRG! :bang: ....and who's sniffing what?:shrug:
Click to expand...

Sorry , what I meant was Photoshop , it tends to eat all your resources and become photobloat
 
photobloat lol nice.

Any reason you don't want to slap another disk internally into your PC? (I only ask as I've always gone this route over external drives).
 
It seems Gilly has 2 internal hard drives (well, her PC does, anyway!) and they have various partitions on already.
And, no, I havent nipped to Wales, she sent me a screen shot! :LOL:

She has the C drive made into two partitions, (I) (system) 136 gb with 78% free and (L - Photos) 161gb with 59% free.

She also has another drive (S) 18gb with 36% free (6.77gb)

When I made my partition of the Photoshop scratch disc.. I already had a free partition which Hewlett Packard put in for recovery purposes, so I made a recovery disc and formatted that partition and used it for the scratch disc.

So if one of you kind people can tell her how and where is the best place for her new partition, Im sure she would be very grateful. :D
 
Personally, I'd go for another internal hard drive for more storage and backup. Got enough crap on top of the desk without external hard drives.
 
Doesnt that depend on how many bays you have?
 
Janice said:
Doesnt that depend on how many bays you have?
Click to expand...
Yes, most PC's have space for at least three though, usually four and you could get a 5 1/2" bay convertor as well if you wanted. I just find it easier, quicker and when the back up drive is full I remove it, label it and chuck in a new one. Heat could be an issue but if the case is ventilated reasonably well it should be workable.

Having said that I shouldn't (touch wood) have to do anything for a while, just put two new 400GB drives in about a month ago which are backing up the two data drives which were cleaned to get rid of dross and old stuff archived onto another drive.
 
LaCie are superb, and always deliver the goods for me.

I'd be tempted to go Firewire if you have it on your PC - more reliable than USB and quicker too!

Cheers,
James
 
Janice said:
...She has the C drive made into two partitions, (I) (system) 136 gb with 78% free and (L - Photos) 161gb with 59% free.
Click to expand...

She doesnt need 136Gb for the system drive, so I'd shrink that partion way down to something like 30Gb, windows will live happily in that amount of space and will provide 100Gb of storage to the L drive.
 
Janice said:
It seems Gilly has 2 internal hard drives (well, her PC does, anyway!) and they have various partitions on already.
And, no, I havent nipped to Wales, she sent me a screen shot! :LOL:

She has the C drive made into two partitions, (I) (system) 136 gb with 78% free and (L - Photos) 161gb with 59% free.

She also has another drive (S) 18gb with 36% free (6.77gb)

When I made my partition of the Photoshop scratch disc.. I already had a free partition which Hewlett Packard put in for recovery purposes, so I made a recovery disc and formatted that partition and used it for the scratch disc.

So if one of you kind people can tell her how and where is the best place for her new partition, Im sure she would be very grateful. :D
Click to expand...


Thanks Janice - I couldn't have put it better myself - No, I really couldn't have......

I don't know how you worked out what I have from the screen shot, but very grateful for helping out.

Looking at the figures of free space, I would like some advise on how to partition a drive etc. Do I need to go to Focus for some 3 be 2 (joiners speil) and plasterboard panels? :shrug:

All sensible offers of assistance is gratefully accepted. I don't know what scratch and sniff is and I don't really care, I just want to be able to save my images somewhere. Thanks Gillian:)
 
Like I mentioned Gilly, you culd shrink your I drive down to 30Gb leaving enough room for XP and that would give you some more breathing room in your L drive. I use Acronis Disk Director for this but there are a number of other programs that can do the same.

GParted is a freeware applciation which i hear very good things about, you might want to check it out - http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
 
sepulchre said:
Like I mentioned Gilly, you culd shrink your I drive down to 30Gb leaving enough room for XP and that would give you some more breathing room in your L drive. I use Acronis Disk Director for this but there are a number of other programs that can do the same.

GParted is a freeware applciation which i hear very good things about, you might want to check it out - http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
Click to expand...

Thanks sepulchre. I have printed it out for reading this evening.
 
np, its worth reading the documentation very carefully as applications of this type are that powerful you can completely screw your drive. Just remember to backup before you do anything and good luck! :)
 
I have the 250gb Firewire version of that Gilly.

I found after a while that with using the backup software provided it doesnt replace the backup but keeps making new one........quickly filling up.

So now I just use it like any other drive in My Computer..........drag and drop onto it to backup. Easy now.
 
rpstewart said:
One thing that I will sugest very strongly - don't go for anything above 500Gb. The bulk of bigger units use multiple disks to make up the capacity with the data being spread across them. If one of those drives fails then the entire content is lost.
Click to expand...


Just add my weight (no comments please) to this. Most secure way is to use one disc HDs. In business one disc + one disc and so on.
 
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