[Photocro]

I have been learning the MP now for a month or so. I have not added a HDD to the stock 250 GB but am getting ready to move all my photos from PC to MP and will want to add another. A couple items that I am not sure of and need to find out about are: The raid card and raid itself and scratch disc (what is it exactly?) and general info as to how to set this all up.

Realizing that this is a frequently asked question here it would be fine to be directed to a tutorial instead on any of you having to answer the same question for the umpteenth time. I moderate a camera forum and understand how that repetition can sometimes cause digitized hairloss.

In considering the HDD I should point out that I run PS CS3, Capture NX and usually am editing with some presets and rarely a batch load as I take photos that vary from wide angle and telephoto landscapes to interior shots that include winery machinery and architectural. Nothing is ever the same so I can't very well batch. I work up about 10-50 shots per session depending on the workload. Hope this helps for any answers. I also am going to be off loading a few hundred photos from my old PC to the MP with an ethernet cable although it was suggested somewhere that I just use a memory card or two. Any opinions?

[SierraDragon]

10-50 shots per session and only moving a few hundred pix from the PC is very few for typical DSLR capture. At those kinds of volumes you need not consider RAID. RAID requires multiple drives configured in arrays and IMO you do not yet need that step.

"Scratch" is a working file that PS opens concurrent with every PS file you open. PS reads/writes constantly to that file even when you have lots of RAM. Under PSCS3 Preferences you assign where PS will assign scratch to. For good performance primary scratch should be on a different physical drive (drive partitions mean nothing and are not recommended) than the OS and app are on.

I suggest for your described needs:
Drive A: OS and apps
Drive B: scratch and images
Drive C: Onsite backup

IMO larger is better as regards drive size. Less full drives are faster because drives slow down as they fill. Not exceeding 70% full is a good rule of thumb. I would add 1TB sized drives all identical, which would also make any future RAID configurations easier to implement.

Some folks recommend discount drives but I do not. Cheap often means lesser OEM quality and/or last generation tech. I buy from OWC: Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC. Working with typical DSLR captures anecdotal information suggests that the 32 MB buffers of better modern enterprise-class drives may improve performance.

Moving a few hundred images I suggest burning to DVD, which gives a hard backup to move off site as part of the process.

HTH

-Allen Wicks

[Photocro]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Sounds like good advice for now. I still work in the darkroom and am just switching over to digital so need explanation as to the ins and outs. I bought my 8 GB's of RAM from OWC and have never had such a wonderful online purchase. What a helpful group of sellers.

Incidentally, it was because of the recommendation from this forum that I chose OWC for the RAM. So, I deeply appreciate the down to earth and sage advice here.