How do I clean up my Scratch Disk?!

[NAVIS1]

I. Am. Going. Insane.

I've read just about every forum and article pertaining to what a scratch disk is but I can't find any decent information on how to clean it up. I can't crop ANY simple graphic or photo anymore.

I've looked at the preferences on CS2 but nothing works.

How do I clean up my scratch disk? There has to be a simple answer. I've done just about everything I can to my knowledge. I don't really have the cash flow to spend money on a 3rd party defrag program. Although I've read that I don't really need to do that on a mac (I own a 24" iMac).

I miss the days when I could crop pictures sigh .

Any help pertaining to this matter would be amazing.

 

[Elliott Mitchell]

Well it all depends on what your using your scratchdisk with/for ie are you using it for photoshop if so you have to have photoshop set up to use a certain disk or partition as the scratchdisk, then when you open photoshop it will put a temp file down stright away on the scratchdisk, this will grow as you do things in photoshop. When you quite photoshop the file shouls also delete it-self, if not then you can just delete it your self just like any other file. so in a nut shell you dont clean up a scratch disk either it emptys by its self or you do it, be deleting

 

[Tom Ferguson]

The reason you can't find any info is that it isn't done or needed. Unless something on your system is very "messed up" the scratch disk is constantly overwritten and never needs to be manually erased.

I would ( one at a time, in this order): run repair permissions on your main disk, check that Photoshop preferances still has the correct scratch disk selected and that this disk has free space, temporarily switch scratch disks, throw out the Photoshop Pref file, run Disk first Aid (from your OSX disk) on both your main and scratch disks, run your CRON routines, run a Memory test, re-install Photoshop.

Hope that helps
--
Tom Ferguson
http://www.ferguson-photo-design.com

 

[NAVIS1]

I've done everything the last two guys have mentioned to clean up my scratch disk (thank you for trying to help). I've concluded that NOBODY knows how to clean a scratch disk. I never ran into this problem with my PC. So why on my Mac that's just a little over a year old and has 1 gig of memory? I even uninstalled and reinstalled Photoshop (which is what I'm using). I can't crop pictures anymore because of this error. I've asked several employees at the Mac store about this and most of them have no idea what I'm talking about and go and try to google an answer.

I'm going to have a date with the Genius Bar and have them fix it. Luckily it's still under Apple Care so we'll see how well I'm taken care of. Maybe I'll get a new iMac.

If anyone else can help me out that'd be great. Like... if you've had this same problem and you fixed yours... how did you do it?

--

Tim

 

[Ben Yeh]

It sounds like a preference file is screwed up. Either that or your hard drive has a problem and your scratch disk is trying to access bad blocks/sectors. Have you run disk utility to see if you can repair the HD as well?

I've done everything the last two guys have mentioned to clean up my
scratch disk (thank you for trying to help). I've concluded that
NOBODY knows how to clean a scratch disk. I never ran into this
problem with my PC. So why on my Mac that's just a little over a year
old and has 1 gig of memory? I even uninstalled and reinstalled
Photoshop (which is what I'm using). I can't crop pictures anymore
because of this error. I've asked several employees at the Mac store
about this and most of them have no idea what I'm talking about and
go and try to google an answer.

I'm going to have a date with the Genius Bar and have them fix it.
Luckily it's still under Apple Care so we'll see how well I'm taken
care of. Maybe I'll get a new iMac.

If anyone else can help me out that'd be great. Like... if you've had
this same problem and you fixed yours... how did you do it?

--

Tim

 

[rgolub]

You mention that "you can't crop pictures because of an error" and then mention the scratch disk, but unless I'm missing something, you don't explain the error or why you think that the scratch disk is involved.

Can you be more specific?

--
RG
http://www.lostrange.com

 

[Grant Hutchins]

If I remember correctly you said you have one gig of memory? That isn't enough to do much other than web browsing, email, text files, etc. I think the only machine that you can have one gig of memory with is the mini which also shares memory with it's GPU. You can ad memory to it, but to do so might void your warranty. You will have to go online to find instructions on how to do it (involves putty knives, not for the squeamish).

That means after your system takes it's share of memory, there is not much left for Photoshop so just about everything you do is done with the scratch disk. If you meant 1 gig of disk storage, that also is not enough.

If you have one hard drive, than that hard drive is your scratch disk. That means that whatever is left over on your hard drive that is not used to store the system itself, application files, and work files is what is available for your scratch disk. If you have items in your trash that you haven't emptied, that also is disk space not available for your scratch disk. The more you have on the drive designated as your scratch disk, the less you have available of it to be used as virtual memory (scratch disk).

As I understand it, the Mac OS has a built in optimizer that basically defrags your hard drive automatically. The default is to do this at around 2:00 am. If you shut your computer down on a regular basis for the night, it doesn't get defragged.

As mentioned by another poster, PShop writes a temporary file to the hard drive or partition you've designated as the scratch disk. This file is deleted automatically upon quitting PShop (unless you happen to crash while in PShop, in which case you might see one or more files called 'recovered file' in the trash—empty your trash).

So, since the scratch disk in PShop is simply a hard disk or disk partition you designate as the scratch disk, the way to clean the scratch disk is to remove any unecessary files from the hard drive or partition you've chosen to be the scratch disk—(as in back up files elsewhere, then throw them in the trash and empty your trash). If you only have one Hard Drive and it is getting full, your PShop scratch disk is getting smaller.

Your options are any or all of the following:

1. Ad more RAM if you can. It's relatively cheap now (don't buy Apple memory—it's way overpriced).

2. If you only have one Hard Drive for everything, including PShop scratch disk, add another Hard Drive and keep it empty for use solely as the scratch disk or buy one big enough that a decent chunk of it can be partitioned and used as the scratch disk but not for storage. If you have a mini you obviously need an external hard drive as your dedicated scratch disk. Drives can also be had for not much money (try newegg.com)

3. If you can't/won't get a dedicated drive that you keep empty for use as the scratch disk, back up and remove files from the disk or partition you are using as a Scratch disk regularly.

4. Close down all other applications you are not using, especially Safari, it drains system resources even in the background (at least it use to unless Apple has corrected this)

5. Be aware of how you work. While working in PShop, when you get to a point in your work that you know you won't need to go to previous stages with "History" save your file and go under, edit/purge. You can purge (free from memory) Undo, Clipboard, History, or All. If you copied something to your clipboard, after you use it, "Purge" the clipboard.

• The more memory and storage space the better. Cost is relative to time. Struggling with too little RAM and too little storage is expensive in and of itself. The mini is due for an update, probably in Jan or Feb. If you're on a very tight budget and what you have is a year old mini, you've got a decent amount of use out of it. Consider upgrading. If they improve the graphics card and allow more than 2 gigs of RAM in the updated mini, it might be worth buying a new one for you if you plan on using it for PShop.

 

[gaussian blur]

If I remember correctly you said you have one gig of memory? That
isn't enough to do much other than web browsing, email, text files,
etc. I think the only machine that you can have one gig of memory
with is the mini which also shares memory with it's GPU. You can ad
memory to it, but to do so might void your warranty. You will have to
go online to find instructions on how to do it (involves putty
knives, not for the squeamish).

I don't see where he said he had 1 gig of memory, but if that's the case, he definitely needs more. Also, adding memory does not void the warranty unless he breaks something (which on the mini is possible, those clips are annoying).

As I understand it, the Mac OS has a built in optimizer that
basically defrags your hard drive automatically. The default is to do
this at around 2:00 am. If you shut your computer down on a regular
basis for the night, it doesn't get defragged.

No, defragmenting happens automatically on the fly as files are opened and saved. The maintenance task that runs early morning isn't very important, it just cleans up some system files.

4. Close down all other applications you are not using, especially
Safari, it drains system resources even in the background (at least
it use to unless Apple has corrected this)

It never did unless the page had something like a flash animation and that would affect any browser.

 

[Grant Hutchins]

I don't see where he said he had 1 gig of memory, but if that's the case, he definitely needs more.

OP's 2nd post:

"So why on my Mac that's just a little over a year old and has 1 gig of memory? "

Also, adding memory does not void the warranty unless he breaks something (which on the mini is possible, those clips are annoying).

Hence my use of the word, "might" in my post and referencing the use of putty knives to open the case. He said he had "1 gig of memory." That only leaves the Mini, which is why I referenced it specifically. This is probably why Apple recommends having memory installed by them, to avoid user damage that voids the warranty (clips included).

No, defragmenting happens automatically on the fly as files are opened and saved. The maintenance task that runs early morning isn't very important, it just cleans up some system files.

The point is, defragging under OS X happens automatically, he doesn't need to defrag his computer himself as he indicated he was considering but didn't have the cash to buy a 3rd party program to do it.

One of the "unimportant" jobs performed by the maintenance task is to remove temporary files. If poster is getting a scratch disk or memory error, I'd say allowing the built in maintenance task to remove invisible bloated temporary file or files (the kind you sometimes get if you have to force quit an application or hard restart) which might impact hard drive space available for use as scratch disk might be a good thing to do. Why would you not do that?

It never did unless the page had something like a flash animation and that would affect any browser.

Safari in background has been reported to slow system performance as much as a little over 70%

Here is one article, from a blog, there are many, many more (google)

http://macenstein.com/default/archives/540

Regardless, any open application uses at least some memory. If all you have is 1 gig as the poster stated, having any application open while using PShop is simply not a good idea (again, especially Safari).

 

[gaussian blur]

I don't see where he said he had 1 gig of memory, but if that's the case, he definitely needs more.

OP's 2nd post:

"So why on my Mac that's just a little over a year old and has 1 gig of memory? "

Missed that, thanks. 1 gig is far too small to run Photoshop.

The point is, defragging under OS X happens automatically, he doesn't
need to defrag his computer himself as he indicated he was
considering but didn't have the cash to buy a 3rd party program to do
it.

Agreed. It's not needed at all (and can actually make it worse in some cases).

One of the "unimportant" jobs performed by the maintenance task is to
remove temporary files. If poster is getting a scratch disk or memory
error, I'd say allowing the built in maintenance task to remove
invisible bloated temporary file or files (the kind you sometimes get
if you have to force quit an application or hard restart) which might
impact hard drive space available for use as scratch disk might be a
good thing to do. Why would you not do that?

The daily script won't delete a left over file from a crashed app. All it does is delete stuff such as core dumps, emacs files, fax scratch files and system logs. You can see exactly what it does by looking at the scripts in etc/periodic/daily . It's really very minor in the grand scheme of things.

If the disk is close to full, running something like OmniDiskSweeper to see where disk space is being used can be quite helpful. The only advantage to the paid version is the ability to delete a file from the app itself (i.e., not worth it), otherwise, just delete it in Finder (and don't delete stuff you aren't sure what it's for).

It never did unless the page had something like a flash animation and that would affect any browser.

Safari in background has been reported to slow system performance as
much as a little over 70%

Here is one article, from a blog, there are many, many more (google)

That's a very bizarre way of testing, and he even found that it made no difference when exporting a QuickTime movie. At best, it's inconclusive.

Run Safari and look in Activity Monitor (or top for Terminal users). It will have a whopping 0% CPU load when not displaying a web page. If it's displaying a web page, then it won't be 0% but it's usually fairly low unless the page has flash.

Regardless, any open application uses at least some memory.

Sure, but if memory is needed, it's paged out to a virtual memory swap file on the hard drive. And even if you quit all applications, there's still a bunch of background processes running.

If all
you have is 1 gig as the poster stated, having any application open
while using PShop is simply not a good idea (again, especially
Safari).

True, although I disagree on Safari.

 

[Grant Hutchins]

I provided you 1 url about the Safari 'drain' There are many more out there, user posts and online tech mag articles alike—quite a large number, but of course, it could be that all those sources are imagining things. You'll have to google them for yourself.

Here's the point. He said he had 1 gig of memory and implied he had errors indicating he needed to "clean up" his scratch disk. If he has a machine that has one gig of memory he has a mini. If he has the 1 gig mini, he has a 160 gig hard drive at the most, 80 at the least.

If he is using PShop on a machine that has 1 gig of memory and a non dedicated graphics card, he is running PShop on mostly virtual RAM. Photo files can be large, if he has files stored on a mini with 1 gig of RAM and a smallish hard drive that is also his scratch disk, he needs every bit of disk space he can get. His goal, in that case is to remove all unecessary competition for scratch disk space. That means, in addition to paring down his stored files on his drive, he also does not need any other aps, or temporary files that would compete for his paltry 1 gig of RAM and disk space for virtual memory that he needs for PShop. If he's running out of scratch disk space, how does leaving other aps open that compete for virtual memory with Photoshop do him any good?

Running 3rd party software to tell you how much disk space your using seems to be an uneccessary pain compared to simply backing up files, keeping your hard disk lean, and not taxing what little resources he has (little RAM, little disk space) by running aps in the background you don't need. What exactly are you telling the guy to do?

 

[gaussian blur]

I provided you 1 url about the Safari 'drain' There are many more out
there, user posts and online tech mag articles alike—quite a large
number, but of course, it could be that all those sources are
imagining things. You'll have to google them for yourself.

Yet Activity Monitor shows 0% CPU load. How exactly is Safari 'draining' the system if the CPU load is 0?

And from the link you provided, he found no difference in speed when he exported a QuickTime movie, so if Safari was a huge drain on the system, why was there no effect at all in that case?

It's not exactly compelling evidence.

Here's the point. He said he had 1 gig of memory and implied he had
errors indicating he needed to "clean up" his scratch disk. If he has
a machine that has one gig of memory he has a mini. If he has the 1
gig mini, he has a 160 gig hard drive at the most, 80 at the least.

The current 20" iMac (2.4 GHz) and the 2.1" MacBook (white plastic) have 1 gig of memory. It could also be an older model Mac.

Hopefully he will post the specs of his Mac, including hard drive size and how much free space is available.

In any event, he does need to max out the memory. 1 gig is not enough for Photoshop except maybe for web size graphics. Plus, the overall speed of the Mac will improve.

Running 3rd party software to tell you how much disk space your using
seems to be an uneccessary pain compared to simply backing up files,
keeping your hard disk lean, and not taxing what little resources he
has (little RAM, little disk space) by running aps in the background
you don't need. What exactly are you telling the guy to do?

The utility I suggested will help determine which files are taking up the most space so that they can be identified and deleted if not needed. There's very little gain in deleting log files that are measured in kilobytes.

Just be absolutely sure what the file is for before deleting anything and that it's safe to delete it. Deleting the wrong file can be a disaster.

Even just rebooting will clear out some temp files.

 

[Randy Ennis]

Huh? Any number of Mac models can be configured with 1 GB. What makes you think it's a mini?

Grant Hutchins wrote:

 

[NAVIS1]

Thanks for all the responses. Greatly appreciate it. It's just so bizarre to encounter this scratch disk problem. I've been using photoshop since 4.0. I've never run into this problem.

And just to clear things up... in case I didn't mention it in my original post, I have a 24" iMac with 1 gig of memory with a 250 gig hard drive. I do have an external HD but Photoshop won't read it as an extra drive. I think I forgot to format it. But now that I have everything on it, I'm just keeping it there. I figure I might as well get another hard drive to back up the back up and I'll use that as an extra scratch disk.

And yes, money is tight (boooo). I'm just going to reformat my entire hard drive and start fresh. I've never done this before on a Mac (PC yes) so if anyone has any tips about that, please share!

Also, if anyone would like to share space saving tips on a Mac that'd be amazing. I love my Mac and have no intentions on going back to a PC. Hopefully soon I'll be able to afford a Mac Pro with one of them fancy cinema displays!

Again, thanks for the help!

--
Tim

 

[gaussian blur]

And just to clear things up... in case I didn't mention it in my
original post, I have a 24" iMac with 1 gig of memory with a 250 gig
hard drive.

You really need to add more memory.

If it's an aluminum iMac, it will support up to 4 gig, otherwise, up to 3 gig. It should not cost more than about $50 and it will make a HUGE difference, not just with Photoshop, but pretty much for everything. In fact, your scratch disk problems might even go away, since with enough memory, Photoshop won't need as much scratch disk space.

 

[DiploStrat]

This ain't that hard. (If you will forgive a little patronizing, many former PC users tend to over analyze problems on the Mac. Look for the easy way out.)

-- Your Photoshop scratch disk is simply any disk that you tell Photoshop to use. If you have only one hard disk, then that is it. Photoshop simply takes as much space as you allow it to use as work space. When you close Photoshop, the space is freed up. There is no maintenance required. Photoshop will try to grab the same amount of space the next time it starts. Now if your only disk is too full of other stuff, then you may have a problem - but there is never a need to "clean" your scratch disk.

-- It sounds like your real problem is that your hard disk may be full. (You should not be more than 50% full to allow for system scratch files, etc.) Plug in another one - they're cheap. Your iMac almost certainly does Firewire 400, 800 is better. Plug it in, the Mac will ask to format, say "yes" and your're done. Don't waste time or effort with USB 2,0 - it is simply too slow.

-- There is an entry under Photoshop "Preferences" which allows you to designate scratch disks and the order in which they are to be used. You should be able to designate your external drive here. (Natch, it has to be connected and running for Photoshop to see it.) If the Mac can't see your external drive, then use "Disk Utility" to format it. If it is full of data you need, then your Apple store may be willing to loan you hard disk space to park your data while you reformat your disk to Apple format. (Especially if you buy another disk from them.)

-- 2 GB of RAM is about the minimum for photo operations; 4 would be better.

-- If you are connected to the Internet, the last item on almost any top menu is "Help." You can get Apple to walk you through almost any process.

Don't Panic! (And good luck!)
--
DiploStrat ;-)

 

[gazza73]

Have a look in PS preference.

Photoshop > Preferences > Performance

In the scratch disk window what info do you see?

No 1. should be Macintosh HD with a tick in the active box and should list your free space.

How much free space does it list?

If it says anything else, eg you external HD that is not formatted or no ticks in any of the active boxes or has 0GB free space you have found your problem.

 

[Grant Hutchins]

It could also be an older model Mac.

I went on the information OP provided and made some assumptions based on that using some common sense. If he had something else, oh well. He's said his machine is a year old, so yeah, as long as by older you mean 1 year old. If OP has other than a mini, of course, load that puppy up with RAM. True he might have gotten an iMac with 1 gig of RAM, an assumption on my part that he didn't, because to do so would make no sense. Getting anything but a mini and putting 1 gig in it is akin to buying at least a moderately expensive car and replacing the engine with a lawn mower motor to save money, instead of buying a cheaper car to begin with. If you are on such a budget that you limit yourself to 1 gig of memory, you are on a very tight budget indeed. Who spends a minimum of $1200 bucks on an iMac to use with PShop and hobbles it to the point of being useless for anything but web browsing to save a couple hundred bucks on a little more RAM. Even most people who get a mini probably get it with 2 gigs, many are cramming more into it on there own. OP said he didn't want to buy Disk Warrior (not a bank breaker) and has 1 gig of RAM. That says tight budget and mini to me, though yes, I could be wrong.

The utility I suggested will help determine which files are taking up the most > space so that they can be identified and deleted if not needed. There's very little gain in deleting log files that are measured in kilobytes.

You're inner techno-geeking is getting the better of you and you're making it way too hard on the guy at least to start with. Uh, why not just look at the file size of your working files in the window? Or get info on the folder you store your working files? Or look at the bottom of any window to see what available space you have left. Or go under "about this Mac" to do the same. I never said for OP to go digging around looking for every little k sized file that he doesn't know what it does. The main things I suggested are:

1. Do as Apple suggests and let his maintenance ap do it's thing (so OP isn't messing with files that shouldn't be messed with but get dealt with properly—if it is a useless thing to do, Apple wouldn't have built it into their OS and suggest you do it).

2. I suggested he back up files if he can elsewhere so he can keep his hard drive clean, especially if he has one drive. OP was asking how to "clean his scratch disk." That's how you do it. Why do you need a special app to look at your hard drive to see how full it is? If you are running out of scratch disk space, common sense dictates that you start moving large files off your machine. I'm not talking about seeking out every teeny tiny file that OP doesn't know what it does. I'm taking about moving at least the largest files OP created and know what they are (like the kind you make in PShop) off the drive designated as scratch. If your hard drive is getting full, you need to back your stuff up elsewhere. Simple.

3. If you only have 1 gig of RAM, you don't need to waste your time peering at the activity monitor trying to track down or analyze how your computer is using resources. If you have limited RAM just don't run aps you don't need while your running the one you do need. Again, simple.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Something here is really odd / broken / Misunderstood. A Mac with 1Gig of memory will run Photoshop. It will be sluggish, but it will work. That isn't theory, I ran my little G4 ibook laptop with that amount of memory and Photoshop CS1 and CS3 both ran fine. Also, the OP seems to only have a problem with cropping? Too specific a problem to be low memory.

I believe the OP stated that he has already repaired permissions and ran disk first aid and threw away the Photoshop pref file and re-installed Photoshop. Unless the OP is talking about cropping a 300Meg image, I think his original plan of taking the (still under Applecare) computer to the genius bar at an Apple store is the best / easiest plan. I would certainly do that before wiping the entire system.

Working with someone "in person" can often clear up these things far faster than a discussion board. It is amazing the number of times we all do / set something "just a little bit wrong" and cause ourselves all sort of grief!

I'm wondering (I don't run Photoshop on a PC often) if this isn't more of a crop tool problem that a Mac problem. On a Mac (I think it is the same on a PC) when using the crop tool:

1) Open or make a conventional RGB JPG or Tiff or 35meg or less.

2) Select the crop tool and make sure the Options Bar is set to standard (nothing in the width or height). Hit the Options Bar clear button if needed. If you don't see the Options bar (usually at the top of your screen) go to WIndows > Options

3) Click and drag within the image to select your crop.

4) Hit the Return (or enter) key to complete the action.

Yes, yes.... I know you can work differently than above (larger images, PNG files, preset sizes in Options, CMYK, what ever). I'm trying to eliminate variables and determine where the OP's problem is.
--
Tom Ferguson
http://www.ferguson-photo-design.com

 

[Greg Eddinger]

I. Am. Going. Insane.

I've read just about every forum and article pertaining to what a
scratch disk is but I can't find any decent information on how to
clean it up.

I'm not sure this will solve your problem but this will help you clean your scratch disk and more.
"MacJanitor is freeware (AS IN FREE BEER)"



Go here for more info and to download
http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
I can't crop ANY simple graphic or photo anymore.

I'm not sure but I think I read that you deleted (hopefully just moved) your PS preferences if you did then Toms suggestion is mute point.

If you haven't deleted them then Tom's point is a possibility if you have some huge task that you are asking it to do.

--
Gregory Eddinger
Those that believe they can, CAN, because they BELIEVE!