Can I install a photo-editing app on it's own partition?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Claudia Sheridan
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Claudia Sheridan

I have heard some talk about creating a separate drive for storing graphics
and music files and I was wondering if anyone knew why this is? I am
working with a lot of image files at the moment via both a digital camera
and a scanner and when I work with them it slows down my laptop big time
when have Internet Explorer and other programs running at the same time. (I
use Ulead Photoimpact to edit them).
Could this be improved if the image files, or even the entire photo-editing
apps and files were all installed on another partition (ie. that I would
have one drive letter dedicated solely to image work)? My hard drive is 20GB
(11GB currently free) and my RAM is 512MB. There is already a small
partition (roughly 1GB) that came with the laptop which I assume to be for a
page file or bootup or whatever...
 
The reason to have a partition for graphics or data files is
one of file safety. If you have to format and reinstall
your operating system after some crash or failure, the data
files will be safe on the other partition.

Slow downs and such are a function of the CPU, installed RAM
[the more the better] and the speed of your hard drive. A
second hard drive will speed up operation because the two
drives can seek files and do read/write operations faster
than one drive with two or more partitions.

Laptops are almost always slower than desktops because of
power and heat issues. You trade convenience for speed.

If you must use the scanner and camera as data collection
you may not have many options, but for editing and such, you
should certainly get a robust desktop with max RAM, fast
CPU, fast hard drives, etc.


--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin
"Claudia Sheridan" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
|I have heard some talk about creating a separate drive for
storing graphics
| and music files and I was wondering if anyone knew why
this is? I am
| working with a lot of image files at the moment via both a
digital camera
| and a scanner and when I work with them it slows down my
laptop big time
| when have Internet Explorer and other programs running at
the same time. (I
| use Ulead Photoimpact to edit them).
| Could this be improved if the image files, or even the
entire photo-editing
| apps and files were all installed on another partition
(ie. that I would
| have one drive letter dedicated solely to image work)? My
hard drive is 20GB
| (11GB currently free) and my RAM is 512MB. There is
already a small
| partition (roughly 1GB) that came with the laptop which I
assume to be for a
| page file or bootup or whatever...
|
| --
|
| ´~°^§§§ Posted by Claudia §§§^°~´
|
|
 
In
Claudia Sheridan said:
I have heard some talk about creating a separate drive for
storing
graphics and music files and I was wondering if anyone knew why
this
is? I am working with a lot of image files at the moment via
both a
digital camera and a scanner and when I work with them it slows
down
my laptop big time when have Internet Explorer and other
programs
running at the same time. (I use Ulead Photoimpact to edit
them).
Could this be improved if the image files, or even the entire
photo-editing apps and files were all installed on another
partition
(ie. that I would have one drive letter dedicated solely to
image
work)?
Click to expand...


No. Whatever benefit there might be (probably little, in my view)
to creating a separate partition for these have to do with
organization and backup techniques.

Partitioning like this will not improve performance. Working with
image files is slower than with text files because image files
are usually bigger (thus taking up more memory, and thereby
creating the need for extra paging) and because it's a
CPU-intensive process.
 
Thanks Ken and Jim. I was hoping for some miracle cure short of buying a
new laptop :-( You mention the paging file - this is something I altered
about a month ago following various guidelines to have it approximately
double my RAM. I went into Windows virtual memory settings and set both the
minimum and maximum to 1000MB. I wasn't even thinking about photo-editing -
I was just doing what I thought was best for Windows - but do you think I
should create different settings than normal for this page file given that I
primarily use it for photos? I have a 20 GB hard drive (although it shows
as 18.6GB in "My Computer"), with 11.1 GB currently free, so as you can see
I am very tidy with my disk space! I have 512MB RAM. So should I increase
the parameters of the virtual memory?
 
I would leave the virtual memory set as it is for now, but
you should read the article
at http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm for a complete
explanation.

You need to keep at least 15-25% free disk space so that
Windows is able to write temp files quickly and also to
allow defrag to run [ that requires 15% free]. You should
clear temp files and run disk cleanup and defrag regularly.
Rebooting the computer before doing disk cleanup will allow
temp files to be closed and then deleted.

Having a laptop is a great convenience and can be essential
"on the road" for data collection and downloading your
photos or using the scanner. But you should really consider
a desktop for "home" use. If mobility is needed, they do
make desktop replacement laptops, that are larger, have
faster CPUs and more memory and can do just about anything a
desktop can do, but at a higher price.


--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin

"Claudia Sheridan" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
| Thanks Ken and Jim. I was hoping for some miracle cure
short of buying a
| new laptop :-( You mention the paging file - this is
something I altered
| about a month ago following various guidelines to have it
approximately
| double my RAM. I went into Windows virtual memory
settings and set both the
| minimum and maximum to 1000MB. I wasn't even thinking
about photo-editing -
| I was just doing what I thought was best for Windows - but
do you think I
| should create different settings than normal for this page
file given that I
| primarily use it for photos? I have a 20 GB hard drive
(although it shows
| as 18.6GB in "My Computer"), with 11.1 GB currently free,
so as you can see
| I am very tidy with my disk space! I have 512MB RAM. So
should I increase
| the parameters of the virtual memory?
|
| --
|
| ´~°^§§§ Posted by Claudia §§§^°~´
message
| | > In | > Claudia Sheridan <[email protected]>
typed:
| >
| >>I have heard some talk about creating a separate drive
for storing
| >> graphics and music files and I was wondering if anyone
knew why this
| >> is? I am working with a lot of image files at the
moment via both a
| >> digital camera and a scanner and when I work with them
it slows down
| >> my laptop big time when have Internet Explorer and
other programs
| >> running at the same time. (I use Ulead Photoimpact to
edit them).
| >> Could this be improved if the image files, or even the
entire
| >> photo-editing apps and files were all installed on
another partition
| >> (ie. that I would have one drive letter dedicated
solely to image
| >> work)?
| >
| >
| > No. Whatever benefit there might be (probably little, in
my view) to
| > creating a separate partition for these have to do with
organization and
| > backup techniques.
| >
| > Partitioning like this will not improve performance.
Working with image
| > files is slower than with text files because image files
are usually
| > bigger (thus taking up more memory, and thereby creating
the need for
| > extra paging) and because it's a CPU-intensive process.
| >
| > --
| > Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| > Please reply to the newsgroup
| >
| >
|
|
 
In
Claudia Sheridan said:
Thanks Ken and Jim. I was hoping for some miracle cure short
of
buying a new laptop :-( You mention the paging file - this is
something I altered about a month ago following various
guidelines to
have it approximately double my RAM. I went into Windows
virtual
memory settings and set both the minimum and maximum to 1000MB.
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Glad to help.

Unfortunately, the advice you got to alter your page file
settings was very poor. Setting the minimum that high is almost
certainly unnecessary, and just wastes hard drive space. For
better advice, read http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

I
wasn't even thinking about photo-editing - I was just doing
what I
thought was best for Windows - but do you think I should create
different settings than normal for this page file given that I
primarily use it for photos? I have a 20 GB hard drive
(although it
shows as 18.6GB in "My Computer"), with 11.1 GB currently free,
so as
you can see I am very tidy with my disk space! I have 512MB
RAM. So
should I increase the parameters of the virtual memory?
Click to expand...


No, you should *decrease* the minimum. See the web site I
recommend above.
 
I'm with Ken in this thread on the minimum setting for the page file.
However, since you are doing a lot of photo editing, I'd strongly recommend
using the using the "System Managed" setting. 512MB of Ram is more than
adequate for XP for normal use and your page file settings are also fine but
when you are doing photo editing, the page file may need to grow quite a bit
larger than normal.

If it bumps up against a maximum you have set you might start getting a lot
of increase page file setting notices or the system might hang or crash
depending upon how cooperative the photo editing software is with your
setup; that's cooperative not compatible. You see, some apps can be quite
finicky and if they don't get what they want, they throw a tantrum and the
system hangs or crashes.
 
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