Moving Scratch and Cache
I''m about to move Scratch and Cache folders in 2020.1 to an external drive, under Windows 7. This is primarily to save some space on my OS (C:) drive (which is an SSD HD).
Will there be any (performance) benefit in choosing an external SSD External over a mechanical drive. Of course the SSD is faster, but will I see any difference in 2020.1 performance ?
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Absolutely. Moving the Scratch space to an SSD is probably the best thing you can do for performance after a bigger, faster GPU. Be sure to give it its now connection to your system. You don't want it to be connected through a hub or daisy chained with another drive. You want it to have its own dedicated I/O channel for best performance.
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That path is the default cache location. What the message is telling you is that the program could not find the scratch folder at the specified location so it is going to create a new one at the default location which coincidentally is the location shown.
After making the move to the new scratch SSD if that drive is disconnected when you launch the program you'll see the same message during startup. Just Quit the program and reconnect the scratch drive then start it again and all will be well.
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Brian:
I'm still confused about the location of the Scratch Folder and Browser Cache Folder. Here is what I think:
Scratch Folder: The path C:\Users .....Roaming\ON1\On1 Photo Raw 2017 does not exist, so I need to move my Scratch Folder from the default location -- which is C:\Users .....Roaming \ON1\On1 Photo Raw 2020. Correct ? This folder contains an assortment of files and folders that use about 26 GB of memory. Nearly all of this memory is used in PhotoSettings Cache and NDService sub folders.
Browse Cache Folder: The path C:\Users .....Roaming\ON1\PerfectBrowserCache exists so I need to move my Browse Cache Folder form this location. Correct? This folder contains an assortment of files and folders that use 250 MB of memory.
The low memory usage for the Browser Cache is probably because I am not using any Browse Module Catalogs or Albums, and I am not using any Cloud services. Nearly all the memory is used in the FastBrowse sub-folder
To relocate each of these two folders I click on Move, select one of the the above folders, click Next, and (I assume) point to the location of my new external SSD.
Have I got this right? Anything else that I need to do? Sorry for all the details, but I really want to get this right.
Gerry
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No problem Gerry, I'm here to help. :) You have it mostly right. I'm not sure why the program wants to use a 2017 version's scratch space. It doesn't matter though. The program uses C:\Users\…\Roaming\ON1\ON1 Photo RAW 2020 directory for lots of other stuff than just the scratch space. You won't see any difference in drive usage after doing the move as the scratch files are temporary and invisible. Those others are permanent. Even if you monitor the scratch space while editing you won't see any files being created or removed.
Moving the PerfectBrowseCache will show space being used on the scratch drive and you can delete that folder from the C: drive once the move has finished. The program doesn't actually "move" the space; it copies it leaving the original in place. That cache will grow over time as you browse to more and more locations in your library and of course if you decide to use any Catalogs.
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Brian:
After our several conversations I decided to move 2020.1 Scratch Folder and Browser Cache from main drive (C) to an external SSD drive (G) connected via rear USB, on my Windows 7 PC. Moving the Browser Cache seemed to go fine. The Preferences-System pane shows a new location of G:\PerfectBrowser Cache as expected, and the memory used correctly transferred from C to G drive
When I attempted the same procedure with the Scratch Folder I encountered a problem. Before the move the Scratch Folder used 25.36 GB in C, located at the default* location C...\Roaming\ON1\ON1PhotoRaw2020
In the Preferences-System menu I selected the new G drive and hit Move and received an indicator to close and re-open ON1. After closing and re-opening 2020.1 I see on the Menu that the Scratch Folder is now located at G:\ON1 Photo RAW 2020Cache as expected, but the memory size is 0. No memory (25.36 GB) was moved from C to G.
Need your advice on how best to proceed. What does the Browse Cache Reset button do? I probably need to reset the Scratch Folder to its original C location and repeat the procedure ??. Perhaps there is another way.
Any advice ?
* You may recall that originally the Scratch Folder could not be found at the identified "ON1PhotoRAW2017" location, and was built at the default location "ON1PhotoRAW2020" . Not sure if this has any bearing on the problem above.
Gerry
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Gerald, it might help if you read this section...
Q. What are the proper settings for me in the System tab of Preferences?
in this article...
https://on1help.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035750991-Catalogs-and-Caches-ON1-Photo-RAW-2020
Somehow you are confusing Cache and memory. That article might help.
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I wrote this 2 hours ago but for some reason never submitted it. DOH!
I have never seen my scratch folder go above 0GB even while I was editing images. I know it is being used as I can see its activity light and the system monitors show the program's disk I/O. It is all temporary work space so I believe it should stay at 0 when not in use. Why I'm not seeing any usage during editing I haven't figured out yet.
I would not be concerned that you are not seeing any space used after the move. Why you show that use in your original scratch location I don't know either unless it is just accumulated cruft from program crashes not allowing the cache to be cleared properly.
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Thanks Brian;
Here is the source of my confusion
My default Scratch folder C...Roaming \ON1\PhotoRAW PR2020 is a big memory hog at ~25 GB, mostly in the sub folders PhotoSettingsCache (20GB) and NDService (5 GB). When I moved the Scratch folder to an external drive I thought the entire default folder would be moved (as was the case when I moved the Browse Cache), thus returning 25 GB of memory to C.
I guess the mechanism for Scratch is different. Perhaps ON1 "Move" simply sets a pointer to the external drive location so that it can be used as a temporary work space. Make sense? Do you know the sort of actions that take place in the scratch space, and whether allocating these to a dedicated external drive improves performance?
So installing an external drive did not save me as much C memory space as I thought it would -- only about 0.25 GB for the relocated Browse Cache. Perhaps this memory would be greater if I used Browse for image cataloging and management. Perhaps I'll give this a try.
Some final question -- Is there a way to restore things to "no external drive", or are the external locations now written into ON1 RAW? Will a Move back to original locations do this? Would a re-install of ON1 RAW take things back to their default state?
Gerry
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The scratch location is used for other things besides the scratch space. Moving the scratch space does not move all that other stuff, just the location for where the program stores its temporary scratch (paper) files. I have just over 13K images in my library which is fully cataloged. My PhotoSettingsCache is 5.6GB and the NDService database is around 9.4GB. Those files remain on the boot drive. Moving the scratch space isn't about saving space on the boot drive. Its purpose is to move that space's I/O needs off the boot drive for better performance. The space savings comes if you choose to move the Perfect Browse Cache as well.
I don't recommend it since you'll take a performance hit but yes, you can reset the preferences and restore the scratch space to its default location on the boot drive by clicking the Reset button in Preferences > System > Browse Cache. No, reinstalling the software will not restore things as it won't overwrite the preferences already set. You'd have to first delete _everything_ the program installed and wrote to the registry for that to happen. Much easier to use the Reset function built into the program.
You can also reset the program to its installed defaults by holding the Alt key during the program's startup. You'll be presented with a dialog allowing you to reset your preferences or the entire program's settings.
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Got it -- Moving Scratch is for performance improvement; Moving Browser Cache is for freeing up memory on the boot drive.
I'm guessing that my external 500GB SSD is overkill. Perhaps there is some (non-photo) thing on my boot drive I can re-locate.
I gather that you are making extensive use of catalogs and other Browse features. Approximately how much memory on your relocated BrowserCache does this require for (say) your 13,000+ images?
I've run out of questions -- and you've answered them all. Thanks so much for sticking with me on this adventure.
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I have my entire Pictures folder cataloged. I also have 3 or 4 other subfolders cataloged as well (just for ease of access) which I'm assuming is going to duplicate some of the preview jpegs. My PerfectBrowseCache folder is 17.4GB. My Scratch drive is 120GB.
If you want to put other things on your external SSD I would partition it just to logically (and visually) keep things separate. I have a few other things on mine too but they are also scratch spaces for other programs. No documents of any kind.
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Currently using a 500GB SSD for only 2GB of storage. I know this will grow with cataloging, but could I get by just as well with 128 or 256 GB external flash drive? (Will probably only catalog a couple of thousand pix)
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Just partition your current drive. A flash drive probably won't be as fast nor last as long. Partitioning has the added advantage of not having to move everything again or rebuild on the new device.
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