How large is your scratch disk?

[Aaron Sena]

I know people have asked this in the past and the answers have not been forthcoming.

So, what capacity drive do you use in your workstations for scratch? I'm trying to decide whether to go SSD or Spindle drive on my new PC build.

 

[Aaron McLane]

it's always better if your scratch disk is SSD. In AE CS6 it's amazing

 

[Will Keir]

I asked the same question a few months back and got some feed back but not on the level I was looking for. One advice I gleamed was to set your scratch disk as an external and if editing a feature at least 2TB.

Maybe someone with the real world experience could help us more.

 

[Kevin Burg]

I have a 128GB SSD as a scratch disk for CS6 - After Effects gives me messages it's not enough for the amount I have specified (80GB) which seems odd since it's been fine for CS5.5. Because of this my next SSD scratch disk will be 256GB. My guess is the higher amount is needed for the persistent cache CS6 uses... it just keeps more data around.

Those expansion card based scratch disk solutions look pretty good, so that's a consideration too. One option: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID

 

[Kwan Khan]

My Mobile Setup;
Power User MBP (Retina) with RR (in Sonnet EEP) + Cine-X 16 + CS6 + Resolve (Euphonix MC Color)

-500GB SSD for OS and project files

-For Cache, Stripped set with (2) OCZ 512GB and Seagate GoFlex Thunder Bolt Adapter (Pro - Bus-Powered) (con - single TB port)
******** Note: To take full advantage of CS6, buy Cache HD/SSD as fastest as you can, Specially for AE Disk Cache
******** In CS6 When you quite project, all your RAM cache (Green) wil be save in your Disk Cache (Blue)

For MEDIA , OWC Mercury Rack Pro with Hitachi 4TB Deskstar (Raid, 0)
Note: Will replace OWC Mercury Rack Pro with HighPoint Dual SATA 6G Thunderbolt Dock (Raid, 0) (will test soon)

For All Pre RENDERs in Cache Drive for now (Will wait for TB hub or 1TB SSD which ever come first)

For Backup, OWC Mercury Rack Pro with Hitachi 4TB Deskstar (Raid, 5)
Note: Will replace OWC Mercury Rack Pro with HighPoint Dual SATA 6G Thunderbolt Dock (Raid, 1) (will test soon)

 

[Melih Engin Eskier]

We provide our customers 4 128 GB SSDs at the company where I work when we go to shootings and the production houses provide us 500 GB scratch disks to store and carry the footage recorded for either offline or online editing.

 

[Sean Tabler]

In my mac pro I use two of the internal hdd bays and raid them together at raid 0, using identical 1tb or 2tb drives. I get close to 200MB/s read and write. This probably isn't as fast as an SSD but it's cheap, large and works great for renders and exports with out the need for external hardware.

 

[Aaron Sena]

Thanks for all the responses guys! I'll probably go with two large raided SSDs. I'd consider that PCIe based solution for larger jobs.

 

[Brian Merlen]

My job uses a 32tb NAS server, but its a big gig...