working from xternal or hard drive?

[clou]

Should I keep my pictures and digital kits on my hard drive or xternal? I read that the system will run slower if it is having to pull data from the xternal. Where do serious digi scrappers keep their data?

[PacificTonz]

I keep my most used / newer stuff on my hard drive with backup and some older stuff on the external drive. I think the external is slower for me but that may depend on your setup, I went for a really big external drive but didn't worry so much about speed.

[Amanda]

I do the same thing. Current things I am working with or on I keep on the computer with them backed up and older items on my external.

[Teresa]

I have yet to figure out how to segment the hard drive on my computer so for the past two weeks, I have been running all of photoshop straight from and external hard drive. It is very likely that Photoshop running on the same drive as my boot drive is what took down my computer. The layouts I create, however, are saved on the laptop. I have not noticed any problems.

[Lauren]

I put all my layouts and photos on my external - I dont notice any difference at all time wise - if there is a difference its milliseconds!!!

[Janet]

I think it depends on the connection between the two - I have a firewire between my laptop and my portable hard drive (to store oodles of vacation photos while on vacation) and there's no difference, but I have a USB connection between my main computer and the 1T drive that holds everything here, and that one is much slower. So, here, I put the current kits on the hard drive, with backups on the external drive - and all photos on the external - slower, but I know where everything is (mostly) that way.

[Penny M]

I keep my scrapbooking items on one EHD and pictures on another. I use a 3rd for backup. I intend not to run out of HD space for a long, long time. I really don't notice it taking too long to bring my scrapbook items into PSE from the EHDs.

[Jaylb]

I have used an external HD, for a while now and don't keep any thing on my main HD..I don't notice any problems at all!
I save everything to the external ..Photos, and all layouts kits etc. Never had a problem with them slow loading at all!
Jackie

[clou]

It looks as though we are doing this a number of ways & everyone seems to be happy with the results. I have noticed a lot of "grinding' sometimes when I have a large digital LO file open. It could be an issue with my PC. I have plenty of RAM so that's not the problem.

[Teresa]

Grinding is not a good sound. Photoshop likes memory and hard drive space. When I updated my laptop, I doubled my memory and my hard. Photoshop worked a whole lot quicker. Like I said previously, Windows boot drive files and too many temporary files created my photoshop can lead to some problems if they are on the same drive. Most PC's have different drives so that may not be an issue.

External or internal, back up often. We are creative people and it really stinks when you loose something that you put a whole lot of time into.

[KrystalW]

I have PS on my hard drive and all my kits on an external. Which...I need to back up, thanks for the reminder. :)

[Victoria]

This is an interesting thread. I have just bought a new desktop computer with more memory and a larger internal hard drive and another 500 gig external hard drive. I have been backing up to a portble drive which I use with with my laptop for digi scrapping. I have my kits and my photos on the portable, as well as my internal hard drive, but was thinking about using just the external for scrapping after setting up the new desktop, and continuing to keep a set of kits and photos on my portable drive. I have been buring my zipped files to DVD's, as well as the layered PSD files after printing, as these really eat up the disk space.

[sammdc]

i have all my stuff on an external and its as instant as my internal HD if not faster guess it depends on your system

[taralyn]

I have all my pics and kits on a 250 GB external and run PSE off my harddrive. It is WAY faster than having all of it on my itty bitty 30 GB, 6 year old harddrive :-) I also have a second 250 GB external as a back up.

[Whisper Pink]

my program is of course on my puter harddrive...but I run all my kits and pics off my external and what I notice is that my puter harddrive isn't bogged down by all my kits and pics, so it boots up quicker...even when I travel by car I use 1GB travel externals for my most recent kits and use CD's for my pics, but my large external still goes with me :D...never leave home without my scrapping stuff!!!
I will say though make sure you still have them backed up somewhere else, my external usb hub was failing me this week, and luckly I went the next day and bought a new 500GB external, just incase my other one gave out on me...everything is now backed up on my new external with room to grow :D...saved everything else on my 250GB external for a backup though.

[gammie]

I moved all my photos and clip art files to a external and see no slowness at all. My computer actually runs faster because it frees up my PC. My files are considered on my K drive and they open just as fast as any file on my c. Also in case my PC crashes everything is on external.

[kydeb]

I back up all my pictures and scrapbook files to external and then copy over what I want to use in a temp folder. When I finish, I delete the duplicates. Since I use a laptop and move around the house, keeping an external connected won't work for me.

[Lauren]

I back up all my pictures and scrapbook files to external and then copy over what I want to use in a temp folder. When I finish, I delete the duplicates. Since I use a laptop and move around the house, keeping an external connected won't work for me.
I use a laptop too and a portable external which I attach to my laptop with a hanging holder which I designed myself using a brochure holder and suction cups