Opinion on setting external scratch disk?

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I've got a MPB, and use a Time Machine for backup... I'm considering adding an external SSD drive just to use as a Photoshop scratch disk. My question: as far as the Time Machine goes, would I be better to put the SSD before or after the the TM in the FW800 chain, or on a separate path, or does it even matter?
thanks!
 
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If you're using FW800, skip the SSD. The bus is slow enough that you'll see NO speed advantage over a rotational drive. (the bus is the bottleneck here) I'm not even sure I'd use a FW attached drive as a scratch disk to be honest.
 
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The best place for a scratch disk is on a separate partition from the OS. So if you really want optimal performance, either repartition your internal HD, or install another HD. SSD would be best for a new installation. Otherwise, as has already been said, it wouldn't make much of a difference, unless perhaps if it was an Thunderbolt or eSATA drive.

Doug
 
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ok thanks--so eSATA is better than FW800...in that case, I may not need to buy another drive--one of the 1TB G-Drives I have behind the TIme machine could work as a scratch disk, if it was set up as eSATA then? They have eSATA ports on them, but I couldn't seem to get them to connect that way, so I used the FW800 ports... would I be correct to assume that?
 
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Got an esata card?
 
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no wait, I didn't think of that--the MBP is an i5 that I got in Nov2010 as my first Mac, with 8GB of RAM in it; it doesn't have an eSATA port, but does have a PC card slot... what I remembered was trying to connect the 2 GDrives with the eSATA cable.
hmm... so if FW800 is the fastest port on the MBP, is it pointless to add an external scratch disk?
 

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