when I am editing photos on my Asus all-in-one windows 10, I experience a decrease of SSD space and sometimes have a low disk space error. The SSD is not huge to begin with so I usually install apps on drive D: to keep the SSD (C:) as free as possible. My guess is that the Photolab 4 cache and Database is being filled on drive C and causing the problem and error. Is there a way to move these two items to another drive like drive D: that has plenty of room. How about other options to resolve this issue?
Since you SSD drive is not large I believe you will get better performance if you run the apps from the SSD drive and keep the data on your other drive. Where is your cash and database? What size did you set for the cache?.
The cache & database are on the SSD, I have experimented with cache size. Right now it is set to minimum, 200 MB, and I just got another low disk error message. That is the reason why I wondered about moving them to drive D:.
Jim
On further research, I realized I was interpreting the problem wrong. It turns out that what is causing the problem is the log files generated to the documents folder when PL4 is run (4 Gigs worth). I’m not sure how they are generated or if they are even required, but as an experiment I moved them out of the SSD to another drive and gained 4 GB of SSD space and it doesn’t seem to affect PL4 performance. Any advice what their use is and how and/or I can eliminate their generation if they are not essential?
118GB SSD/5.51GB free after deleting log files. Also 931GB HDD, 741GB free. I think deleting the log files will help solve the problem. I want to figure out if I can stop having the log files copy to the SSD.
118gb on your main C: drive is more than enough. I would strongly suggest you move all your photos to the other disk and just keep the ssd for windows and programs. There is more than enough space for that setup.
That is exactly what I have done. All my photos are on two SSD drives and one HHD drive. Most of my apps are on internal HDD drive D: with only a few on C: drive. With 5+ GB on c drive I will probably be in good shape if I can control the log file input.
I think what we are suggesting is to do the opposite. You SSD C Drive should be running Windows and your programs and your data should be on your HDD unless there is room enough on your second SDD. Where is your Documents folder? The DXO log file folder is located there and you certainly don’t want a growing Documents folder on a small SDD C drive.
I have a 128 GB SDD C Drive. I know you believe your SDD is only 118GB, but its actually a 128GB drive as well. The way Windows displays the size of the disk and how much space has been allocated can be confusing… In any case, the only things on my C drive is Windows 10 and most of my programs. My Documents folder is ion my HDD D: drive along with the rest of my data, including all my images. If you have a second SDD drive use it however you see fit, However, I think using your C drive the way you are is problematic. Having so little available space on the drive you are runnings Windows on can cause a real problem.
I think it is becoming clearer. Here is how my apps etc are distributed on my system: on drive C: Exposure x5, Skylum software, Topaz Labs, PL 4, Film Pack 5. On Drive D: Lightroom 5 (never use), PL 3 (could delete). My photo archives are on (external) a 1TB SSD, a 2TB SSD and a 2TB HDD. My docs file is on drive C, but I moved the PL 4 log files to drive D to a folder called DxO PhotoLab 4 logs mainly to see what difference that would make to drive C space. It did gain me about 4GB more space (there was a ton of log files there) so C now has about 5GB of free space. The question is, does moving the log files to D affect PL 4 operation or does it recognize the move or care. Will PL 4 again regenerate the folder put log files in the documents folder? do I somehow have to program PL 4 to recognize the new location or just occasionally go in and delete these files that I don’t need or use. I don’t think it really matters to it if I interpret what I read in my research. What is your opinion? All I know now is PL 4 is running ok with no low drive space errors showing up recently.
Hi Jim. PL4 doesn’t know that you’ve moved the log files to drive D. It will simply start all over again with a new file. Depending on how much you use PL4 you will have to delete the file every few days to few weeks. I use PL4 a lot so I have to delete it about every other day. To my knowledge there is no way to redirect PL4 to store the logs on any other disk.
I kind of figured so, that’s why I mentioned occasional deletion as an option. You would think that since the files aren’t much use to a normal user, there would be an option to disable or redirect their use.
Your C drive should not be that full if that is all you have on it. Have you run the disk cleanup function to clear space? Go to properties for the drive where you will find the cleanup function. You can also choose to cleanup system files and choose to delete old windows update files, this should give you more space.
As a last resort you can shrink or move your swap file but that is an advanced process to perform.
I’m amazed that anything much runs with only 5GB available on your C: drive. As far as I can remember from before I went Mac, it was always advised to never fill the drive more than ⅔ full, to allow room for the Windows memory swap files that get created when available memory gets low.
You can create a fixed size swap file and even place it on another disk if you like. If creating a fixed size swap file a rule of thumb is to create it double the size of your RAM, so if you have 8Gb of RAM then create a swap file of size 16Gb.
I still think 118 Gb used space is a lot for what you say is installed on the C drive. Windows should not take up much more than about 30Gb, then add swap file and programs should not add up to 118Gb. You must have a lot of files in your user directory so go and look there for space usage. The other culprit for chewing storage is old windows update files.
With all the photo a software development apps on my machine, along with system files, that comes to about 50GB. But then app (Apple’s Xcode software development tool) takes up 30GB of that
It depends upon how many of the Topaz Labs standalone Apps he has. These things contain lookup tables and are HUGE, from 2-3GB each. This is one of my main complaints about AI apps.
I have tried to run disk cleanup, that is what I normally run to clear new disk space, but have run into a problem just recently where it hangs when it gets to “language resource files” so I have resorted to manual cleanup like deleting temp files and downloads till I can fix that problem.
Tip (For What It’s Worth): One thing I did with my new Windows 10 laptop when I got it (internal SSD as C drive and HDD as D drive) was to right-click on properties for Pictures folder and for Documents folder and point them to the same location on the D drive. In my case, both have plenty of room (512GB SSD and 1TB HDD) but I didn’t want to clutter the C drive with everyday storage. I install all applications to the C:\Program Files and/or (x86) folders, but since documents/photos/etc., default now to D drive I don’t have to try and remember to move anything.
Did you check the RAM memory size of your computer? It took a to see [quote=“KeithRJ, post:15, topic:18109”]
You can create a fixed size swap file and even place it on another disk if you like. If creating a fixed size swap file a rule of thumb is to create it double the size of your RAM, so if you have 8Gb of RAM then create a swap file of size 16Gb.
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Installing more RAM will reduce the number op swap file data transfers.
In my case: I’m using a 10 year old i7 870. With a 12MP and 16 MP camera and Capture NX-2 the 4 GB RAM was enough. With a 20 MP camera and the forced move to Capture NX-D it showed out that CNX-D used over 4GB of RAM. The swap file grew in size and the number of data transfers exploded.
The size of the swap file does not matter on a 1 TB disk, but the number of data transfers does matter. It reduces lifetime of the disk. And for a SSD this is even more important.
Log files can be deleted. They are just there for investigation of problems by a technician. (see other posts in this thread aboutr it)
