Bridge-CS6 -- Best Place to Locate the Br Cache ?

[gerryp123]

The cache for Br-CS6 is currently in its default location on my C drive, which is a fast SSD. Given the relatively small size of this drive I'm concerned that the more I use Bridge its cache size will grow very large. Seems easy to relocate this cache to my internal data HD. A bit slower, but much larger memory.

Make sense? Any downside?

[Manfred M]

The cheapest solution is to load up with RAM on your computer; that way cache will generally not be a problem; I use 16GB on both of my machines (which is OS limited). I use traditional hard drives and the only time I notice any real slow operation is when I save large (many MB files). I can't think of any time that I have had cache issues.

[gerryp123]

I also have 16 GB of RAM, but that is not the core of my concern.

My C-drive SSD memory is limited, so I'd not like to use it for cache storage if possible. Right now the problem is insignificant, but cache size is sure to grow in the future.

[James G]

Gerry, following on from Manfred's reply, I have assigned all cache files to a separate physical hard drive from my system disk. This is in addition to having maxed the RAM (24 gb) for my system.

I run cs6 and a number of other applications which can be resource hungry (not photography related). I don't have an ssd and have never had a problem with the bridge cache.

I have also moved my scratch files to a separate hard drive to optimise performance on the system disk.
I also installed a 'fast' graphics card with 2gb of memory on the card to speed up rendering of large images.

I keep all my digital images ( Source /raw and processed), on a separate hard drive from both operating system, and the cache/scratch disc.

Finally, if you have not done so already, check your bridge and cs6 preferences for memory and cache usage and ensure that you have assigned the optimum for Photoshop.

Hope this helps, James

[Manfred M]

The issue with Bridge seems to be that it want to write to the C:\ drive only whereas Photoshop lets me put it on other hard drives. You can set maximum size of the cache, but that really is pretty well all one can do. Once the cache is full; I assume Bridge will overwrite old files.

Compacting your cache from time to time may speed things up, but Bridge is not blazingly fast at the best of times.

[James G]

Hi Manfred, am I missing something?
I've had no problem specifying an alternate drive as a cache location from the Preferences>Cache tab in Bridge. I've loaded CS6 onto a Windows 8 64 bit O/S.

As regards setting the size, I have a value of about 400,000 set and that seems to work well for me. I do note though that when I want to review images in my archive, rather than my working directories, (I have about 32000 archived items), the thumbnails need to be regenerated and the speed of regeneration is directly proportional to the number of items in the directory being revisited (no real surprise there though!).

I suppose I could speed things up a bit if I had not clicked the option to keep 100% previews in cache, but in general, I don't find any problems with this.

From my point of view I find that processing time for large stitches (15+ image), etc and subsequent graphics rendering are what slows down processing and unfortunately these are more an issue with my processor and graphics card.

I have a nephew, a physicist, with "a brain like planet" who works for a well known 'super computer' company, and I believe he can execute calculations involving massive parallel transactions (500,000 simultaneously!) but he won't let me have access to his toys! , I am thinking of striking him out of my will! I guess I'll just have to stick with my system as it is.
James

[Manfred M]

James - I'm running CC on Win 7 64 and Bridge will only let me assign the cache to the C:\ drive. Photoshop, on the other hand lets me pick any and multiple drives for the cache. I haven't dug all that deep on in it.

So far as I know, the only use of the graphics in Photoshop are are some minor image manipulation things like rotating the image while you work on it, scrubby zoom, the warp tool and some filters, etc. (all fairly light duty stuff); and all you need is a graphics card that supports OpenCL . Some of the Adobe video processing software like Premeire Pro and After Effects can use nVidia Cuda cards and the speed increase is amazing.

Your Photostitch has nothing to do with Bridge; this is a Photoshop function and is very, very processor intensive, so no wonder that it takes some time to run. I do some from time to time and will generally take a short break while the computer is doing its thing. It this is what is causing your "slowdown"; that is not at all surprising; there are a lot of calculations happening.

[James G]

Manfred, I probably muddied the waters a bit over Photoshop.

What was puzzling to me was that Bridge Cache is confined to the system drive.



Set cache preferences
1. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Adobe Bridge > Preferences (Mac OS).
2. Click Cache.
3. Do any of the following:
Keeps 100% previews of images in the cache to speed zoom operations in a slide show or in full-screen
preview, and when using the Loupe tool. Keeping 100% previews in cache, however, can use significant disk space.
Creates exported cache files in the viewed folder, if possible. For example, you
cannot place cache files in a folder on a read-only disc. Exporting cache files is useful when, for example, you share images, because the
images can display faster when viewed in Adobe Bridge on a different computer.
Specify a new location for the cache. The new location takes effect the next time you start Adobe Bridge.
Drag the slider to specify a larger or smaller cache size. If the cache is near the defined limit (500,000 records) or the volume
that contains the cache is too full, older cached items are removed when you exit Adobe Bridge.
Optimize cache by removing obsolete records to reduce the total number of records.
Delete the entire cache, freeing room on the hard drive.

[James G]

Manfred, Sorry I muddied the waters a bit over Photoshop, you are right about Photostitch, I forgot that Bridge invokes Photoshop start up for this.

What was puzzling to me was that your Bridge Cache is confined to the system drive.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is something that is restricted with a CC implementation. My CS6 installation is a perpetual licence version, pre CC.

There is a Bridge Reference PDF available from the Adobe Help pages site which includes a section ' Work with the Adobe Bridge Cache' and says the following: -

Set cache preferences
1. Choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Adobe Bridge > Preferences (Mac OS).
2. Click Cache.
3. Do any of the following:
Keep 100% Previews in Cache: Keeps 100% previews of images in the cache to speed zoom operations in a slide show or in full-screen
preview, and when using the Loupe tool. Keeping 100% previews in cache, however, can use significant disk space.
Automatically Export Caches to Folders When Possible: Creates exported cache files in the viewed folder, if possible. For example, you
cannot place cache files in a folder on a read-only disc. Exporting cache files is useful when, for example, you share images, because the
images can display faster when viewed in Adobe Bridge on a different computer.
Location: Specify a new location for the cache. The new location takes effect the next time you start Adobe Bridge.
Cache Size: Drag the slider to specify a larger or smaller cache size. If the cache is near the defined limit (500,000 records) or the volume
that contains the cache is too full, older cached items are removed when you exit Adobe Bridge.
Compact Cache: Optimize cache by removing obsolete records to reduce the total number of records.
Purge Cache Delete the entire cache, freeing room on the hard drive.

It certainly worked for me....

Mysteriouser and Mysteriouser as Alice didn't say....

[Manfred M]

Just an educated guess, but I suspect this may be related to the "Start Bridge at Login" option. The boot drive is the only one that can be guaranteed to be available at startup, and this avoids any technical issues with additional hard drives that may need specific drivers to load before they can be accessed.

[gerryp123]

So the consensus is:
>> I can locate the cache on a drive that is not the system (C) drve
>> Performance will not visibly suffer, especially if new drive is a fast WD Velocaraptor (10,000 rpm)
>> Start Br at Login (not planning to do this) might (or might not) present a problem

Thanks to all for your comments

[Manfred M]

Gerry; we can't see any option of putting the cache anywhere other than the boot drive, so I don't agree with your first statement.

Starting Br at start up consumes RAM on Win 7, but with the better memory management on Win 8, there may not be a penalty. I'm going to set up my Win 8 laptop to see what it does.

[Manfred M]

Interesting, I got at my laptop this morning and noted the following:

Bridge CC running under Windows 8 lets me set up the cache on all drives not just the boot dirve. Interesting that Windows 7 -64 does not permit this.

[James G]

Manfred, you pipped me! I have CS6 (Win 8 64 bit also) on my laptop so connected a portable disk.
I set Bridge Cache for the portable drive and viewed a few directories to populate it. I then set Bridge to load at Logon (not a setting I normally use). Then: -
1) Recycled system once to check Portable drive ok
2) disconnected portable drive and rebooted..... system came up, but notified me that there was a problem with Bridge Cache
3) reconnected the portable drive and rebooted .... no problem and Bridge was available through startup .

I was just going to post when your update came in.

I can't remember for certain if I was running Bridge cache on a separate drive before I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8, but I am sure that I have never set Bridge to load at Startup.

Also, although I purchased an upgrade (Win 7-8) I did do a rebuild on both machines because of the drivers etc for other devices that needed to be updated.

So.... All I can think to test now would be deactivating 'Load Bridge at Logon' and see if that makes a difference.