Photoshop invisible scratch files: separate partition recommended

Regarding our recent coverage of Photoshop scratch file problems (see item from Saturday), Frank Marder writes: "Adobe has long suggested the use of a separate scratch partition for Photoshop intensive usage. I have as a matter of course been configuring systems with a 2GB partition which in these days of 20GB disks is pretty reasonable. For systems where the PhotoShop files are extremely large, I've configured appropriately larger scratch partitions. I have seen this problem and at least in the cases I've seen they are crash related. Sometimes, a large file resides in the Recoverable Items folder which is usually in the Trash after a restart. In any case, with a separate scratch partition, you can just erase the whole partition to fix the problem. Also, this partitioning is not a waste of disk space as Photoshop is going to create the files on the Startup Disk by default. Also, this reduces fragmentation problems and results in greater system stability."