Soph Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 Hi Brian/Damien My computer keeps crashing and I recall updates to operating systems and/or Photoshop being the cause. My max memory is also very poor (16GB), so I know this will need to be updated. What I’m looking for is a temporary solution while I have a big project on. Operating system - Ventura 13.3.1 Photoshop - 2023 version 24.5.0 Any insight to the perfect combination before updates messed everything up? Or is it just my memory that needs to be sorted? Thanks in advance. S P.S. I’m UK based Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Symonds Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 To be thorough, could you do this for us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 A few things come to mind: How full are your Hard Drives. It does not matter if they are internal or external. If ANY HD is 95% full or more, your computer will experience crashing. How old is your computer? Ventura might be the cause if your Mac is a few years old. How much crap do you have on your Mac Desktop. If you have 100's or 1000's of files / folders on your Desktop, the Mac OS treats those files as opened files. So fill out that form and let me know of the Make/Model/Year of your Mac along with the particulars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soph Posted June 21, 2023 Author Share Posted June 21, 2023 Morning both, Thank you for your time already. @Damien Symonds all done as requested: "I have a Mac desktop running 13.3.1 (a) (22E772610a) and Photoshop 2023 version 24.5.0. It is over 4 years old, and has 16GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 106.63GB free out of 2000GB. The last time I shut down was last night. I run a cleanup program about once a month." To be thorough, I have just been supplied some very large files hence the low GB availability (I am currently doing back ups to free up space), but even when I had 400GB available it was still crashing. @Brian - This is really useful thank you. My mac is about 5/6 years old so I'm conscious I'm probably buying myself time until a new one is needed – especially as my work load and type has shifted/increased since originally buying it. Currently I have 23 items on my desktop (low file size items). Thanks again both, Soph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 106.63 GB free sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. There are other cache files that are claiming that free area in addition to the PS Scratch Disk. 16GB RAM, that’s not good either. Well, it was fine 6 years ago, not so much in 2023. Since you don't have a lot of RAM, your HD is being utilized more to make up for it. These days you want at least 32GB at a minimum. Your main issue is lack of storage space. If this were the 1990’s, you just told be you have about 106MB free on a 1GB HD. Make sense? It’s a sliding scale; the terms describing the memory have changed, (MB —> GB & GB —> TB,) but the “Song Remains the Same.” Try to get that free storage up to around 400GB Free. You are at a little over 90% full now, which is not where you want to be. That said, above 95% full is even worse. My advice, clear up that HD and start saving for a new Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 Also, I just thought of one thing. Do you have any external drives mounted? If so, could you do a "Get Info" on them and take a screenshot and post the results here? Ventura really hates Windows Formatted HDs, or software that is used to act as a translator so your Mac can write to a Windows Drive. I've had several recent threads where people are having weird issues and crashes; it turns out their EHD was formatted to NTFS or exFAT. The Translation Software that they used was out of date, which resulted in not being 100% fully compatible with Ventura. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soph Posted June 22, 2023 Author Share Posted June 22, 2023 Morning both, Thanks so much. Yes the new mac is inevitable I think. I'll certainly free what I can though in the meantime. That's very informative on the hard drives – apart from my time machine drive I don't usually have hard drives on while I'm working (I do intermittent back ups on any breaks), and even my time machine I only switch on at the end of the day to do a back up as I literally only have what software that I need open. Been a few red flags for a while thinking about it 🙈 Thanks again for the reassurance and insight. What can I do compensate for your time? Soph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 Yeah, you will want to invest in an External Drive, such as a Thunderbolt External Drive. Not only will this allow you to back files up to it to increase your available storage, it will also help you transfer things to a new computer. I’m not to keen on using your Time Machine Drive to retire to a potential new computer with it crashing. I like and own Thunderbolt G-Drives. They are solid and beefy drives, but a little on the expensive side compared to the $99 special at a Big Box Store. I don’t mess around with my data, I want a quality HD. Here is one on Amazon: 4TB G-Drive (Thunderbolt 3) Quote Buy Brian a Beer!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soph Posted June 25, 2023 Author Share Posted June 25, 2023 Awesome stuff. I’ve actually got 2 of those so good to know I’ve bought right! Will just make sure to utilise them more. Donation made - hopefully enough to get a few bevies in! thanks again 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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