Out of Memory 2

[fj80alex]

I’ve been working on computers for a long time, but I haven’t come across this issue yet.
Customer brought me a desktop computer and asked me to install second hard drive (4TB) for storing pictures because the main hard drive (1TB) had only 12% space left. Customer is a professional photographer and doing lots of picture editing using Corel X5, Photoshop, Publisher and other Microsoft programs.

Here is details/specs about desktop (about 2.5 years old)

Quad core Intel i5-3000 series (don’t remember exactly), 8GB of Memory, 2 DVD-RW drives.

1TB Main drive with Windows 7 Home 64-bit

I added 4TB drive (I had to format it as GPT because Windows 7 will not recognize more than 2TB.)

Customer called me and stated that he is getting message when he is using Publisher, Photoshop etc.
All the software is installed on C (Main Drive).

“Out of Memory. There is not enough memory to complete this operation.
To Free memory, close other programs and try again"

Do you think that adding 4TB hard drive (strictly for storage) could cause that message or??????????????

Thank you for any suggestions, recommendations???

 

[xwb]

It is saying out of memory: not out of disk space so the 12% 1TB has nothing to do with it. Is he trying to process a very big photo with a 32-bit application. Might be worth changing to a 64-bit version of his tools.

 

[ChrisHirst]

because Windows 7 will not recognize more than 2TB.)

20 years ago, you would have been [almost] correct with that assertion. Not true today. Mainly because you are missing some information in your claim. This is ONLY true now if you change the default cluster size on a NTFS file system to 512 bytes.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com...erstanding-the-2-tb-limit-in-windows-storage/

Do you think that adding 4TB hard drive (strictly for storage) could cause that message

Absolutely NOT!!

Customer called me and stated that he is getting message when he is using Publisher, Photoshop etc.
All the software is installed on C (Main Drive).

Absolutely nothing at all to do with where the software is, and everything to do with what the software is.

Several possibilities come to mind; [in no particular order]
1: The software the client is using is 32bit.
2: The 'scratch file size' for Adobe Photoshop is insufficient
3: Windows swap file (Virtual memory) is set incorrectly, Set a fixed swap file of 2.5 x real memory (RAM)

And all these are software and OS issues not hardware.

see forum1726, forum68, forum229 for more specific assistance.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.

Never mind this jesus character, stars had to die for me to live.

 

[SamBones]

xwb is correct, it's RAM, not disk space that's the problem.

And I'm a photographer too. 8 GB is WAAAY to small for any kind of image editing. If he's shooting RAW with a modern high megapixel camera, 8 GB is like trying to play basketball in a phone booth. There will be problems.

Find out what the max memory is on his PC and upgrade it to that. Or to the most he can afford. He'll find all his image handling and editing will be MUCH faster.

Also, let him know that putting all of his images on one system is VERY dangerous. What you need to do is recommend an external SAN or NAS drive that has multiple drives for redundancy and is larger (after configuration and formatting) to hold at least 2 to 3 times what he has now for images on the PC. Then, set him up with a batch job that runs regularly and mirrors his PC with the SAN/NAS using robocopy. Robocopy is free, there are also commercial tools he could use too.

Then, in the event of fire, he runs to grab the SAN drive on the way out the door. Life's work saved! Much easier and safer than trying to disconnect a PC and drag it out the door.

He should also backup to a cloud based storage if he can, but cheaper would be periodically burning images to CD/DVD and sending them to his parent's house for them to put in a shoebox in the closet.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!"

 

[strongm]

> burning images to CD/DVD
?
Tricky fitting 8GB images on CDs and DVDs ...

 

[fj80alex]

SamBones,

I have to find out if he experienced the same issue (Out of memory) before he asked me to install secondary drive to his computer because the main drive (1TB) was at 85% capacity. So, I added 4TB hard drive (formatted as GPT) and copied all of his pictures, about 700GB to the secondary drive. Deleted pictures from the main drive. Used MyDefrag utility to defragment and than consolidate free space on main drive. He is saying that he is getting that message even when he is using Microsoft Publisher. I will post an update if he was experiencing the same issue (out of memory) before asking me to add a secondary drive. Thank you!

 

[goombawaho]

Can't imagine that it wouldn't have been happening before as well. Adding a hard drive and moving data off of it doesn't provoke memory problems/running out of memory!

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[fj80alex]

I will check Event Viewer and check if he was getting that message before I added secondary drive.

 

[ChrisHirst]

Tricky fitting 8GB images on CDs and DVDs ...

Dual layer DVDs are 8.5GB capacity.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.

Never mind this jesus character, stars had to die for me to live.

 

[strongm]

Chris, as I am sure you are aware Windows actually reports sizes in (power 2) units such as KiB, MiB and GiB. Whilst DVD capacities are quoted in (power 10) GB. The actual capacity of a dual layer DVD is 7.92GiB, so a file Windows reports as 8Gb (actually 8GiB) will not fit on it.

 

[Nelviticus]

Nobody said anything about the images being 8GB in size on disk - the 8GB referred to is the amount of memory the machine has.

In any case, images take up far less space on disk than they do in memory when you display/edit them. A 3.4MB JPEG file I have here takes 23.7MB of RAM to display.

Nelviticus

 

[strongm]

>Nobody said anything about the images being 8GB in size
Fair point; I clearly wasn't paying full attention ...

> images take up far less space on disk than they do in memory
Compressed images, sure.

 

[xwb]

Sounds like some resident process is gobbling up all the memory. Have a look at the task manager and sort by memory. Maybe it is as Chris says - you just need to increase the amount of virtual memory.

 

[SamBones]

My main point was, find a place offsite to backup your images. If you have single images that are 8GB (never heard of that before), then find something else that will work. Mail your parents a thumb drive.

Due to a hardware problem, I lost ALL of my son's high school football pictures. About two years worth of pics. Plus there was other stuff in there too (birthdays, vacations, etc). I have family members that have no pictures of their own kids before the age of 14 due to small disasters (except for ones that got printed). If it's important to you, make copies.

The point is, something like family pictures (or business pictures if you're a professional photographer), needs to be backed up AND copied offsite.

Back in the olden days, we got back an envelope with printed pictures and weird little plastic strips called negatives (or just slides). Years, or even decades later, you come across the negatives in a drawer or an old box, and sometimes find images of family members long gone. That doesn't seem to happen with digital. I have some old hard disks in the garage and I wonder what family images might be on them. The technology's so old I have no way to check without buying some old system on eBay. I can't just thumb through them, or hold them up to the light and say, "Hey, it's uncle Joe!"

BTW, I seem to be able to fit 500 to 1,000 high res 24 megapixel images on a DVD.

 

[ChrisHirst]

The technology's so old I have no way to check without buying some old system on eBay

Or you could just buy a hard drive 'dock' that has both IDE (2.5" and 3.5" variants) and SATA and plug your 'old' drives into that (SCSI docks are also available).
Also you should note that Thumb/Flash drives are not permanent storage, unless measures are taken to 'refresh' the electrical charge periodically.

My personal 'permanent' backup choice is a bunch of 'bare' hard dives in anti-static bags.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.

Never mind this jesus character, stars had to die for me to live.

 

[goombawaho]

My personal 'permanent' backup choice is a bunch of 'bare' hard dives in anti-static bags.

I don't know about the PERMANENT basis of this storage method. I mean, won't hard drives degrade over time if just left sitting for many many years. Plastic & metal parts, the motor, etc. Certainly not a bad idea, but NOT as the sole storage/long term backup method.

Would love to see something about putting a hard drive on a shelf for 20 years and pulling it out and using it ASSUMING you have a way to connect to modern equipment of the day.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[ChrisHirst]

I mean, won't hard drives degrade over time if just left sitting for many many years. Plastic & metal parts, the motor, etc.

No.

Hard drive motors (like all 'pancake' style stepping motors) only 'degrade' when being stopped and started too frequently. See Western Digital's fairly recent cockup with their Caviar "Green" range of drives.
All drives built in the last twenty years [at least] have 'magnetic auto parking' of the heads away from the platters, so stored drives are NOT going to suffer a head crash.
The plastic components used have a high tolerance range of operating temperatures. So unless you repeatedly cook, then freeze them while being stored, are not going to suffer from 'fatigue'. Metallic parts need to be continually stressed to fail. Drives packed in anti-static conditions are NOT under mechanical stress at any point.
The magnetic domains on the platters do not 'leak' unless they are in an intense oscillating magnetic field.

I don't need to 'assume' anything about this, as I do have drives that ARE twenty years old and still readable/operational.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.

Never mind this jesus character, stars had to die for me to live.

 

[kjv1611]

Nice summary, Chris. Some good information some of which I was not aware.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[goombawaho]

I still don't believe this as absolute and would not rely on a HDD as a single form of long term storage. And here's why. You're talking about theoreticals. Your statement of your own success is not a predictor for all people/scenarios.

The plastic components used have a high tolerance range of operating temperatures.

There are several HDD suppliers, many drive models, many components going into the manufacture of each drive. All it takes is one component to be defective or out of spec, whether it comes from the manufacturer (e.g. Seagate) or another supplier. And we all know from looking at cars that at any point in the manufacturing chain, either a manufacturing process problem or a materials problem can cause failures down the line in unpredictable ways. Even if it was only certain batches of drives that might have a problem incorporated into them, I wouldn't want to find out the hard way.



"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[DaveInIowa]

Have you verified that you are still seeing the full 8GB of memory? Could you have dislodged one of the modules when installing the new drive? Maybe one of the module(s) has failed?