Choosing what to place on SSD

[lowepg]

Just built a new system and I'm BLOWN AWAY by the speed of the SSD!

Im trying to determine how to best balance the speed of the ssd with its limited capacity as I start moving more apps over to the new PC.

Config:
i5-2500
16G ram
120G Intel SSD (on sata3 channel)
1 Gig drive for standard apps(on sata4 channel)
2 Gig drive for data storage.

Win7 x64 and Photoshop are loaded on the SSD. Those are the programs Im most concerned with.

Ive moved the user directories over to the D: drive. Anything else I will want to consider?

 

[SickBeast]

What I did:

1. Put the "temp" folders onto a ramdisk
2. Compress the entire "program files" folder using NTFS compression
3. Move Firefox and IE's cache folders to a mechanical HDD
4. Disable hibernation
5. Disable the swap file if you have plenty of memory (I have 12gb and it works great; you can also move this to a ramdisk if you're paranoid)
6. Disable readyboost, superfetch, caching, and all of the auto defragmentation stuff

I have a 30gb partition for Windows and my apps. I've still got 17gb free which I can live with. I have Linux on another 5gb partition, and then the rest is used for games, of which I can fit three on there.

This guide was very helpful to me:

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/

This guide may interest you as well:

http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/del...imate-performance-your-solid-state-drive.html

 

[sgrinavi]

My desktop - I have all my apps on my ssd, my data & games on a fast RAID 10 array - I run backups nightly.

My lappy I have all my apps on my SSDs and my data on an external esata drive that gets backed up weekly...

 

[gramboh]

I'm going to use an SSD for a system drive in my next build. Do most people put all (or as many as they can fit) of their games on? I assume it will help significantly with load times? Steam directory is currently at 91GB with only about 75% of games installed, guess I will remove stuff I am not playing actively.

 

[lowepg]

Thanks for the links....

If I was still an avid PC-Gamer- Id be all over loading those on this SSD. I can only imagine a huge difference (judging by the HUGE improvement with photoshop).

Im a bit conflicted with switching off system restore. Its actually "saved my bacon" a few times as a last resort. If the only conern is file size -is there not a way to set it to save the resotre data to a differetn drive than the system drive?

 

[sgrinavi]

Me too, you can limit the size and scope to a minimum configuration where it just saves your system settings. A couple of gigs won't kill you.

Thanks for the links....

If I was still an avid PC-Gamer- Id be all over loading those on this SSD. I can only imagine a huge difference (judging by the HUGE improvement with photoshop).

Im a bit conflicted with switching off system restore. Its actually "saved my bacon" a few times as a last resort. If the only conern is file size -is there not a way to set it to save the resotre data to a differetn drive than the system drive?

 

[boondocks]

I've been wondering about the advantage of setting up the SSD for Windows with most/all apps and user account on HDD. I especially don't need busloads of pics, scans, etc "clogging" up the SSD.
Here is a setup explained that I found interesting:

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/664738-how-setup-ssd-boot-drive-secondary.html

....but I wonder if I want/need to do all that. He makes some good points, but of course it wouldn't be worth it for everyone. Still, interesting....

 

[AMOCO]

I've been wondering about the advantage of setting up the SSD for Windows with most/all apps and user account on HDD. I especially don't need busloads of pics, scans, etc "clogging" up the SSD.
Here is a setup explained that I found interesting:

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/664738-how-setup-ssd-boot-drive-secondary.html

....but I wonder if I want/need to do all that. He makes some good points, but of course it wouldn't be worth it for everyone. Still, interesting....

This is what I did;
Installed OS and Drivers on my SSD's,
Then I moved my Documents and my Downloads folder to an empty 320gb. Seagate drive,
On that same 320gb. drive I created a Program Files 2 and Program Files (x86) 2.For my games and software.And Steam too.
And I have another 1tb. drive for all my Music,Videos,Recorded TV,& Software storage files.

 

[Gothmoth88]

why don´t you store the SSD in your locker?
that way it will not wear out.

honest i see reasons to keep some things from the SSD.
huge cache files for example. photoshop cache files for example.
i did not notice a performance gain when i had the 1GB-2GB cache file on the SSD.
photoshop is writing into that cachefile whenever i open an image (i checked that with process monitor) but the perforrmance gain was not noticable on my 8GB ram system.

or video, mp3 files and all things you store away are fine on a slow HDD.

but the shitload of small internet temp files?
or application data that is most of the time only read from the SSD.

that stuff you want to put on a slow HDD?
were is the sense in that?

 

[beginner99]

If I was still an avid PC-Gamer- Id be all over loading those on this SSD. I can only imagine a huge difference (judging by the HUGE improvement with photoshop).

Nope. Waste of money for games. Load times might be quicker but not to such a great extent that it really matters. There is no benefit in games during play and if there was it's probably due to lack of RAM.

In some games it's useless like Starcraft 2, where all players load the Map at the same time. You have to wait for the slowest one anyway.
As most people are money limited it's way better to save it on the HDD and buy a better gpu instead.

 

[sticks435]

Nope. Waste of money for games. Load times might be quicker but not to such a great extent that it really matters. There is no benefit in games during play and if there was it's probably due to lack of RAM.

In some games it's useless like Starcraft 2, where all players load the Map at the same time. You have to wait for the slowest one anyway.
As most people are money limited it's way better to save it on the HDD and buy a better gpu instead.

I would beg to differ. Load up Crysis or dragon age or a Gamebryo game with a bunch of texture/detail mods and tell me if going from an HDD to SDD doesn't speed up the texture streaming or level load times. Or an UE3 game for that matter. It takes me 20 seconds to load the first level of Crysis with the best detail mod available. Granted not a lot of time, but I bet it would cut it in half or more. Remember, SSD's are great a SEQ reads, and that's 95% of what games do.

 

[Athadeus]

Most SSDs aren't orders of magnitude faster than HDDs at either SEQ read/write, probably about 1.5x as fast on average. It's random read, and especially random write that offers 10-20x+ advantage.

SC2 starts up a lot faster on my SSD, but more importantly, on the same high end system before I had an SSD, a regular small studder of the game in the first match after starting SC2 would interfere with selecting my workers and having them start mining in the first seconds. SSD fixed that, though I don't know if it happens to many other people, and in subsequent matches it would never occur.

 

[CNelsonPSU]

What I did:
...
5. Disable the swap file if you have plenty of memory (I have 12gb and it works great; you can also move this to a ramdisk if you're paranoid)
...

I'm have the same 12GB RAM setup, but I've read in many places that disabling virtual memory / swap is a bad thing to do. Have you seen any problems the more time you go w/o a swap file?

--Chuck

 

[sticks435]

I'm have the same 12GB RAM setup, but I've read in many places that disabling virtual memory / swap is a bad thing to do. Have you seen any problems the more time you go w/o a swap file?

--Chuck

It all depends on how the apps you run are coded. Some are coded poorly and will require a swap file no matter how much ram you have. I believe there was an article on Toms that discussed this a few months ago.

 

[beginner99]

I would beg to differ. Load up Crysis or dragon age or a Gamebryo game with a bunch of texture/detail mods and tell me if going from an HDD to SDD doesn't speed up the texture streaming or level load times. Or an UE3 game for that matter. It takes me 20 seconds to load the first level of Crysis with the best detail mod available. Granted not a lot of time, but I bet it would cut it in half or more. Remember, SSD's are great a SEQ reads, and that's 95% of what games do.

Load time probably is quicker but the benefit is marginal. If your primary goal is to play games, then invest in GPU and CPU and RAM unless you have an unlimited budget.
i mean even if your Crysis mod would load in 5 sec with the ssd, would you prefer that over 10 fps less? Most probably not.


@Athadeus
I must admit, SC2 is installed on my ssd. Forgot to change the install dir and never moved it afterwards. Rest of games is on a green drive.

 

[Weenoman]

Load time probably is quicker but the benefit is marginal. If your primary goal is to play games, then invest in GPU and CPU and RAM unless you have an unlimited budget.
i mean even if your Crysis mod would load in 5 sec with the ssd, would you prefer that over 10 fps less? Most probably not.


@Athadeus
I must admit, SC2 is installed on my ssd. Forgot to change the install dir and never moved it afterwards. Rest of games is on a green drive.

For most enthusiasts, 10 FPS is a marginal increase when I'm already rocking a solid frames count. But 5-7 seconds off every load screen in HL2 or having the load screens breeze by in SC2 is more than marginal for most enthusiasts.

 

[sticks435]

I already have an overlocked 570 and 8 gigs of memory and am going to be getting a 2500K. BTW, Techpot just reviewed the Vertex 3 240Gig. Guess what?? I loads the last level of SC2 in 9.5 secs. Twice as fast as the C300 256Gig and 24.6 secs for a Spinpoint F1. Guess that settles that.

http://www.techspot.com/review/383-ocz-vertex-3-ssd/page5.html