SSD users, do you have your user profile and appdata folder on another drive?

[Evadman]

whether for space reasons, frequent write concerns, etc.

Why in the world would I want to move a folder used a bunch off the SSD? That defeats the purpose of the SSD.

 

[imaheadcase]

It does not matter, put everything on the SSD drive. No point doing it otherwise unless its a actual space issue.

 

[Jeff7]

Why in the world would I want to move a folder used a bunch off the SSD? That defeats the purpose of the SSD.

And SSDs are basically immune to performance problems caused by fragmentation, so that would seem to make them better-suited for things that will be creating, resizing, and deleting temp files all over the place.

 

[sgrinavi]

Temp folders, docs and most games are off the ssd, everything else stays. I will replace them with something more fun before I wear them out.

 

[Ghiddy]

No. I got an SSD for speed, therefore common file writes are something I want to be done on the SSD since it is done faster. If the drive dies after 2-3 years it is well worth it to me because I got all that use of a super fast system without having to do all these OCD nit-picky things like move certain files to other drives. I have disabled certain disk based caches in firefox (have tons of RAM) to reduce writes from that.

I just have SSD's and some classic HDD's that I keep unplugged to reduce power/heat (another reason I like to use SSD's). I only plug the classics in when I need to back up some data.

Unlike most users I don't keep a ton of large game installations, or movie files so 200GB of SSD space is enough to hold everything for me without having to prioritize which data goes on which disk (don't even have other disks besides the SSD's, as described above).

 

[Ghiddy]

The only thing I don't keep on the SSDs are games, and large datafiles (including photos, audio, and video).

Everything else I keep on the SSD. There are lots of tweaks people suggest (including moving temp folders off the SSD) but these always hurt performance. The entire point of the SSD is that random reads/writes occur very quickly. If I wanted my temp folder on a spining platter, I wouldn't have purchased an SSD in the first place!

This. I often see people giving the opposite of this advice and it doesn't make sense. The common file writes are one of the best ways to get the benefits of your SSD. You will not see an early drive failure just from lack of "optimizations" like moving app_data or temp folders off the SSD. The SSD should last at least as long as the typical PC upgrade cycle without special handling.

 

[Ghiddy]

my ssd boots OS only all programs are install on secondary drive.

Unless you can only afford an SSD big enough to fit an OS onto it (which is definitely still a valid concern for many users), there is no reason to do this. You are just making your PC slower than it needs to be.

It's like someone having a shiny BMW in the garage where they can admire it but always driving the Datsun everywhere. What's the point of spending the money on the BMW if you never get to enjoy it?

 

[Ghiddy]

I keep everything but my games on a 120GB Vertex 3. The games take up 2.3TB of space so I store them on two 3TB Hitachi 7K3000 drives in RAID-0 for 6TB. The array is volume mounted to C: \Games.

I would say this is an efficient use of the drives. You obviously don't want to shell out the cash for 2.3TB worth of SSD. So you put most of your data – especially the stuff that is read/written frequently, like the OS files – onto the SSD, and the large stuff like movies & games onto cheap spindle RAID array.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It's like someone having a shiny BMW in the garage where they can admire it but always driving the Datsun everywhere. What's the point of spending the money on the BMW if you never get to enjoy it?

It's even worse. It's like buying the BMW and keeping it in a friend's garage so you can't even look at it. What is the point of spending the money on a new SSD if you completely take away the reason for buying it by moving everything that would benefit somewhere else?

 

[hans007]

i put my page file on a hard drive that is ont he same system. but i have enough ram that it really should not page too often.

i read somewhere you shouldnt have your page file on your ssd..

 

[stargazr]

i put my page file on a hard drive that is ont he same system. but i have enough ram that it really should not page too often.

i read somewhere you shouldnt have your page file on your ssd..

I disagree for reasons outlined in above posts. I usually let Windows handle page file size and leave it on my OS drive.

 

[Ghiddy]

i put my page file on a hard drive that is ont he same system. but i have enough ram that it really should not page too often.

i read somewhere you shouldnt have your page file on your ssd..

Page file is another thing that should stay on an SSD drive. The only reason people have said to move it off the SSD is they were being overly paranoid about write cycle wear on the SSD. But as mentioned many times in this thread, you are not going to wear out your SSD in 2-5 years of use. This is what the SSD was made for. To be used by modern OS'es.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Unless you can only afford an SSD big enough to fit an OS onto it (which is definitely still a valid concern for many users), there is no reason to do this. You are just making your PC slower than it needs to be.

It's like someone having a shiny BMW in the garage where they can admire it but always driving the Datsun everywhere. What's the point of spending the money on the BMW if you never get to enjoy it?

don't knock the datsun dude.

 

[bntran02]

Most things stay on my SSD.

But the things I move off are mostly just internet temporary files. The reason I do this is because they are generally downloads that are installation files. There's no need to get fast access to installation files as they ill only be used once.

Another thing I have stored on a separate HDD is the system tmp folder. There may or may not be a performance drop from doing this but it helps preserve the life of my SSD (even though it might not be needed).
An example of how the tmp folder is used:
1) You have a large zip file and want to extract it
2) Windows extracts it first to the system tmp folder
3) When extraction is complete the files are then copied to your extract location

In this case you just wrote to an SSD just to move it somewhere else.

 

[evilspoons]

don't knock the datsun dude.

No kidding! Haha.

As for removing the page file, just keep the one on your SSD to a reasonable size so you don't waste your precious space and then put a secondary one on your spindle... even if you have 16 GB of RAM. This means if RAM runs out you don't have a computer that hard-locks, it just gets slow. Since you have so much RAM, it probably won't run out, but that's why you wear seat belts in a car... you probably won't be in a collision, but that one time you are you'll probably enjoy not being splattered against the windshield.

Also:

 

[code65536]

1) You have a large zip file and want to extract it
2) Windows extracts it first to the system tmp folder
3) When extraction is complete the files are then copied to your extract location

Not sure how the built-in ZIP extraction works in Windows (do people actually use that?), but in 7-Zip and WinRAR, the temp folder thing happens only if you use drag-and-drop to drag files form the archive into Windows Explorer (e.g., to the desktop or a folder open in Explorer). This is the result of how DnD is handled in Explorer (i.e., the final placement of that file is handled by Explorer, so it is necessary to first extract to a temporary location). If you extract using any method other than drag-and-drop (e.g., select some files and click the extraction toolbar button), then the data will write directly to the destination without going through a temp folder middleman.

Also, downloading using IE will result in the files first being downloaded to the browser cache folder and then *copied* to the final destination (it's not moved if it's on the same disk), which is just idiotic because there is no good reason to do it like this, and this results in not only extra unnecessary disk activity, but also extra disk usage (problematic when trying to download large files on a disk with limited free space). This is one of many reasons I avoid using IE and instead use Firefox.

 

[squick3n]

Something that can eat up a lot of writes is streaming video. How do you minimize that? Is that all held in browser cache?

 

[Qbah]

I keep all the usual stuff on my SSD. Steam is installed on a regular HDD but I use SteamTool to copy a game I'm playing to the SSD and make a junction to the Steam folder. I don't really care about the limited writes, the SSD will serve me for years anyway and I can play everything in the best way possible (on the hardware I own).

 

[JBT]

Everything on the SSD. Most downloads etc go to the spindle disks...

 

[hans007]

Page file is another thing that should stay on an SSD drive. The only reason people have said to move it off the SSD is they were being overly paranoid about write cycle wear on the SSD. But as mentioned many times in this thread, you are not going to wear out your SSD in 2-5 years of use. This is what the SSD was made for. To be used by modern OS'es.

ah ok... i guess i will put it back on the ssd then.

 

[yinan]

Everything on my main system is on SSD. Its nice to have 1.5TB of SSD available .
All of my shared files/movies etc go on my dedicated fileserver.

 

[dguy6789]

Everything I would normally have on my primary hard drive is on my SSD; OS, applications, games, music, no random stuff is moved off the drive. I have a 240GB Vertex 3 so it's not super hard to do. I only have games that I play installed instead of installing every game I own. I have an external drive I use for mass storage.

 

[sticks435]

I only moved off the stuff in my profie that was related to "my x", movies, documents, downloads, pictures etc. I have steam installed on the SSD so that it starts up faster, but only have 3 or 4 games installed. My previously installed games are still on the HDD along with Mod downloads etc.

The only issue with having my documents on the HDD is that save games like to save there alot now and that kind of defeats the purpose of the huge seq reads when loading. I tried a junction point/symbolic link, but not sure it's working since neither Crysis 1 or Bioshock 2 games load any faster. Might move documents back to SSD and move everything but save games out of it to the HDD.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

System in Sig: SSD has the OS + Core programs like Office and Firefox, F3 has all my games & steam Folder & F4 is my Media bulk storage. After 9 months of day-to-day use, putting the computer to sleep EVERY NIGHT, treating the drive like I would any other HDD :

SMART READ DATA
Revision: 10
Attributes List
1: SSD Raw Read Error Rate Normalized Rate: 120 total ECC and RAISE errors
5: SSD Retired Block Count Reserve blocks remaining: 100%
9: SSD Power-On Hours Total hours power on: 1409
12: SSD Power Cycle Count Count of power on/off cycles: 393
171: SSD Program Fail Count Total number of Flash program operation failures: 0
172: SSD Erase Fail Count Total number of Flash erase operation failures: 0
174: SSD Unexpected power loss count Total number of unexpected power loss: 19
177: SSD Wear Range Delta Delta between most-worn and least-worn Flash blocks: 0
181: SSD Program Fail Count Total number of Flash program operation failures: 0
182: SSD Erase Fail Count Total number of Flash erase operation failures: 0
187: SSD Reported Uncorrectable Errors Uncorrectable RAISE errors reported to the host for all data access: 0
194: SSD Temperature Monitoring Current: 30 High: 30 Low: 30
195: SSD ECC On-the-fly Count Normalized Rate: 120
196: SSD Reallocation Event Count Total number of reallocated Flash blocks: 0
231: SSD Life Left Approximate SSD life Remaining: 100%
241: SSD Lifetime writes from host Number of bytes written to SSD : 640 GB
242: SSD Lifetime reads from host Number of bytes read from SSD : 832 GB

I'm really starting to think all this hooplah about SSD lifespan is getting blown WAYYYY out of proportion. I take absolutely ZERO special precautions with this drive and SMART is telling me I haven't even made a dent in either the reserve blocks or the total life expectancy of the drive. I'm starting to worry this drive is going to outlive my next 5 builds...

In addition, I have a 60gb Agility 2 in my ancient, non-TRIM supporting laptop. Bought it used off a friend who DID use it as his primary drive (all he ever played was Bad Company 2) for nearly a year before I even got my hands on it and its prognosis after all this time? 96% with reserve blocks at 100%.

 

[sticks435]

Yea, according to my Intel Toolbox, I've written 1.45TB and the media wear Indicator is 0. Not to worried about wearing the drive out lol.