SSD do I use it for the OS or for Games or both?

Scania

Scania

Scania

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I have an OCZ 60GB SSD, currently, it acts as my C: drive, with windows 7 & all of the associated crap that comes with the OS, Bad Company 2 & Battlefield 2.

I wanted to install BF3 onto it, but typically, there won't be enough space.

Which made me wonder, given that I bought the SSD for improved loading times when gaming, would it make more sense to install the OS on one of my SATA mechanical drives leaving 60GB of SSD goodness for the games I play the most?

Or does it not work like that?

My current thinking is use the SSD for the OS plus the games I play most often but I'm restricted to a few games due to its lowly 60GB capacity.

Enlighten me please. :)
 
Only my personal opinion, but I think a 60GB drive is too small for much else than to support the OS and a few apps. Especially as it's recommended that you don't fill them to capacity. But up to the individual really as to what they want to do.

My SSD just contains the OS and most of my more serious (and heavily used) apps (Browser etc.).

All my games are on a decent mech drive. Now I know people go on about "improved loading times in games" but it's never really struck me as being that big a thing (well not for me). Though I do appreciate that in "free roaming games" (EG. Stalker) that load levels as you move around, that this can reduce (but not totally eliminate, or not in my experience and yes I tried it initially) the "hitching" you get as data is loaded from the HD.

All other data (music/documents/ downloads etc.) are automatically directed to yet another mech. HD.

This way, if OS drive goes FUBAR. All I need to do is recover my boot drive (Acronis TI comes in handy here) and away I go with no data loss.

NB. all three drives (including SSD) are backed up to an external drive by Acronis TI (partition images for easy recovery).

Depends on how seriously you take system backup / security I suppose.

Just the way I do it. Lots of other options and I know some folks are happy trying to squash the odd game on a small SSD, but not interested in that route myself. Not knocking other folks, just not for me.

Now if I could pick up a decent sized SSD (at a min. 256MB, preferably 512MB) for a decent price, then the story would be different.

Good luck whatever you decide to do :):):)
 
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I have a 60GB SSD as well and I what I do is have Windows, Apps and Docs on it (typical C: installation). I then install the game I'm playing at the moment on to C: as well, uninstalling it when I'm finished.

To answer your question you definitely want to keep the OS on the SSD as the gains will be far bigger than you'd get from putting games on there.
 
HangTime said:
I have a 60GB SSD as well and I what I do is have Windows, Apps and Docs on it (typical C: installation). I then install the game I'm playing at the moment on to C: as well, uninstalling it when I'm finished.

To answer your question you definitely want to keep the OS on the SSD as the gains will be far bigger than you'd get from putting games on there.
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This ^^

I'd like another SSD for games but my collection is too big so I'd still have some games on my SATAII drive - operating system on the Vertex 3 still makes me wow!!
 
Presuming your on Windows 7 64, I would upgrade memory from 4GB to 8GB. Windows 7 will cache certain files in standby memory, and once your applications / data has loaded you'll find many file requests are read back from the cache. Files accessed from standby memory is far quicker then any SSD.

Then with the SSD, I would move page file, and setup a readyboost drive, give it at least 4GB. I would also move indexing location, so indexing is running of SSD. Finally I would move temporary file locations over to the SSD.

Above is an out of box answer, but it's how I run (using 2 SSD's) and once my PC has got going application load times and response is very rapid indeed. This is despite all applications and data situated on HDD's.
 
JasonM makes a very good point about memory caching and I would tend to agree with him on this (for what my opinions worth of course ;) ).

Not convinced about readyboost though ... I was under the impression that as long as you had a decent enough amount of memory (and yes, I think the move to 8GB would be a good one), that readyboost was of little or no use!? Quite happy to be proved wrong though and if so, I'll move over and use it. :)
 
I'm about to purchase a Crucial M4 60gb ssd for my new build. My intention was only to run the OS and general apps from it and everything else from a normal hd.

I don't like the idea of running Steam games on it due to how often steam needs to update.

Is this sound thinking, or do others run Steam on their ssd?
 
Sorry for posting on this but, I'm buying a prebuilt pc soon with an SSD, how would i go about installing win7 on it, when i load up the pc can i select it to install on the ssd? and how much does win7 take up? I would like to fit something like SC2 on it aswell :P
 
naefeart said:
I'm about to purchase a Crucial M4 60gb ssd for my new build. My intention was only to run the OS and general apps from it and everything else from a normal hd.

I don't like the idea of running Steam games on it due to how often steam needs to update.

Is this sound thinking, or do others run Steam on their ssd?
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Yep, I run Steam from my SSD.
 
naefeart said:
I'm about to purchase a Crucial M4 60gb ssd for my new build. My intention was only to run the OS and general apps from it and everything else from a normal hd.

I don't like the idea of running Steam games on it due to how often steam needs to update.

Is this sound thinking, or do others run Steam on their ssd?
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As per my post above, I run STEAM / games off a dedicated mech. HD (WDblack). I don't consider that I have that many games on STEAM but my application folder has the best part of 100GB alone. I suppose that I could delete the "local content" for older games, but don't really want to. As I do on occasion go back and re-play a game (EG. Company of Heroes at the moment).

Up to individuals I suppose. If I could afford a decent sized SSD for games (min. 256GB) then I would probably have them on an SSD. Can't say I would be too worried about the number of updates that STEAM does, though I do appreciate why you ask this question.
 
Ok, so the general concensus is running STEAM on the ssd is ok. In which case I agree. the 60gb model is rather on the small side. Shame because larger drives hike the price up a fair bit.

Better save some pennies I guess.
 
mikeo said:
JasonM makes a very good point about memory caching and I would tend to agree with him on this (for what my opinions worth of course ;) ).

Not convinced about readyboost though ... I was under the impression that as long as you had a decent enough amount of memory (and yes, I think the move to 8GB would be a good one), that readyboost was of little or no use!? Quite happy to be proved wrong though and if so, I'll move over and use it. :)
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The Readyboost does work, currently my system is showing 5.7GB of data stored in it (I have 16GB ram). If I look at disk access high proportion of my read requests are from readyboost volumes.

As mentioned I have also moved page file, HDD index locations (you be amazed at the disk access on index locations), and temp folders over to SSD.

System is very responsive when loading and switching applications. Out of curiosity I moved a large Visual Studio project from HDD over to SSD, and there was no difference I could measure. This is simply because disk access when i'm compiling (index's, temp, readyboost, standby memory cache) was not hitting my HDD to begin with, as I had already done the things i've mentioned.

EDIT. The most amount of readyboost I have noted is 35GB (yes 35GB!) This was when I only had 8GB of main memory however.
 
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I'm already looking into some more RAM - Jason has confirmed what I've read elsewhere.

And The OS plus one perticular game I play the most - which hopefully will be BF3.

I'll probably relegate BF2 & BFBC2 to a mech drive although I must say, as I have 3 rigs in my living room, all good spec, fast drives, the loading times of BF2 for example are vastly improved with the SSD, I can select the server my mates are on, while they are sat loading @ 60% say and yet I then load the map and still get the 'chopper before they have even entered the game! - Love it.

Ultimately, I need a new, bigger SSD.

Thanks for the feedback. :)
 
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
I'm already looking into some more RAM - Jason has confirmed what I've read elsewhere.

And The OS plus one perticular game I play the most - which hopefully will be BF3.

I'll probably relegate BF2 & BFBC2 to a mech drive although I must say, as I have 3 rigs in my living room, all good spec, fast drives, the loading times of BF2 for example are vastly improved with the SSD, I can select the server my mates are on, while they are sat loading @ 60% say and yet I then load the map and still get the 'chopper before they have even entered the game! - Love it.

Ultimately, I need a new, bigger SSD.

Thanks for the feedback. :)
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I'm looking at getting a SSD for OS + BF3. Would 60GB be sufficient?
I'd only really have Office, Browser, BF3 and Windows on it. Documents and Music would be on a secondary drive.
 
Scythe said:
I'm looking at getting a SSD for OS + BF3. Would 60GB be sufficient?
I'd only really have Office, Browser, BF3 and Windows on it. Documents and Music would be on a secondary drive.
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Only my personal opinion but...

I always consider 30GB for W7 + a few simple apps (erring on the side of caution here) and assuming BF3 around 10GB (a lot of games look to be hitting this sort of size now). So in theory "yes". In practice though, you always end up using more space than you think. So easy to fill this sort of relatively small drive. Mine is currently sat at 65GB and this only has W7 + a few serious apps on it (EG. all my stress testing programs etc.). Everything else punted to one of three other decent mech. HD's.

I'm sure you will cope. But my guess will be pretty soon that you will wish you had saved up a few more pennies and bought that bigger SSD.

:):):)
 
So would you say if you were to run a WIN7 OS and steam with a couple of other essentials a 124GB would be pretty safe because that'll leave space for a comfortable 6 or 7 games i guess?
 
I use my SSD for Windows and Office, things that really benefit from the speed.
I have 2 Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB hard drives in RAID0, to which I have all my games and documents stored.
This serves 2 purposes, first, the documents are stored off my main drive incase i need to reinstall windows.
Second, I do not have to reinstall all my games and Steam if the OS drive needs reinstalling and the do load really quick, not just at the start, but the levels load so much quicker.
Plus there is so much room for everything, much more than 7-8 games.
 
Totally agree with nickrose here. I run a similar set-up. As you say, so much easier if you need to re-install your OS for some reason.

Though as usual, totally up to an indivual as to how they set up their storage. There are so many options.

PS. The apps folder in my STEAM install is already 100GB! and I don't have that many STEAM games.
 
Sounds good means i can save money and only get a 64GB SSD for fast boot times then run my games off of a normal HDD
 
Scythe said:
I'm looking at getting a SSD for OS + BF3. Would 60GB be sufficient?
I'd only really have Office, Browser, BF3 and Windows on it. Documents and Music would be on a secondary drive.
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It would be sufficient for BF3 plus the OS but little else.

Over time, unavoidably, the OS drive will fill up with crap and you'll sooner or later run out of disc space.

Buy the biggest capacity SSD you can afford - it'll never be enough! :)
 
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