Discussion- Moving Windows 7 "Users" folder - Impact on SSD performance??

rixx

rixx

rixx

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Gents,

As the title suggests, I have spent some time configuring my Windows 7 x64 ultimate setup:

1 - OS on Crucial 128GB SSD
2 - Users folder (so my profile and all future profiles) and Program Data is stored on a separate - "mechanical" hard drive

Now, my thinking is that this may have an impact on OS performance as for instance, my desktop data etc. is stored on the mechanical drive. The OS is effectively calling this information everytime it is booted up for instance.

This impacts my bootup time for sure. But I'm not so worried about that.

My question is - will this setup impact anything else once the system has already booted up?

FYI - The reason for this setup is for the following reasons:

1. To conserve space on the SSD
2. I'm writing less to the SSD on a regular basis (write frequency)
3. Will only need to recover the OS to the SSD partition whilst leaving the Users folder on the mechanical drive intact.


Thinking about this a little more, I'm not so sure whether this is a good idea anymore. Perhaps it is better to install everything on SSD (i.e. Users and ProgramData folders with the OS as intended) and just move my libraries to another drive.

Thoughts appreciated!

Cheers
 
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It's probably not a good idea, as you've guessed already, to put the entire users folder on to a platter drive.

There's a hidden folder called Appdata, which stores a lot of the configuration settings for your programs. Also if you have games installed, saved games tend to go to users folder these days.

You need to work out which ones you can live with being moved and which ones are best on the SSD. It will depend how you use your PC.

It's probably a very good idea to move your music, video, pictures folders on to a platter. I keep the folders in place, but I use Windows 7 libraries, with the default save location set to my server (in your case the platter drive) - this works well. It's good for the My Documents as well, because by default any letters, spreadsheets, plans etc I create will automatically prompt to save in the library default folder - but it doesn't mess up any games.

In terms of your specific questions;
1 - Yes it will save space - usually the media files take up the bulk of space, and they are the best and easiest files/folders to relocate.
2 - Don't worry about the writes - It doesn't sound like you're doing anything so out of the ordinary that it would have an impact on endurance. Better to enjoy your drive for 5-10 years, than cripple your OS and have it last 10-20 years!
 
Thanks for the feedback..

Interesting viewpoint. The OS works perfectly with the Users folder on a platter drive. Needed to set this up during the W7 install and apply some registry settings..

My thinking was that the main data is read from program files when it comes to games and applications.. I know that there is some reliance on Appdata etc however, does the OS read from these locations more frequently?

I'm aiming for the optimal performance/space trade-off if that makes sense!

Cheers
 
If you want a definitive answer you'll have to monitor usage to see what's hitting appdata (and the other user folders) for your setup. It's going to be very much specific to the programs and application you use - so one size won't fit all.

If you want a generalised answer I'll stick with what I said earlier, shift the media files and any documents you've created, and leave the rest on the SSD - that should give you the best tradeoff, even if it's not particularly optimisied to your use.
 
I am just going through an analysis phase about what should be on the SSD for a new build, and so far it really depends on the applications and their balance of performance and number of writes.

The one that surprised me was the amount of data written by Norton Internet Security 2010 to ProgramData. It almost never stops writing to its logs due to it's pulse updates, regular checks, performance monitoring etc.. I will be relocating Nortons data to a mechanical drive and using a junction but my other applications generally seem far better behaved so I'm not going for total relocation of profiles and application data just yet.
 
Sounds like a good plan. How big are the files norton is using, they could be well suited to staying on the SSD, especially if it involves small writes. Definitely one to look at however.
 
The files appear to be Norton's various databases for logs, configuration, updates etc., so they don't really benefit from better access times, but they are written to (in differing locations within the files) every few seconds or minutes.

Over a four hour period of the PC being idle, NIS 2010 had written five times more data (both bytes and number of writes) than all the other process put together. The overall impact may not be too much of an issue for SSD wear, but given those figures I decided to relocate it pending further investigation.
 
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