Hard drive for Games?

somewhatdamaged

somewhatdamaged

somewhatdamaged

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Joined
24 Aug 2007
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526
Hi,

I currently have 3 x Samsung Spinpoint F3's in RAID0 but is there a better option for speed?

I have a spare 2TB i use to house a backup of my steam folder in case a drive dies on the striped set, but considered another 1TB drive and creating a RAID10 set.

I see some people are short stroking their drives, does it make a big difference?

I'm going to order a Crucial 128GB RealSSD for windows, i would like an SSD drive for Games but think they are an unrealistic option given price / capacity

I am trying to increase game load times, as some take quite some time to load i.e Anno 1404

Cheers
 
if you usually install quite a large number of games, so its too big to fit on the SSD, u could look at a velicoraptor. Not as fast as an SSD, but not exactly slow either.

with lots of ppl upgrading to SSD now, u might be able to pick up one cheap second hand
 
Partitioning does the same as the wasteful and pointless short stroking, your first partition will have lower access time and faster transfer speeds so you could do that. Three F3's in RAID 0 will already give you amazing load times, and only a fast SSD would cut that but it'll only be by very little.
 
I've recently ordered the OCZ Vertex LE 100GB SSD for my main OS drive but I'm also looking at what to do for gaming. My Steam folder is over 660GB in size, so for SSDs I'd be looking at £1500 - clearly a no go. One of the options I was considering was to get a couple of the new VelociRaptors and setting them up in RAID-0. The downside being the price and noise - £480 for two of the 600GB models (as the 450GB drives are barely much cheaper). Cheaper (and quieter) still would simply be to grab a couple of the Samsung F3s for RAID-0 (only £135 for both), which is what I'm leaning towards at the moment.

Any suggestions?
 
I have 1tb f3 and 80 gb intel

intel- os, apps and <Symlink> civ 4, napoleon and battlefield.
F3- steam file short stroked onto first 300gb that 300 gb has symilnks onto the intel for civ 4 nap and batt- the data that steam thinks is those games is on my ssd, all steam has is a shortcut that makes the pc look to the ssd. Extra 700gb is where i put anything that i dont need to be fast.
 
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TAC4U
Buy another vertex.
Raid vertex.
Learn symlinks.
Put your os and any steam games you pay often <via symlinks> on ssds.
Install steam folder on smallest possible partition of 2x1tb f3.
use rest of f3 for storage.
 
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Why back up your steam folder? Can't you just redownload all that stuff? Uninstall some games you don't use?

In terms of speed, your current setup is good, and the only way you'll get a noticable difference is by switching to SSD.
IMO that's too expensive, so maybe invest in some teabags and make a cuppa while you wait?
 
el Kuarlos said:
TAC4U
Buy another vertex.
Raid vertex.
Learn symlinks.
Put your os and any steam games you pay often <via symlinks> on ssds.
Install steam folder on smallest possible partition of 2x1tb f3.
use rest of f3 for storage.
Click to expand...

how would symlinks help with performance ?

i assume you mean putting the games on the large drive and symlinking it to the SSD ?

if so, the loading times are not gonna be improved coz your still reading the game data from the slower drive

it'll be much quicker if they are on the SSD drive itself, but obviously they are usually too small for that
 
Cycrow said:
how would symlinks help with performance ?

i assume you mean putting the games on the large drive and symlinking it to the SSD ?

if so, the loading times are not gonna be improved coz your still reading the game data from the slower drive

it'll be much quicker if they are on the SSD drive itself, but obviously they are usually too small for that
Click to expand...

He's saying to put Steam folder on the HDD and the the frequently played content on the SSD using symlinks.
 
Just read about RAID-0 for gaming and it seems there really isn't much point. I guess I'll just stick to what I have for now, at least until SSDs substantially drop in price (and presumably increase in performance).
 
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