Ive got an SSD for my OS what drive for my games ?

CraigN · 17 Nov 2009 at 11:19

Im running a 128gb crucial SSD for my OS and i also have a couple of apps + my mainy played game World of warcraft.

I have a 300gb WD Caviar blue i think with my steam installation on and the rest of my games and a WD Green 1tb drive for storage.

Ive noticed that games running off my 300gb drive load very slowly (was at a LAN this weekend and was dissapointed my games took a long time to load compared with my friends)

Would a 300gb velociraptor be my fastest bet or are there any other fast drives liek a WD black or ?

I cant afford another larger SSD jsut as a games drive and my SSD isnt big enough to contain my steam install

robin66 · 17 Nov 2009 at 11:49

Samsung F3's are the main choice of storage for many. Due to there price and performance.

CraigN · 17 Nov 2009 at 12:45

are the larger drives as fast as the small ones ?

Ideally if i can get a fast drive to put my data and games on then i can get rid of one of the drives in my machine.

Makhaira · 18 Nov 2009 at 03:18

Larger drives are faster as a general rule.

In HDDs this is because the platters usually have higher density.
In SSDs this is because of the increased number of chips in the drive.

ho-hum · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:12

If i may add to this (seeing as i was going to start a very similar thread);
I'd like to ask;
are most users that have SSD's just installing the OS on there, and maybe frequently accessed apps/games, then the rest on a standard hdd?

I'd like a SSD as my next buy, but can't afford more than a 64Gb one for win7 x64 ultimate.
Would probably install my best games like COD:WAW, MW etc which would most likely swallow up the drive with just that lot.

What do you think?

Zarf · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:42

You can probably fit most of your fave steam games on the SSD, just use symlinks.

Say your 300GB drive is "D" and your SSD is "C", cut and paste the game (I'll use Braid as an example) directory from your steam folder to somewhere on your C drive, making a folder to keep the games in wouldn't be a bad idea.
recreate an empty "braid" folder on the D drive.
open up an elevated command prompt and at the prompt use the following command:

Code:

mklink /J C:\steamgames\braid D:\Steam\steamapps\common\braid

Thats it! The game should work just as it did before, but now the game files are running from your SSD.