SSD - How do you manage your data/games?

Swarfega

Swarfega

Swarfega

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Im looking into an SSD but the low amount of room on these things puts me off.

Do you guys run Windows from it? Is there much point in installing Windows on it other than a quick boot up time?
Is it not better to run from a normal disc but install games onto the SSD?
 
Hi there,

It is absolutely worth installing windows on your SSD. Not only will the OS boot up much faster, but all tasks that need the storage drive (there are a lot of them) will also be significantly speeded up (since compared to a fast mechanical hard drive an SSD's response time is of the order of one hundred times faster, and small random reads/writes are also around 100 times quicker - which is very important since OSs and applications are usually bottlenecked by the slow performance of HDDs in these frequent tasks). This results in your computer as a whole feeling so much faster.

For example, http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/182?vs=425"]here[/URL] is a direct comparison of a WD Velociraptor (a very fast 10,000rpm HDD) and a standard last-gen SSD, the crucial C300 128GB.

It is nice to put a few games on your SSD (as it will mean they load quicker) but apart from that the benefit due to an SSD isn't nearly as big in games as it is in windows and applications.
 
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Ok thanks. I just hate the idea that I have huge amounts of static hardly used data in winsxs.

Like most Steam is the bulk of my storage usage. I guess though the symbolic link workaround is the trick to managing storage use by games that are less important than others. I would imagine the only two games I would be looking to make sure are on the SSD at the moment will be Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3.
 
Aye, exactly - put the games you are playing the most on the SSD - so you get maximum performance. Personally I currently have BF3, Skyrim, Civ5 and Sim City 4 on my SSD (alongside Windows and my applications).
 
If i'm not going to be playing one in the near future I cut and paste the game directory to my file server. 7TB of storage on that and I get 115MB/s transfer speeds so it doesn't take long to move it back if I feel like playing again.
 
Keep the os and bf3, bfbc2 and a few important programs on my ssd, (120gb vertex 2e). Steam games are kept on a separate mechanical drive as i play theese less.
 
theres a lot of faffing around and caring/tweaking regarding ssd's to get the best from them,if boot up times dont tick your box then id stick to large capacity hdd

or if you have a z68 mb then use your ssd in caching mode where you get fast boot up times paired with large hdd storage,basically it works alongside a mechanical hdd kinda like a beefed up hybrid hdd
 
Pretty much the same as others, SSD is the boot drive and I've got my most used programmes on there along with BF3. Then all my media is on one 500GB HDD and my other games are on another 500GB HDD.
 
I replaced a 60G SSD with 128G as I was running out of space.

The 128G drive is my boot drive with programs and documents.
The 60G is now my Game drive.

I have a 3TB drive for media and any games I don't play often.
 
This is the one thing that confused me when I've been looking at an SSD, there is a split between people who install the OS and a couple of games on the SSD, and those that just install everything on a seperate drive and use the SSD as a cache drive with Intel's SRT (I'm planning on upgrading soon so ignore the spec in the sig for now ;)).

Personally the only games I play regularly is L4D2 and Civ V, plus I have a media PC/file server where all of my files go onto, so the idea of storing the images for each game on a central server appeals to me. Was going to use a 1Tb HDD as my main drive and use a 64Gb SSD as a cache, but maybe I should just put the 1Tb into the media PC and get a 128Gb SSD... hmmm :)
 
Swarfega said:
Im looking into an SSD but the low amount of room on these things puts me off.

Do you guys run Windows from it? Is there much point in installing Windows on it other than a quick boot up time?
Is it not better to run from a normal disc but install games onto the SSD?
Click to expand...

I'm using a Crucial Adrenaline cache drive linked to my velociraptor 300gb drive - I don't really have to shuffle app/games around :-)
 
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