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General discussion (archive)A Question of SSD (34 posts)(34 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 21, 2014
my "new" pc unexpectedly arrived today
i5 etc etc

and they also included a 40 gig ssd

now these days 40 gig is absolutley tiny
but after doing a spot of google fu i found out that its possible to squeek by on 40 gig if i use vlite
or just turn the page file down to 500 mb or so
and turn hibernation off ( my pc's are always on anyway )

i have gobs of ram so much i dont even need a pagefile
12 gig in case you are wondering

my question is has anybody here tried this ?
and is it worth the effort ?

or am i better off keeping things as they are now ?
Posted December 21, 2014
Use the SSD only for the OS. Everything else on a separate drive. Do some research on how to make program files and user folders go onto the other drive. You'll love the performance boost for the OS

Edit: with an ssd you should try to keep 25%free all the time so that the controller can do is leveling work.
Post edited December 21, 2014 by misteryo
Posted December 21, 2014
I'm going to suggest the opposite of misteryo. Use the 40GB for the game you are currently playing. SSDs benefit the most programs that require quite a bit of reading from the drive, and the OS won't be doing that often (see cached memory on Windows Vista onwards). So best to use it for whatever game you are currently playing.
Posted December 21, 2014
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misteryo: Use the SSD only for the OS. Everything else on a separate drive. Do some research on how to make program files and user folders go onto the other drive. You'll love the performance boost for the OS

Edit: with an ssd you should try to keep 25%free all the time so that the controller can do is leveling work.
i was planning to do that
OS only i have too much crap for a 40 gig hd and a 64 bit OS is rather ...large

already did most of the reasearch im just wondering about the experiences of people who actually did it

and if 40 gig is big enough
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JMich: I'm going to suggest the opposite of misteryo. Use the 40GB for the game you are currently playing. SSDs benefit the most programs that require quite a bit of reading from the drive, and the OS won't be doing that often (see cached memory on Windows Vista onwards). So best to use it for whatever game you are currently playing.
the problem with that is that im a flighty gamer
i tend to have dozens if not several hundered installed
and most games are huge these days

oblivion alone with mods can be up to 40 gig
Post edited December 21, 2014 by snowkatt
Posted December 21, 2014
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snowkatt: the problem with that is that im a flighty gamer
i tend to have dozens if not several hundered installed
and most games are huge these days

oblivion alone with mods can be up to 40 gig
See which one of your regular games has a heavy need of data to read from the disk (like Oblivion with the ton of mods you mentioned). Dedicate the SSD to that game, so when you want to play it, you get the SSD benefits. If you only play said game once per blue moon, don't have it on the SSD, have it on the mechanical disk instead.

Browsers (and their profiles) are also a good candidate for the SSD benefits, or even better the RamDrive benefit.
Posted December 21, 2014
From my experience, the problem is not really the Windows itself, it is usually the User Profiles where all information from savegames to configurations from every damn little program for every user of the computer is stored.

So my current Windows Installation takes up less than 20 GB on the SSD, but nearly the same size, well even little more, goes for my User Profile. I have a 120 GB SSD and only one user on this computer, so it is not a problem, but with such a tiny SSD I would go with Windows (64bit) directly on the SSD and every other stuff on the bigger harddrive. Also make sure you move the User Profiles standard folder from c:\ to another drive with more space.

Concerning cache files such as the Pagefile, I would suggest to put them on another drive as well because the constant access on these cache files might tear down the lifetime of the SSD more quickly. [Edit] I would not suggest to turn of the Pagefile completely though as I experienced some problems doing this in the past. Even though I only have 8 GB RAM, some programs may require at least a limited Pagefile to operate correctly. Set it to a fixed Size of 500 MB to 2 GB somewhere on your big harddrive.

You may also want to delete the backups of Windows Updates with the Windows Cleaning service because otherwise they can take a lot of space in the Windows folder as well. I have a tablet PC with Windows 8.1 32bit (which quite a bit smaller than the 64bit Windows) as well which only has 32 GB on its main SSD drive, leaving only 15 GB for data and stuff after a fresh install. Using an additional memory card with another 32 GB space and deleting unnecessary files like hibernation, Update installers or rollback information, leaves enough room to operate though, but usually only around 6-8 GB on its main drive after some time.
Post edited December 21, 2014 by Quasebarth
Posted December 21, 2014
yea, with 12GB of ram you can safely turn off page file, i've been doing that for 2 years and had no problem whatsoever (16GB ram)
also, hibernation is useless and eats space so ditch it. same with system restore.
if i were you i'd try to keep a minimum OS install + one game that you currently play on ssd. of course in the (small) limits you have, on a case by case scenario and where that particular game permits it.
enjoy ;)
Post edited December 21, 2014 by mobutu
Posted December 21, 2014
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Quasebarth: From my experience, the problem is not really the Windows itself, it is usually the User Profiles where all information from savegames to configurations from every damn little program for every user of the computer is stored.

So my current Windows Installation takes up less than 20 GB on the SSD, but nearly the same size, well even little more, goes for my User Profile. I have a 120 GB SSD and only one user on this computer, so it is not a problem, but with such a tiny SSD I would go with Windows (64bit) directly on the SSD and every other stuff on the bigger harddrive. Also make sure you move the User Profiles standard folder from c:\ to another drive with more space.

Concerning cache files such as the Pagefile, I would suggest to put them on another drive as well because the constant access on these cache files might tear down the lifetime of the SSD more quickly. [Edit] I would not suggest to turn of the Pagefile completely though as I experienced some problems doing this in the past. Even though I only have 8 GB RAM, some programs may require at least a limited Pagefile to operate correctly. Set it to a fixed Size of 500 MB to 2 GB somewhere on your big harddrive.

You may also want to delete the backups of Windows Updates with the Windows Cleaning service because otherwise they can take a lot of space in the Windows folder as well. I have a tablet PC with Windows 8.1 32bit (which quite a bit smaller than the 64bit Windows) as well which only has 32 GB on its main SSD drive, leaving only 15 GB for data and stuff after a fresh install. Using an additional memory card with another 32 GB space and deleting unnecessary files like hibernation, Update installers or rollback information, leaves enough room to operate though, but usually only around 6-8 GB on its main drive after some time.
i was actually planning to do all that
but would it benefit me on such a small drive or am i better off buying a 64 gig ssd ( they are cheap nowadays about 38 euro ) and that would give me a lot more leeway

and that would be big hardrives i have 8 tb on hand

which is why i am so wishy washy about it
Posted December 21, 2014
Well the bigger the better. :-P

I would not go with anything below 100 GB though. I have a 120 GB SSD which has about 50 GB of free space at the moment. I try to keep it that way for fluctuating data around, wear and tear an such stuff. I have everything on the SSD except for the Temporary files, the Pagefile, music/photos/videos libraries and games. Works lovely!

Do the smaller SSD not also be slower?
Post edited December 21, 2014 by Quasebarth
Posted December 21, 2014
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Quasebarth: From my experience, the problem is not really the Windows itself, it is usually the User Profiles where all information from savegames to configurations from every damn little program for every user of the computer is stored.

So my current Windows Installation takes up less than 20 GB on the SSD, but nearly the same size, well even little more, goes for my User Profile. I have a 120 GB SSD and only one user on this computer, so it is not a problem, but with such a tiny SSD I would go with Windows (64bit) directly on the SSD and every other stuff on the bigger harddrive. Also make sure you move the User Profiles standard folder from c:\ to another drive with more space.
I get around the worst of this by relocating the documents folder to another drive. (right click the folder and there's a location tab I think)

That took care of the worst of it because that folder can get pretty bad. Imagine tons and tons of Sims mods etc, I believe the main comps documents folder here is over 100GB (mods and years of spamming the save button)
Post edited December 21, 2014 by Pheace
Posted December 21, 2014
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Quasebarth: Well the bigger the better. :-P

I would not go with anything below 100 GB though. I have a 120 GB SSD which has about 50 GB of free space at the moment. I try to keep it that way for fluctuating data around, wear and tear an such stuff. I have everything on the SSD except for the Temporary files, the Pagefile, music/photos/videos libraries and games. Works lovely!

Do the smaller SSD not also be slower?
it is probably slower yeah according to hdtune pro its read and write speed is 319 mb
im still wondering if its worth the hassle or just stick with a 160 gig hd as the boot drive and then shunt everything off to the tb drives
Posted December 21, 2014
avatar
Quasebarth: From my experience, the problem is not really the Windows itself, it is usually the User Profiles where all information from savegames to configurations from every damn little program for every user of the computer is stored.

So my current Windows Installation takes up less than 20 GB on the SSD, but nearly the same size, well even little more, goes for my User Profile. I have a 120 GB SSD and only one user on this computer, so it is not a problem, but with such a tiny SSD I would go with Windows (64bit) directly on the SSD and every other stuff on the bigger harddrive. Also make sure you move the User Profiles standard folder from c:\ to another drive with more space.
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Pheace: I get around the worst of this by relocating the documents folder to another drive. (right click the folder and there's a location tab I think)

That took care of the worst of it because that folder can get pretty bad. Imagine tons and tons of Sims mods etc, I believe the main comps documents folder here is over 100GB (mods and years of spamming the save button)
Could be, but usually the hidden AppData folder is even bigger for me and can only be relocated by changing the whole User profile folder of the account if I remember correctly, not by simply moving the pointer to this folder. Why oh why can programmers not store their user profiles in one and the same place instead of spreading it around everywhere. I would prefer the game's installation directory for example, just like in the good old days. :-(

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Quasebarth: Well the bigger the better. :-P

I would not go with anything below 100 GB though. I have a 120 GB SSD which has about 50 GB of free space at the moment. I try to keep it that way for fluctuating data around, wear and tear an such stuff. I have everything on the SSD except for the Temporary files, the Pagefile, music/photos/videos libraries and games. Works lovely!

Do the smaller SSD not also be slower?
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snowkatt: it is probably slower yeah according to hdtune pro its read and write speed is 319 mb
im still wondering if its worth the hassle or just stick with a 160 gig hd as the boot drive and then shunt everything off to the tb drives
Well I love how the SSD makes everything go with the blink of an eye. Windows is so damn more responsive that I would never go back to an standard HDD for the basic Windows functionality. The HDD at work takes ages compared to my home PC. Hell, I would even go full SSD with the whole computer if it was not so damn expensive and if I would not still have a distrust with sensitive data because of the lifetime of these SSD's. My current one is the second I have, the first one died without any sign of failure. It just did not start anymore one day after about half a year. The current one runs better and stable since over a year now though. My Corsair SSD is OK for now, but I can not recommend buying an OCZ. ;-)
Post edited December 21, 2014 by Quasebarth
Posted December 21, 2014
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snowkatt: im still wondering if its worth the hassle or just stick with a 160 gig hd as the boot drive and then shunt everything off to the tb drives
well as far as i'm concerned i'd say it's worth it, i could never ever use hdd's anymore after i made the switch to ssds and saw what they are capable of ... hdds feel now like the old odds which by the way i gave up on them also ...
Post edited December 21, 2014 by mobutu
Posted December 21, 2014
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Quasebarth: Well the bigger the better. :-P

I would not go with anything below 100 GB though. I have a 120 GB SSD which has about 50 GB of free space at the moment. I try to keep it that way for fluctuating data around, wear and tear an such stuff. I have everything on the SSD except for the Temporary files, the Pagefile, music/photos/videos libraries and games. Works lovely!

Do the smaller SSD not also be slower?
avatar
snowkatt: it is probably slower yeah according to hdtune pro its read and write speed is 319 mb
im still wondering if its worth the hassle or just stick with a 160 gig hd as the boot drive and then shunt everything off to the tb drives
Put everything that runs on the SSD, starting with the OS (if SSD is 40GB that would be pretty much it) and anything else that fits. What doesn't run ie: files to the HDDs.
Different SSD perform differently, so even if you get it full there shouldn't be a significant change in performance, if I recall there's one drive, don't remember the model from OCZ, that when you surpass 50% space usage it swaps to another (lower) speed. I have a 60GB, Samsung 830, it's full.........performance is as good as first day. Though I have it connected to a Sata-2 port instead of a Sata-3 one so it doesn't operate at its full specs, yet, it's night and day against an HDD.
Posted December 21, 2014
That's really a shitty size for an SSD. It's only good for a clean OS and a few little things. When Windows starts growing, it runs out of room.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)A Question of SSD (34 posts)(34 posts)
(34 posts)