[Infiniti]

I brought a 120GB SSD for my laptop and I was wondering what the best way to set up the system is. I've seen loads of posts online saying Just the OS and a few programs but I've seen others that say a game or two could be installed along side the OS/Programs. Also I'm fishing for tips on what to disable on windows, to prolong the life of the SSD. (Disable Pagefile etc.)

I wanted to install a game like WoW or Tera or PSO 2 to the SSD.
I also wanted to run one of the many WoW Emu's from AC-Web, but was not sure how often the database for the emulator would be writing to the SSD, updating player/characters as they play the game. I already tried posting on the AC-Web forum for help, but my message never got posted.

I don't mind spending money to get a portable hard drive to store games and data on, I just thought I'd get some advice from you guys first.

Oh I'm also adding a list of the programs I would install to a normal hard drive. If there is anything listed that would be better left off the SSD, please let me know. Thanks guys!

Spoiler

Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)
Chrome/Firefox
Skype
Itunes (I'm not planning to store any music on the SSD, Itunes will be used for online radio only.)
VLC
CCCP(A/V codecs)
AIMP
Audacity
Java
uTorrent (Torrents will be stored/saved to a 1-2TB drive.)
7Zip
Malewarebytes
Imgburn
Gimp
Open Office
Foxit PDF Reader
Steam (Same as uTorrent)
Fraps. (recordings on separate drive)

Optional software I MIGHT install - Video Editing software, Music creation software (Frutyloops/Vocaloid software)

[winterhell]

Chrome does a lot of writing to its AppData folder so it might be a good idea to move the folder to the hdd and then make a Link.
Also its a good practice to have at least 10-15% free space all the time. I have a 2 year old 60GB SSD and it gets very slow when the free space drops to 6GB and below.
Disabling indexing on the drive would also help. You probably don't need Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service either.

This post has been edited by winterhell: 28 May 2013 - 05:48 AM

[Infiniti]

winterhell, on 28 May 2013 - 05:41 AM, said:

Chrome does a lot of writing to its AppData folder so it might be a good idea to move the folder to the hdd and then make a Link.

Yea, I read up on that last night, here. Seams like a good idea to do this.

[Meat Miracle]

I have page file & temp data all set to my SSD. Mainly because it makes their usage orders of magnitude faster (which is the goddamn point!). But also because, even with heavy usage, the drive will last 4-5x longer before I'd normally buy a new one. My last SSD (intel X-25 V) used up something like 10% of its write cycles in the three years I had it. That means it could've been going strong for 30 years, and even longer if I was going easy on it. Don't remember the exact values, I may have pictures of the SMART data saved though.

I'm currently using a 120gb intel 330 drive, and I'm actively using it for temp data when doing data recompressing or scanning, because it's just bloody astonishingly fast.

If you look at SSD endurance tests, you can see that depending on drive, it can take over a petabyte of total writes to destroy the drive. With relatively heavy usage, I wrote about 4,5 terabytes total to my SSD in ~200 days: given that endurance tests have pushed this specific drive up to 800+ tbytes, this means that I could use this drive, the way I do it now, for over a HUNDRED YEARS. I plan on ditching it in 2-3 years.

So no, you don't have to give it any kinds of special treatment... just use the thing normally and enjoy the benefits.

[Ultima]

Seconding what was just said. There were some stress tests published for the new(ish) Samsung 840s where they were writing to them solidly for over a month, terabytes upon terabytes of data. They never died (in fact, I think it's still going - google samsung 840 stress test if interested).

I got a 250gb to split between OSX and Windows... but I'm now kinda tempted to pick up another 250gb one and have 250gb for each OS (on separate drives). SSDs are pretty affordable these days!

[TmEE]

I'll get one for my laptop sometime, only because of the shock and vibration immunity.

[Ultima]

TmEE, on 02 June 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

I'll get one for my laptop sometime, only because of the shock and vibration immunity.

That's pretty interesting. Have you used one before? It really does make an incredible difference to performance. I've jumped from a single core 1.4ghz processor w/1gb RAM to quad core 3.4ghz 8gb RAM before and the difference was not as dramatic as simply upgrading to an SSD in my current computer.

[TmEE]

I have done plenty of SSD business at work, I am well aware of the speed benefits but my primary reason is shock and vibration immunity. For my desktop computers a RAID setup is more than adequate for my needs as far as speed goes, and is a lot cheaper too. I got plenty of spare drives to RAID up.

This post has been edited by TmEE: 03 June 2013 - 05:53 AM

[redhotsonic]

TmEE, on 02 June 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

I'll get one for my laptop sometime, only because of the shock and vibration immunity.

Haha, this made me laugh...


There was a video on YouTube somewhere showing the difference in HDD and SSD in a vibrating/shaking test, but can't find it now.


EDIT: Here is a video with comparisons between HDD and SSD




Go to 2:31 for a vibration test on it, pretty funny actually, but SSD owns!

This post has been edited by redhotsonic: 03 June 2013 - 10:23 AM

[Covarr]

TmEE, on 02 June 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

I'll get one for my laptop sometime, only because of the shock and vibration immunity.

Today's a really good day to get one. I'm certainly buying one right now, because I don't know how long it'll be before I see prices like this again.

edit: That's Amazon US, by the way, but I checked a few other regional Amazon sites and they all seem to have Sandisk SSDs on sale, albeit not nicely organized on a single Gold Box Deal page.

This post has been edited by Covarr: 03 June 2013 - 11:52 AM

[TmEE]

I'll end up looking up something older and dirt cheap because I need to open up the thing and void the warranty or it won't fit in with the SATA to PATA bridge. I got no use for the SATA3 and those lovely read and write figures, I am not gonna see any of them haha. I am not in any hurry either, I got a nice stack of laptop HDDs that can die before I end up getting some SSD :P

[winterhell]

Can you recommend me a SATA2->SATA or SATA2->PATA bridge? I have an old SATA 1 desktop mainboard but my HDD does not get recognized.

[TmEE]

There are no SATA2 -> SATA1 bridges. But there are jumpers on most HDDs to make the HDD work in SATA1. For SATA to PATA there's good stuff with J-Micron chips.

[Meat Miracle]

I think what he wants to do is set the SATA controller to IDE emulation mode, instead of native AHCI.