Silly idea for SSD use.

[Lazn_Work]

So I had a thought. (dangerous I know)

Because many programs (like Steam +games for example) can be quite large and you don't always use all of the program, might a good use of a fast SSD be on a USB3 port as a ReadyBoost drive?

Say rather than get one huge SSD large enough to store EVERYTHING, just get two small ones, and not RAID them, but rather use one for the OS, and the other on USB3 as a ReadyBoost drive.

Then your OS will be fast on one small SSD, and any programs you use regularly will be fast off the ReadyBoost drive and you don't have to worry about filling up your OS SSD, rather just install all your programs to a normal Hard Drive.

Am I crazy for thinking this might be a good idea?

What got me thinking about this is that Steam will not allow you to install the games into different folders, you can install Steam and all games to a different drive, but if you have a lot of games on Steam but don't want to use up your SSD with many many GB of games you only play occasionally, well.. this seems like a simple elegant solution.

 

[SinShiva]

i doubt readyboost caches all the media the program has to load, making this pretty useless. i could be wrong, though

 

[staticlag]

You can install games/whatever to different folders on different drives, but you have to use NTFS symbolic links to do it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link Its completely transparent to the OS or any programs so its a great way to move folders yet avoid re-installs or other config changes.

Personally I have my Win7 Music folder linked to a separate drive, so as not to take up precious SSD space and also not to confuse my music programs.

 

[criccio]

Won't work. Readyboost doesn't work that way.