Getting my first SSD.. how do YOU organize your files?

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Kuo

Gawd
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So I'm purchasing a SSD for the very first time (Samsung 250GB), and as I'm waiting for it to come in, I'm trying to brainstorm how to organize all my files.

In days past, I would install all my applications on C, and games and data on D. (partitioned a 2 TB drive out).

C ran out of space one day though, so some applications started making their way to D (bad estimation).

With SSD, I obviously want to maximize the speed of it, but have to be cognizant of what goes on it.

Just wondering how others do it, what you consider, etc.
 
OS, dev tools, games, apps on the SSD.

Code projects, music, videos, etc. go on a separate and larger mechanical drive.
 
C Drive (SSD #1) - OS, and daily use programs, have ~60gb of 120gb free on average
D Drive (Platter #1) - All other programs, and non-intensive games
E Drive (Platter #2) - FIles only, what doesnt fit goes on D
Z Drive (SSD #2) - Games, and other well used programs as needed ( IE its mainly games, but I have SIemens NX 8.5 on it since it is used on occasion and the speed benefit is there for larger files).


Letters are different from normal just because ... well I can :D
 
platter #1 and #2 seems odd to my eyes :p I usual made my partitions according to the speed
basically the portions that need the most speed go on the partitions closest to the leading edge of the disk in question something like HDtune will tell you the speed per sector and by total gb amount so it is easier to figure it out.

I generally made 4 partitions with the 5th left un addressed.
SSD OS drive(55.8gb usable for me) Stuff that has to be here as well as the most frequent programs/games
Drive 1 part 1 as paging file (16-22gb)
part 2 as games/app constantly used/changed
part 3 os junk/games 2 stuff like my music, documents, favorites and so forth, basically an overflow
part 4 junk stuff that rarely is used or used once such as video card drivers
part 5 un-addressed remainder of the drive.
Drive 2 one massive size, only really used as a backup drive anyways.

Generally it is just a lot faster to have partitions for mechanicals and easier to keep organized, instead of having one huge filing cabinet where things can get mixed up, I find it much easier if everything has its own shelf sort of speak
 
2x 120GB SSD RAID0 - C:\ OS, apps, most used games (BF3)

600GB Raptor - Deticated Steam drive

2x 1TB Seagate RAID1 - Documents, Music, ISOs, Downloads folders, Installations of older games, (Basically stuff that i would punch a baby if I lost...)

Movies and backups are on my server... I keep monthly images of my drives on my server for backups. (except steam drive)
 
(60GB SSD) C:\ --OS and apps that I care about how fast they launch and perform

RAID0 drive --Steam and games and programs that didn't make it on the SSD

Single internal HDD drive (of varying capacity depending on where I am in an upgrade)--all of my data/media etc.

Large external HDD--backup of everything I care about

Cloud storage with CrashPlan--everything I care to back up to the cloud.
 
dragonstongue said:
Generally it is just a lot faster to have partitions for mechanicals and easier to keep organized, instead of having one huge filing cabinet where things can get mixed up, I find it much easier if everything has its own shelf sort of speak
Click to expand...

Wow, that's many partitions! I use to try to do that, but I found it extremely hard to estimate how much space I would need per partition, so I ended up with a OS/common programs partition, and an "everything else" partition back before SSDs.

Is there an easy way these days to adjust the size of partitions?
 
I use http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html along with HDtune or similar, this way here I can see the best partition sizes to make, and yes it take a bit longer to nail down the exact size you want, but it is so much faster in numerous ways once you have it done the way you like.
All depends on your needs, you could have all your movies/music on their own partition it simply helps the drive when it knows it needs to go to X section of the drive, and when it comes to defragging there is not a whole whack of crap left everywhere.

4 partitions on the one drive, the rest is left unused, unaddressed on my 640 drive which is decently fast to begin with, it makes a noticeable improvement in many ways. on 3 drives 1 60gb SSD, 1 640gb caviar black and 1 1tb EALX caviar blue I have a total of 6 drive spaces(4 of them on the 640) the SSD is the master OS and the 1tb is the mass file single partition.
 
I put the OS and applications on my primary SSD. I then put my games on the secondary SSD. Everything else on the Seagate. I've yet to run into space issues with my 128GB M4, so I'm sure that you'll be plenty happy with your 250GB Samsung.
 
hell I do fine with my 55.8gb usable after I arranged things some, and even have 3 games on it, so yeh 250 rough 225? usable you really need a good look if you run into spacing issues :p
 
Backups ( B: ) 50.0 GB --Things that eventually go into backups (photos, videos, work files, etc)
Central SSD ( C: ) 37.1 GB --Windows, programs
Games SSD ( G: ) 119 GB --Games and a few giant programs (photoshop, office, etc)
Movies ( M: ) 1.77 GB --Movies
TV Shows ( V: ) 1.77 GB --TV Shows
Xtra ( X: ) 50.0 GB --Fragmented shit, temp downloads, unsorted crap.
 
SSD has apps and games installed.
One drive for documents
One for stroage of whatever.
My documents drive gets backed up once every couple months or so. I used to run a dedicated file server but it got to be too much of a pain and take to long to backup across the network.
I also have some documents on the cloud.
 
I use an SSD and HDD. I install my OS, applications, and have the page file on the SSD (using Min/Max). I then use the Location tab on my Documents, Music, Videos, Pictures, Downloads, etc., and point to the hard drive (create folders first). This gives a seamless Windows users experience but keeps files off the SSD. For most files, typical hard drive speed is fine, especially if allow your Libraries to be indexed (which is default).
 
PTNL said:
OS, dev tools, games, apps on the SSD.

Code projects, music, videos, etc. go on a separate and larger mechanical drive.
Click to expand...

This. Those who are partitioning their drives out to multiple drive letterings are doing so foolishly.
 
I have 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs

SSDs
64GB Windows C: - windows, web browser, and anything forced to install to the C: drive (a lot of microsoft development crap forces you to install to the C drive and it sucks)
250GB Games G: - games

HDDs
1TB Programs E: programs, any games that couldn't fit on the SSD
1TB Files F: movies, pictures, downloads, etc, everything else basically.

I'm doing the same thing with my new build except for upgrading the windows SSD to 250GB and the hard drives to 2TB each.

You would be surprised how quickly cache fills up your C: drive. Adobe programs will easily use 10GB of the C: drive in cache and you have to dig deep to find it and delete it. I actually couldn't even install visual stuidio 2012 because I didn't have enough space on my C drive and there are no options to install it to another drive.
 
As many suggests, put your main files like os files and other critical files on C: and keep large free space. This only is important. Other things, you can organize as you wish, for instance- I keep couple of drives as entertainment and one for business/work purpose. It's easy for me to manage in this way. And when some uncertain thing happens, we know what to backup first :)
 
I haven't built my comp yet but when I do I will have 3 HDD. The first will be what you're getting. I will install my OS, misc apps and my fav games that benefit from it the most such as wow, diablo iii, etc.

On my second it will be a Seagate 2 TB drive which I will store all my other STEAM games and such on.

On my third it is an old 1TB drive that I will use just to store stuff.
 
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