2 questions on SSDs

[wavewerx]

*Rig specs in sig*
I'd like to achieve faster boot times and faster game load times by sticking a SSD in my gaming rig. I'm under the impression that there's a few quirks to actually 'using' a solid state drive... Are there? Any Win7 changes that need to be made? Any special maintenance? Effects of reformatting? (I've historically liked to reformat my pc's every 3-6 months.) I've searched for a Baby's First SSD thread but haven't found one. That would probably answer a lot of my questions. Or a "No dummy, SSDs are just like old platter drives. Treat them as such"

Second, What should I be looking for in a drive? All of my data - media, docs, pictures, etc - are either on separate drives or up on Google servers (GDocs, Picasa, etc) so I'd only have OS, Steam + Games, non-Steam games, iTunes, and stuff like FurMark, CPU-Z, GPU-Z, etc. Should any of the above be kept on a platter HDD? What size disk am I looking at? What do I need to consider when picking out a drive?

Again, I may just need a link to 'SSDs for Dummies'....

Thanks!

 

[kalston]

When you install 7 on a SSD, it takes care of everything, so don't worry about it.

If you have a lot of games, I'd consider getting a large mechanical drive (or keeping the one you already have) instead as most games don't benefit much from SSDs (if at all). Just having your OS on a separate drive, be it mechanical or flash based, will always result in a notable improvement over a 1 drive setup. There are also tricks like short stroking if you want to remain on mechanical drives and get the best out of them.

If you can afford a SSD and want a fast booting OS, then by all means get one. If you don't want to hurt your wallet get a small one and put the OS and most commonly used apps on it, while keeping the games on your mechanical drive. And of course if you can afford a large SSD then go ahead and just put everything on it.

Just be aware that many SSDs have firmware issues (even Intel as has been shown lately), it really isn't a mature technology yet (sadly).

 

[Old Hippie]

I've searched for a Baby's First SSD thread but haven't found one

You didn't look very hard.

IMHO, this site and AnandTech are the best two computer informational sites on the internet.

There's a great New to SSD thread over there.

This other SSD explanation explains how they work and should be mandatory reading before asking any questions.

I encourage you to become educated on the basics and come back with any specific questions.

I'm not smart enough to answer them but I know there's other very intelligent people here that can help ya out.

Good Luck!

 

[wavewerx]

When you install 7 on a SSD, it takes care of everything, so don't worry about it.

If you have a lot of games, I'd consider getting a large mechanical drive (or keeping the one you already have) instead as most games don't benefit much from SSDs (if at all). Just having your OS on a separate drive, be it mechanical or flash based, will always result in a notable improvement over a 1 drive setup. There are also tricks like short stroking if you want to remain on mechanical drives and get the best out of them.

If you can afford a SSD and want a fast booting OS, then by all means get one. If you don't want to hurt your wallet get a small one and put the OS and most commonly used apps on it, while keeping the games on your mechanical drive. And of course if you can afford a large SSD then go ahead and just put everything on it.

Just be aware that many SSDs have firmware issues (even Intel as has been shown lately), it really isn't a mature technology yet (sadly).

Excellent! Thanks kalston. Good info

You didn't look very hard.

IMHO, this site and AnandTech are the best two computer informational sites on the internet.

There's a great New to SSD thread over there.

This other SSD explanation explains how they work and should be mandatory reading before asking any questions.

I encourage you to become educated on the basics and come back with any specific questions.

I'm not smart enough to answer them but I know there's other very intelligent people here that can help ya out.

Good Luck!

Didn't find much on [H] for it, and AnandTech is always an afterthought Thanks Old Hippie. Exactly what I was looking for!

 

[Old Hippie]

and AnandTech is always an afterthought

It shouldn't be.

There's some guys over there that have extensive backgounds.

 

[wavewerx]

It shouldn't be.

There's some guys over there that have extensive backgounds.

Haha - I didn't mean any disrespect to those guys at all. [H] is the first, second, and third site that immediately come to mind when I'm a'thinking about tech.

 

[Forceman]

I would recommend getting at least a 120GB SSD, if you are going to get one. You can get by with a smaller drive, but it becomes a hassle trying to manage the space, especially if you like to play a couple of games at the same time (instead of playing one to completion then moving on to the next). There are a couple of apps out that make it easy to move Steam games back and forth between a SSD and a mechanical drive, so you can keep your current games on the SSD, while having the others available on the mechanical drive. You can also look into symbolic links, to seamlessly move stuff to a mechanical drive.

As for how to setup/care for a SSD, just use it like you would any other drive and don't worry over much about drive lifetime or anything - those concerns are vastly overblown - and many of the "tweaks" are just a waste of time. The only concession you might want to make is to disable hibernation and set a smaller manual page file size to free up some extra space ont he SSD.