OS on Raptor, Games on SSD? or other way around

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phaelinx

Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2003
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535
So I'm thinking about getting an SSD this weekend.

I currently have a 74gig Raptor that's been my main OS for awhile now.. However, I'm impressed with the load/write times on the SSD and will be getting one

my question to HardForum, is what would you do? Install Windows 7 on the Raptor and leave the SSD for Games (which would = much faster level loading)

Or, install Windows 7 on the SSD (faster windows boots) and put the games on the Raptor?

I'm a gamer and am leaning towards using the SSD for games and putting win7 on the Raptor..

Suggestions?
 
OS on SSD not questions.

If your Raptor is not the Vraptor, then modern drives can probably outclass it in everything but seek time. Even then a WD Black Caviar or RE4 will probably outpace you older Raptor.

I have the same dilemma, I am looking at the 160GB drive, but I would need the 256 one, but dont have 700+ bucks now for it. so I am thinking that while im waiting for my Win 7 coupon and copy to arrive, Ill get a 120GB Vertex for games, and see what I can get later for the OS.
 
So outside of faster boot times, faster paging, and faster IE8 loading, what would be the benefits for me to install the OS on the SSD ?

I'm a hardcore gamer and level loading is a peave of mine.. :D


my current raptor, is fairly old.. it's not the Velocoraptor.. I get pretty dang quick load times and what not already from Vista..
 
I personally dont see the reason why you would install games on a different drive than the OS...

Im not really sure why someone would buy a SSD only to not have it for things that benefit greatly from seek times. You want the fastest drive for OS and games... I keep all main stuff (OS/APPS/Games) on main hd, then all other stuff on a slave...
 
Retsam said:
I personally dont see the reason why you would install games on a different drive than the OS...

Im not really sure why someone would buy a SSD only to not have it for things that benefit greatly from seek times. You want the fastest drive for OS and games... I keep all main stuff (OS/APPS/Games) on main hd, then all other stuff on a slave...
Click to expand...

And how big is you games folder?
10 games, where each game is 8GB (which is not uncommon) is 80GB in games. Thats one expensive SSD.
 
Retsam said:
I personally dont see the reason why you would install games on a different drive than the OS...

Im not really sure why someone would buy a SSD only to not have it for things that benefit greatly from seek times. You want the fastest drive for OS and games... I keep all main stuff (OS/APPS/Games) on main hd, then all other stuff on a slave...
Click to expand...

We're talking about SSD's here, where a lonely 60GB is like $200 bucks..

Win7 probably eats 10 of that..

I have easily over 10 games, with more on the way. Borderlands, Diablo 3, etc..
 
Like others said: Install OS on SSD. No question.

But install your MOST USED games also on the SSD. As your preferences change, you can always use the little-used Hard Links (MKLINK) command when you move less-used games off your SSD and onto your Raptor.

Hard Links with the /J(unction) option is what I use to make sure Windows 7 (on my SSD) 'sees' all of my 'My Pictures' and 'My Documents' as if they were on the OS drive even though they're off on my slower HDD.

And yes - before someone asks - I'm well aware of Win7's indexing features that simply need directories added to the library for them to be indexed. /J does a better job for me and keeps everything looking like it's on a single drive when it's not. Something as simple as MKLINK /J C:\User\Me\My Documents D:\Me\Tons of Documents does nicely.

The same can be used for games to give you flexibility to move games from one drive to another without uninstall/re-install while making sure your most-used games stay on the SSD and the less favorites can be moved to the HDD.
 
Here are some benches of a 74Gb vs SSD, also threw in a WD 640Gb Black

80gb-ssd.gif


I'd say use the SSD as your OS drive and gaming drive. You should be able to fit a few games (not many) on the SSD. But most people only play 2-3 games at any given time. You'll just need to uninstall the older games that you don't play anymore, and reinstall them on the 74Gb if you need them later.

My current set up is:

1 x X25-M G2 80Gb as my OS and app drive
2 x 640Gb Black in Raid 1 for My Docs (pics/vids, etc.)
 
Why not just get another raptor and raid 0 them along with the SSD =)

Or raid 0 two SSD drives and toss the raptor.

Personally I would use the SSD for the OS files before I used them for games. Having games/os of two seperate drives is already an advantage from an I/O standpoint for system operations while gaming.
 
C-rizzle said:
Here are some benches of a 74Gb vs SSD, also threw in a WD 640Gb Black

80gb-ssd.gif


I'd say use the SSD as your OS drive and gaming drive. You should be able to fit a few games (not many) on the SSD. But most people only play 2-3 games at any given time. You'll just need to uninstall the older games that you don't play anymore, and reinstall them on the 74Gb if you need them later.

My current set up is:

1 x X25-M G2 80Gb as my OS and app drive
2 x 640Gb Black in Raid 1 for My Docs (pics/vids, etc.)
Click to expand...

Those figures make me wonder why I still have my 74GB raptor drives... what version are those? 1st Gen or 2nd? SSD prices really need to come down. I was considering buying 2 x 15K RPM SAS drives (raid 0) to replace my raptors for my i7 P6T6 workstation. If you can support SAS I think it’s a good choice if you are trying to bridge the gap from SATA to SSD.
 
I think it's because the gap in speed from Sata 150 to Sata 300.. my 74g raptor, even at 10k is only Sata 150.. =/
 
ExtremeX said:
Those figures make me wonder why I still have my 74GB raptor drives... what version are those? 1st Gen or 2nd? SSD prices really need to come down. I was considering buying 2 x 15K RPM SAS drives (raid 0) to replace my raptors for my i7 P6T6 workstation. If you can support SAS I think it’s a good choice if you are trying to bridge the gap from SATA to SSD.
Click to expand...

the X25-M 80Gb is a G2, just got it 2 days ago.

the 74Gb Raptor is like 5 years old, don't know the firmware / version, I know different firmware / versions vary slightly in peformance.

the WD 640Gb Black is like 6 months old, probably all same versions

I went from using the 74Gb raptor as my OS drive, to the 640Gb as my OS drive. (then 80Gb as OS drive now)
There was a big difference even going from the 74Gb Raptor to the 640Gb Black.
Then another nice improvement going to the 80Gb SSD.
 
Last edited:
Id really like to see that same comparison with the Fuji 15K RPM SAS drives in the mix... ive been wanting these drives for a while but waiting for a mobo that supported SAS since I didn’t want to have to buy an additional controller.

Right now for me it’s coming down to SSD vs SAS, but I lean towards SAS only because it’s tried and true, along with the prices for SSD are still up there. Reliability is important since my workstation isn’t really a gaming rig; it’s for VMWare and video editing, but I do play an occasional game now and then.

Storage is all coming off my 3Ware 9650SE 16 port sata raid card… maybe I should just do a 4 drive raid 0 for my OS using the 640GB WD Black drives you benched. I still have a fair share of open ports on that card.
 
phaelinx said:
I think it's because the gap in speed from Sata 150 to Sata 300.. my 74g raptor, even at 10k is only Sata 150.. =/
Click to expand...

Ummm... The Raptor is maxing out at 63MB/s in that pic. I don't think the 150MB/s limit of SATA1 is bottlenecking it.

The Raptors were pretty good back in their day, and the VelociRaptors are still fast now. But as with all things computer, "the best" never stays that way. The original Raptor is simply old technology now. Modern "regular" drives are now at the same performance level as the old "premium" Raptor. The VR still has amazingly fast seek times, but is basically matched or beaten in every other spec by a larger, cheaper WD Black.

Put your OS and your top games on the SSD. Upgrade your old Raptor to a WD6401AALS or VR if you want, and put the rest of your stuff there. Use hardlinks to point stuff elsewhere like dugn said. Use the "-a 7" option of JkDefrag to arrange the files on the hard drive by name. This will put all the files in a directory next to each other, meaning that each game will be stored contiguously in one place on disk. The read/write head won't have to jump all over the disk to find the files to load, speeding things up some. Similarly, you can shortstroke the hard drive to force data to stay in the faster first part of the disk (though JkDefrag will achieve the same thing manually).
 
Learn and love symbolic links. Problem solved.

I install all games initially on the SSD drive, and symbolic link them out onto the hard drive when I get bored/finish/want to install something else. Outside of a few apps (TortoiseSVN comes to mind), it should be virtually transparent.

Re Junctions: Symbolic links have some advantages in handling NFS and remote file systems compared to junctions (I can't recall what they were exactly).
 
jimhsu said:
Learn and love symbolic links. Problem solved.

I install all games initially on the SSD drive, and symbolic link them out onto the hard drive when I get bored/finish/want to install something else. Outside of a few apps (TortoiseSVN comes to mind), it should be virtually transparent.

Re Junctions: Symbolic links have some advantages in handling NFS and remote file systems compared to junctions (I can't recall what they were exactly).
Click to expand...

Yeah - just like that dugn guy said earlier in the thread

Like others said: Install OS on SSD. No question.

But install your MOST USED games also on the SSD. As your preferences change, you can always use the little-used Hard Links (MKLINK) command when you move less-used games off your SSD and onto your Raptor.

Hard Links with the /J(unction) option is what I use to make sure Windows 7 (on my SSD) 'sees' all of my 'My Pictures' and 'My Documents' as if they were on the OS drive even though they're off on my slower HDD.

And yes - before someone asks - I'm well aware of Win7's indexing features that simply need directories added to the library for them to be indexed. /J does a better job for me and keeps everything looking like it's on a single drive when it's not. Something as simple as MKLINK /J C:\User\Me\My Documents D:\Me\Tons of Documents does nicely.

The same can be used for games to give you flexibility to move games from one drive to another without uninstall/re-install while making sure your most-used games stay on the SSD and the less favorites can be moved to the HDD.
Click to expand...
 
Honestly? If you've got a fairly recent HDD for data I'd just sell that 74GB Raptor, 'cuz it's not gonna be much faster (if at all) than some recent HDD w/large platters (640GB drives with 2x platters, or larger drives w/500GB platters). I'd put the OS and your most played games on the SSD, rest on another drive, regardless of what ya do with the Raptor.

Oh and level loads won't always improve because of the SSD, sometimes they're actually bottlenecked by the GPU/CPU (highly compressed textures may need unpacking or it's drawing stuff as it loads, etc.), depends on the game.

phaelinx said:
We're talking about SSD's here, where a lonely 60GB is like $200 bucks.. Win7 probably eats 10 of that.. I have easily over 10 games, with more on the way. Borderlands, Diablo 3, etc..
Click to expand...

You can move games that you aren't playing as much over to a regular HDD once you're done w/them, even things like specific games within your Steam folder can be moved and made to work w/symbolic links as others stated. A budget 60GB SSD is only like $130 with a deal/rebate btw (OCZ Agility, very good value), the Vertex line is slightly faster/costlier, and Intel's 80GB X25-M is like $230 (if you manage to find it in stock from a store that isn't price gouging). You should definitely not be paying $200 for 60GB tho.
 
Impulse said:
Honestly? If you've got a fairly recent HDD for data I'd just sell that 74GB Raptor, 'cuz it's not gonna be much faster (if at all) than some recent HDD w/large platters (640GB drives with 2x platters, or larger drives w/500GB platters).
Click to expand...
Impulse said:
I'd put the OS and your most played games on the SSD, rest on another drive, regardless of what ya do with the Raptor.

Oh and level loads won't always improve because of the SSD, sometimes they're actually bottlenecked by the GPU/CPU (highly compressed textures may need unpacking or it's drawing stuff as it loads, etc.), depends on the game.



You can move games that you aren't playing as much over to a regular HDD once you're done w/them, even things like specific games within your Steam folder can be moved and made to work w/symbolic links as others stated. A budget 60GB SSD is only like $130 with a deal/rebate btw (OCZ Agility, very good value), the Vertex line is slightly faster/costlier, and Intel's 80GB X25-M is like $230 (if you manage to find it in stock from a store that isn't price gouging). You should definitely not be paying $200 for 60GB tho.
Click to expand...

a WD 640 is faster than a 74Gb Raptor in everything except the seek times. (about 12.5ms vs 9ms) Subjectively it "felt faster" when I switched to using the 640Gb as my OS drive from the 74Gb Raptor. And I cloned it over, so it wasn't b/c of a fresh install. The sequential reads are twice as fast on the 640Gb over the 74Gb.

At this point a 74Gb Raptor is a small drive, thats about as fast as modern large drives. Really no point in using one. I'm going to put mine in a portable enclosure and use it as a back up drive.
 
Impulse said:
Honestly? If you've got a fairly recent HDD for data I'd just sell that 74GB Raptor, 'cuz it's not gonna be much faster (if at all) than some recent HDD w/large platters (640GB drives with 2x platters, or larger drives w/500GB platters). I'd put the OS and your most played games on the SSD, rest on another drive, regardless of what ya do with the Raptor.

Oh and level loads won't always improve because of the SSD, sometimes they're actually bottlenecked by the GPU/CPU (highly compressed textures may need unpacking or it's drawing stuff as it loads, etc.), depends on the game.



You can move games that you aren't playing as much over to a regular HDD once you're done w/them, even things like specific games within your Steam folder can be moved and made to work w/symbolic links as others stated. A budget 60GB SSD is only like $130 with a deal/rebate btw (OCZ Agility, very good value), the Vertex line is slightly faster/costlier, and Intel's 80GB X25-M is like $230 (if you manage to find it in stock from a store that isn't price gouging). You should definitely not be paying $200 for 60GB tho.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. wasn't even looking at budget SSD's.. here's the one I was looking at.

It's only 60GB and a tad over $200..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227394
 
I think you can find the 60GB Vertex cheaper elsewhere (than Newegg), but like I said, the Agility is a great alternative to the Vertex... It uses the same exact Indilinx Barefoot controller, but Samsung flash instead of Intel flash IIRC (which is only slightly slower)... For $130 or even $150 it's a steal imo, I'd rather save some cash w/the Agility than go for the 60GB Vertex; or simply just $20-30 more on the 80GB Intel X25-M G2, but that's just me.
 
I went from 160 gb wd to 2 74gbs in raid 0, now to an OCZ vertex ssd. I never really liked the raptors because they were noisy and produced so much heat in my case. I was leaning towards the velociraptor 150 gb at one point but ended up going with the ssd because for 2x more for cost, it performed 6 times better than the velociraptor.

Hopefully my investment will last me awhile i hope. If you have the money, get an SSD and install your OS and games on there, it felt like I upgraded my processor, ram and mobo to another generation. You will not be displeased.
 
I'm hearing alot of mixed results.. I hear people talking about the OCZ Vertex, and then alot talking about the Intel..

I've heard that the Vertex is good for photoshop, and digital imagery, whereas the Intel for everyday use/games is better..

anyone?
 
C-rizzle said:
That drive is $229. The MSRP of the Intel X25-M 80Gb!

I'd get the Intel 80Gb drive. Even right now with them selling like hot cakes you can find them for around $250.
For 10% more price, you get 33% more storage space AND more reliable faster speeds.
Click to expand...

yup exactly why i went with intel !
 
I have both an Intel X25-M G2 160 GB and a Velociraptor 300GB.

Trust me. Put the OS and all the games you play the most on the SSD. With Windows 7 and my 5-6 favorite games, I have around 60-70 GB on my Intel, and still have around 80-90 GB left. :)

My Velociraptor is now only a fancy storage device for movies (AVC-HD), pictures and MP3... :)
 
Megalomaniac said:
Its sad that the Vertex arent down in price more. they cant compete with Intel at their current price levels.

A 120Gb is $350 or more on most sites. It should be sub $300.
Click to expand...

yea if the 120 was lets say $250 i would have gotten that over the intel
but again the intel is a better os drive
 
I have the same problem with having too many games and data.

So my solution is to get 2x 120 OCZ Agility and do a raid 0.

That'll give enough space at less cost than a single 250 GB Vertex (which seems to be the most buggy of all Vertex)
 
You want the SSD for your boot drive. It will be the biggest single upgrade you've ever made. I have an Intel SX-25 M as my boot drive and a WD Black 1TB as a data drive. I also have an old 74GB Raptor like yours that used to be a boot drive years ago that I use occasionally in an eSATA docking station. Trust me, once you realize how slow and noisy that Raptor by today's standards you won't want it for anything more than a place to store rarely used files.

The reason I went with the setup I did is low cost. The X-25 is under $300 these days and Fry's has the WD Black 1GB retail box for $104. You could spend a lot more money and only increase your storage sub-system speed incrementally. The next big step would be to go all SSD.

oc
 
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