Question Do I need Windows installed to my SSD to play games?

[rockbiter68]

Hey everyone,

Finally getting around to installing an SSD on my computer. It's 250 GB, and I want to use it as a secondary drives to play Steam Games (my current, main HDD is a terabyte). I'm just wondering if I need to have my OS installed on the SDD in order for it to play games. The drive came with instructions and a disk that allow me to do data cloning, but it's also taking the assumption that I'm going to use it as my primary drive (which I don't want to do). Also - and I don't know if this makes a difference - but it's an internal drive. I have it plugging into a USB port right now, and I installed a game to the drive and it worked; however, I don't know if that's because it's running through the USB cable (I would like to mount the drive internally).

My OS is Windows 7, if that makes a difference.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It should be attached to a SATA port on the board and powered by a SATA cable from PSU.

 

[Satan-IR]

You don't need the SSD to be the primary drive containing your OS to install games on it and play. Only benefit is faster load times for games in terms of initial launch and loading saves/levels etc. It doesn't affect frame times and frame rates.

However, what kind of internal SSD drive (brand/model) is it that you have connected to a USB port?!

Personally, I'd use it as primary/OS drive to get a much faster Windows load time. 250GB is plenty and you can install games on it as well.

 

[Obakasama]

No, you don't need to install Windows onto a secondary drive for it to perform the function you want. As long as your current boot drive is recognised in BIOS as the first choice nothing will change.

Install the new SSD as normal, sounds like you've formatted it already, and it will act as a secondary drive as intended for dedicated games installation.

 

[rockbiter68]

You don't need the SSD to be the primary drive containing your OS to install games on it and play. Only benefit is faster load times for games in terms of initial launch and loading saves/levels etc. It doesn't affect frame times and frame rates.

However, what kind of internal SSD drive (brand/model) is it that you have connected to a USB port?!

Personally, I'd use it as primary/OS drive to get a much faster Windows load time. 250GB is plenty and you can install games on it as well.

Oh, it's just a SATA to USB convertor cable I picked up. It was recommended for the data cloning (which I was still unsure if I needed to do for my purposes) so I got it one. And thanks for the tip on the primary OS. I might do that, but I'm not too fussed about my boot time; I'd rather have that extra 50GB or so for another game or two.

 

[rockbiter68]

No, you don't need to install Windows onto a secondary drive for it to perform the function you want. As long as your current boot drive is recognised in BIOS as the first choice nothing will change.

Install the new SSD as normal, sounds like you've formatted it already, and it will act as a secondary drive as intended for dedicated games installation.

Excellent. Good to know. Thank you for the reply.

 

[rockbiter68]

It should be attached to a SATA port on the board and powered by a SATA cable from PSU.

Thank you for pointing this out. I hooked it up before work and now that I'm back I've fired it up, but my drive doesn't seem to be present. Is there a reason for this? I know it's hard to tell without seeing an image (I can post one in the morning), but I'm wondering if there's some common missteps involved with installing internal SSDs.

 

[Obakasama]

Physical installation usually doesn't require much more than making sure the cables are secure, so I would double check the connections there.

Is the SSD not seen in BIOS or Windows? If Windows then perhaps go to Device Manager and scan for hardware change to see if it helps.

 

[Satan-IR]

Oh, it's just a SATA to USB convertor cable I picked up. It was recommended for the data cloning (which I was still unsure if I needed to do for my purposes) so I got it one. And thanks for the tip on the primary OS. I might do that, but I'm not too fussed about my boot time; I'd rather have that extra 50GB or so for another game or two.

Yes it's your choice of course. If you'd rather have the space Windows would occupy on the SSD free for games that's the way to go and I just noted that for the record.

Not quite sure if changing it after Windows installation can be done without hassle (which is your case, as you're adding the SSD to an existing Windows installation) it's better to have the system SATA mode set to AHCI through BIOS to be able to benefit from all features of the SSD like TRIM and so on.

It might have been set to AHCI by default; you can check in BIOS. If by any chance (unlikely) it's not set to AHCI, I'd recommend you set it to AHCI and do a clean installation of Windows (on either HDD or SSD). Back when SSDs were kind of becoming mainstream there were walkarounds to change the SATA mode to AHCI after Windows installation with a few tweaks to registry and so forth.

 

[rockbiter68]

Physical installation usually doesn't require much more than making sure the cables are secure, so I would double check the connections there.

Is the SSD not seen in BIOS or Windows? If Windows then perhaps go to Device Manager and scan for hardware change to see if it helps.

I double-checked to make sure that all connections were secure, and it was loose on the SATA port to the motherboard. Pushed it in until it clicked and everything is going swimmingly.

Thank you (and everyone else!) for your help and advice.