Question Regarding Install Directory

[themadhatta]

So ive been told i can change the directory that is used as defualt for my program files folder.
I was also told that this can mess up certain programs and games, is that true?
Would changing the directory affect program files x86 and the regular folder or just one or the other?

Im running out of space on my raided SSD drives and cant find anything to move to another hard drive.

Im thinking i might wanna just have a separate hard drive for all my music related programs and a bunch of other stuff.

What do you guys think?

I was also told that hard drives dont affect video game performance at all, and then later was told that hard drive speeds can significantly increase gaming performance. I thought it was only affecting the load times. Can someone pls correct me on this?

I dont really even know why i have my SSD drives, i asked for a faster drive like my old raptor drive and was told to buy 2 SSD drives that equal around 250 gigs i believe.

Is it really worth having an SSD drive? I multitask like crazy, have hundreds of tabs open at a time sometimes, and love playing video games. My goal is to eventually run a full nvidia 3d surround setup.

Im also trying to figure out if 2 GTX 590s will run nvidias 3d vision on any new games with max graphics or if i actually need 3 so i have a gpu dedicated to each monitor. Im running over 12 gigs DDR3 and have a 3.2-3.4 ghz i7 cpu.

Sorry for getting quite off topic there, and thanks for your time

 

[Hawkeye22]

You don't necessarily need to move your programs folder. Just uninstall the program and reinstall it. During installation you usually have a choice of where to install it. Just change the drive/folder it wants to install to. Simply moving the folder can mess up the game or program because if it has registry entries related to it, they will now be pointing at the wrong folder. If you need more space, run disk cleanup. On the advanced tab, it will allow you to delete all but the last restore point. This should help clean things up. You can also try windirstat which easily helps you find large files.

Drive speeds effect game load times, not game performance. SSD's will improve load times.

 

[das_stig]

If you use a big fat SATA for installing games/documents then create symbolic links back to the folders on your os drive.

http://dirlinker.codeplex.com

 

[themadhatta]

I wouldnt have this problem if i was using a 1TB hard drive or larger, it would make things a million times easier. I need to know if the hard drive speed affects anything other than load times when it comes to gaming and multitasking multiple programs while playing a game.

So do hard drive speeds affect performance, or is it just load times for programs and what not?

The problem is i have like a billion different little programs. I also dont always get the option when installing stuff to choose where to install it to. I was told i can change the default install directory.
I would rather have the default directory for everything on a separate drive and then the stuff i want on my C drive i can choose to install there.

Going through each of my programs and uninstalling and then reinstalling them in another location would take forever, and i would lose my settings and what not. Plus a lot of my games i would have to do research figure out where my settings and save files are, copy them, move the folder, and then put the save and settings files in the new location.

I was also wondering if there is a compromise to my hard drive speed vs size issue. I remember i had a raptor drive very long ago that was faster than a regular hard drive. I cant afford to buy a larger SSD or a 3rd and then an SLI bridge or what have you right now. Do they make large drives now a days that are faster than lets say 7500 rpm?

Also can someone explain whats so great about these SSD drives besides the speed? I remember hearing how they never die or something like that.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Drive performance depends on your application. For a home computer, typically gaming, better load times are what you will see. For servers and heavy database use, you want a drive that can handle high IOPS.

When you uninstall/reinstall a program, most times it will leave it's settings and saves behind in a common folder like documents and settings/<user> for XP or c:\users\<user> for win 7, so even if you move the install folder, it still know's where to find it's saves and settings. Of course if you don't like this approach, then use symbolic links like das_stig said. You can try junction:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Most sata drives are 5400rpm, 7200, rpm, & 10,000rpm. I thinks some SAS drives are 15,000rpm, but most home computers don't have a SAS controller in them.

Also, SSD's do die and also have limited writes though this is getting to be less of a problem.

 

[themadhatta]

Yeah, i decided rather than risk complicating things ill ditch my two SSD drives, i never wanted them in the first place, im never trusting recommendations from a computer guy that we hire again. He put 60% of my budget or more into those drives, when i told him i want a gaming rig that will run 3D games in max settings for as long as possible. That was between 6-8 months ago and my computer is already out dated, and cant run a damn game in 3D sept for stuff like SWG, TF2, and other common steam games or shooters that have been around for a while.

I wound up getting this...
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_velociraptor_review
The 600 gig model. Sounds like all the complaints on new egg and other places are due to user error. I know my computer will keep the drive cool, and its got a 5 year limited warranty so i should be golden. Besided it actually has a faster write speed than im getting with my raided SSDs, what a joke.