Should I get a separate SSD for OS?

[Guest]

I think it would be a good idea to get a separate 60-80GB SSD just for Windows 7/Linux and keep another 120GB for games and heavy 3D modelling programs. Would it be better that way for performance or just get 240GB instead and keep everything on it?

 

[gerry410]

I think it would be a good idea to get a separate 60-80GB SSD just for Windows 7/Linux and keep another 120GB for games and heavy 3D modelling programs. Would it be better that way for performance or just get 240GB instead and keep everything on it?

An SSD will give you the biggest performance you could find. Most folks get a 120GB that runs the OS/Video drivers and Virus protection. You will still have room for a few games. Use a HDD to store data like pics, music and installed 3rd party software.

 

[Guest]

An SSD will give you the biggest performance you could find. Most folks get a 120GB that runs the OS/Video drivers and Virus protection. You will still have room for a few games. Use a HDD to store data like pics, music and installed 3rd party software.

I have 2TB for music, movies and pics. The question is should I separate OS from games?

 

[mayankleoboy1]

that depends on the games you play.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-rift-ssd,3062-14.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/video-editing-performance-ssd-hdd,3089.html


if you have the money to spend on a 240gb HDD, then go for that. smaller sized SSD like 60GB and even 120GB perform less than the 240gb versions due to ssd architecture. put everything you possibly can on it.

if you dont have the money, then get the largest you can afford, and put the OS and your 3d modelling applications on it.
if you use adobe CS, use any spare storage as scratch drive. if you have some spare space left, put your games.

 

[Guest]

Great links, mayankleoboy1, thanks!

So 240GB works better than 180GB considering same brand and same model of SSD?
I currently have 180GB + 60GB both Corsair Force GT SSDs.

If taking in consideration what I have right now, which config would be better for both programming (3D modeling and audio production) and high-end games:

Force GT 60GB - OS, 3rd party programs + proffesional software
Force GT 180GB - Games, scratches and templates

VS.

Force GT 180GB - One partition (50GB) is for OS, 3rd party programs + proffesional software. Another partition - for games, scratches and templates, and keep 60GB one SSD for caching for 2TB Samsung 3.5" drive.

 

[gerry410]

I have 2TB for music, movies and pics. The question is should I separate OS from games?

The reason you get an SSD is for the performance boost. The drive is designed to work so let it. The trick is to cut all the other read and writes you can by maintaining a storage directory. The bigger the drive 120 to 256 GB is certainly going to give you faster read and writes because there's more real estate. That's documented all over the place. If you were to get the 256 SSD I would definetly partition the drive for os.

My SSD has 2 partitions. C: and E: on C: is the os, video drivers, MS software and games. E: is the Virus protection. I'm not even sure you can get steam to load anywhere other than C:.

 

[Guest]

The reason you get an SSD is for the performance boost. The drive is designed to work so let it. The trick is to cut all the other read and writes you can by maintaining a storage directory. The bigger the drive 120 to 256 GB is certainly going to give you faster read and writes because there's more real estate. That's documented all over the place. If you were to get the 256 SSD I would definetly partition the drive for os.

My SSD has 2 partitions. C: and E: on C: is the os, video drivers, MS software and games. E: is the Virus protection. I'm not even sure you can get steam to load anywhere other than C:.

But wouldn't a load distributed more equally and evenly in case of 60 for OS+180gb for games? That way load goes into 2 separate drives instead of on one. And yes, you can install steam on D:, I currently have it on D: which is 180gb one.

 

[r0ck3tm@n]

But wouldn't a load distributed more equally and evenly in case of 60 for OS+180gb for games? That way load goes into 2 separate drives instead of on one. And yes, you can install steam on D:, I currently have it on D: which is 180gb one.

The thing about SSD's is their performance, most write performance as I have seen, goes up quite a lot when you get a larger SSD. That's what the guy above is telling you. I can see that you are trying to double the speed by dividing the load onto two SSD's. Sounds like that would work if other subsystems cooperate with that. I chose to get one 256GB SSD for my OS and programs, including games. Everything else goes on a 4 drive RAID 10 array. For large amounts of data I believe the RAID 10 array might be faster than the SSD. That tickles me just right.

I don't think you are going to be able to divide the load so much, in practice. Now then, a RAID 0 array would do that very well. In fact, that's what you should do. It's not any safer, you will need to do weekly backups, but there you go.

If you research the performance of the SSD cache and disc drive combination I think you will find that to be not so impressive.

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by Veirtimid.

 

[gerry410]

Great links, mayankleoboy1, thanks!

So 240GB works better than 180GB considering same brand and same model of SSD?
I currently have 180GB + 60GB both Corsair Force GT SSDs.

If taking in consideration what I have right now, which config would be better for both programming (3D modeling and audio production) and high-end games:

Force GT 60GB - OS, 3rd party programs + proffesional software
Force GT 180GB - Games, scratches and templates

VS.

Force GT 180GB - One partition (50GB) is for OS, 3rd party programs + proffesional software. Another partition - for games, scratches and templates, and keep 60GB one SSD for caching for 2TB Samsung 3.5" drive.

First I want to thank you for the thumbs up.

Regarding my installed programs and the partitions I said " My SSD has 2 partitions. C: and E: on C: is the os, video drivers, MS software and games. E: is the Virus protection. That's not correct.
I meant to say my 120 GB Force3 has 2 partitions, C: and E: On C: I did a clean install of Windows then I downloaded the RST files at Intel. ( Rapid Storage Technology). I DID NOT install any updates when installing windows. After the install was done I then partitioned the drive. First thing was Virus protection than hook up to internet and get all the updates, then your video drivers.

On another note think again about the Corsair Force GT. I had my Force2 brick on me after 7 months. They replaced it with the SATA 3 drive and I'm hoping better luck with it. However, if you read all the customer feedback on new egg there are a lot of problems with the Corsair drives. I would seriously consider an OCZ, Intel or the new Samsung's. Those three especially the Intel 550? and Samsung's are very reliable.

Did you ever build one before?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey