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SSD usage recommendations

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Eóin:
SSDs have been discussed here a bit recently. I'm now looking to get a 120gb one and do a full reinstall of Windows (7 x64). I wondering what partition layout, filesystem, etc is recommended.

Here are my own initial thoughts -


* Obviously Windows and Program Files go on the SSD as they're fairly static.


* Temp?
That's a hard one, if I had more than 8 gbs ram I'd consider a ram drive, but could I get away with one as it is?


* Development work?
This is the really hard one, I primarily use the machine for dev work, and compiling C++ programs is processor and disk intensive so I'd love to get a speed up. Also compiling binaries seem to suffer horrendously from fragmentation, so here an SSD could shine. On the other hand though, would the excessive use kill the drive?


* Documents?
I suspect these should go on a a mechanical drive, I'd need the extra space anyway.


* AppData?
This is a bit harder, most AppData is small config file, I really feel like they'd benifit from the SSD. On the other hand, one unruly program using it's appdata folder as a workspce could really mess things up.


Those seem to be the key decisions. Anyone have thoughts, is there anything I big I've missed?

f0dder:
I have 8GB ram and use a 512meg ramdrive for temp - it's enough for most situations, and when it isn't it's fairly easy to relaunch whatever lame installer with TEMP pointing to mechanical storage. Dunno if I'd put TEMP on a SSD.

Development work definitely goes on the SSD. Yes, you have a fair amount of writes when building, but you're buying a SSD to speed up your computing work, not just to stare at it at pat it.

As for documents, depends on what kind. I have "My Documents" on the same partition as my development work, but the "documents" I work with are all fairly small (largest files being "several megabytes"). For really huge stuff like VM images, I go for mechanical storage.

My AppData is on SSD as well, simply because I can't be arsed to move it elsewhere, except for a few things from badly behaved applications that find it reasonable to dump several hundreds of megabytes in AppData, and stuff like FireFox profile+temp that goes to my ramdrive.

Short version: you want to minimize unnecessary wear & tear, but you want to speed up your everyday operations as well.

Which SSD are you considering? As far as I can tell, OCZ Vertex2 is currently the best bang for the buck, but do be sure to read this recent tomshardware aticle (I've just made it to page 2, so don't have any conclusions).

Renegade:
I was using 1GB for a RAM drive and had BSODs every now and then. It also ran out of space when using Photoshop.

Just what happened for me anyways.

f0dder:
I was using 1GB for a RAM drive and had BSODs every now and then.-Renegade (February 21, 2011, 06:26 AM)
--- End quote ---
Which ramdisk product?

It also ran out of space when using Photoshop.-Renegade (February 21, 2011, 06:26 AM)
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Photoshop is a pig :), but can't you redirect it's scratch locations to elsewhere but %TEMP%?

Eóin:
Yeah you're right, no point point just staring at it :) I'll be putting the dev work on it. I suppose once off large builds like for the Boost Libraries could be done on a mechanical drive if I'm really bothered.

As far as I can tell, OCZ Vertex2 is currently the best bang for the buck.-f0dder (February 21, 2011, 06:14 AM)
--- End quote ---

Well that's actually the one I ordered, so no changing my mind now. I didn't have much of a selection for my set budget.

Speaking of ramdisks, I've toyed with ImDisk without issues, it's free, regularly updated and is signed so it's works with x64 without hacks.

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