SSD and HDD helpPost Date: 2014-12-14 |
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bowler7
Newbie Joined: 14 Dec 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 11 |
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Topic: SSD and HDD help Posted: 14 Dec 2014 at 6:48pm |
So I have recently bought a vanquish ii L4 with a SSD and HDD that is currently sitting underneath my Christmas tree. I have never dealt with managing two separate hard drives before and wanted to get some information about which drives would be the best when I install steam/iTunes/origin etc.
Should I just install Steam on the HDD with all of my games? What about ITunes. Sorry I know this question has been posted before, but I have been unable to find the previous post I had read about this. I just want to be prepared so that minimal time is wasted on Christmas morning. Thanks |
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Ariktu
Groupie Joined: 21 May 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 492 |
Quote Reply Posted: 15 Dec 2014 at 3:49am |
I generally install most of my stuff on my HDD and just put that one game you play all the time or the like on my SSD.
So I installed WoW on my SSD and left everything else on my HDD. |
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ArkansasWoman777
DS Veteran Joined: 19 Aug 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4314 |
Quote Reply Posted: 15 Dec 2014 at 4:26am |
I have a large ssd drive and i just put all my games on that
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"Captain Sirius Black"
Storm Trooper i5 3570k Ordered: 11-27-12 Stage 1: 11-29-12 Stage 2: 12-2-12 Stage 3: 12-2-12 Stage 4: 12-4-12 Stage 5: 12-4-12 Stage 6: 12-10-12 Stage 7: 12-12-12 |
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Meller
DS Veteran Joined: 20 Feb 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1627 |
Quote Reply Posted: 15 Dec 2014 at 7:12pm |
Do what I do. Buy 2x 256GB SSD's in raid 0. Buy one or two 1TB SSD's for games and what not, then buy a couple of 4TB HDD's for storage.
Ignore the price tag... just do it. |
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Custom PC
Ryzen 9 5950X Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme 128GB DDR4 3600mhz EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming Samsung 980 Pro 512GB m.2 Samsung 960 PRO 2TB m.2 x2 |
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ArkansasWoman777
DS Veteran Joined: 19 Aug 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4314 |
Quote Reply Posted: 15 Dec 2014 at 7:19pm |
Mellers way of putting it: Go big or go home
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"Captain Sirius Black"
Storm Trooper i5 3570k Ordered: 11-27-12 Stage 1: 11-29-12 Stage 2: 12-2-12 Stage 3: 12-2-12 Stage 4: 12-4-12 Stage 5: 12-4-12 Stage 6: 12-10-12 Stage 7: 12-12-12 |
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bowler7
Newbie Joined: 14 Dec 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 11 |
Quote Reply Posted: 15 Dec 2014 at 7:29pm |
haha Meller I would love to do that, but since I am trying to handle just two hard drives right now I think my head would explode.
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Meller
DS Veteran Joined: 20 Feb 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1627 |
Quote Reply Posted: 16 Dec 2014 at 3:25pm |
Let's get down to brass and tax. And enjoy this Bowler, because I don't just hand out advice willy nilly now a days.
If you ordered a PC with an SSD and a HDD, it'll come as such: C:/ will be your SSD D:/ (or whatever lettering it got) will be your HDD Everything you go to install will default to your C:\. Most of the time it will be your C:\Program Files (x86) or C:\Program Files\. Managing two drives is extremely easy. And I'm not saying this because I'm experienced, but because it literally is extremely easy. My recommendation goes pretty much with what has already been said. With the exception of steam, this is what I'd do for games and everything else. Most used programs on your C:\. Itunes can go on your C:\, but I'd just put it on your HDD, as speed of your SSD won't really matter, and music/movies can really pile up on space used. I'd also install all of my games on my HDD, not your SSD. Once again, this doesn't include steam. You'll want all of your movies, music, and possibly even documents on your HDD, unless you have a larger SSD. (something like a 256GB or larger SSD). I say documents included, because windows updates, along with every time you download something, etc... can really start to pile up. People tend to forget to delete stuff out of their download folder. Now your games. Install them on your HDD, and just drag and drop them onto your SSD when you're ready to play. Then back to your HDD when you're done. This allows you to benefit from your SSD speed while playing (increasing load times, and what not) but you don't have to worry about running out of space by installing all of your games on your SSD. Just move them on when you want to play, and off when you're done. Steam is the one exception. You'll want to install it onto your SSD. Now, you can move your steam library folder every time you want to play a steam game, but then you go to go into steam, and readd the directory, so that it rediscovers the game. it's a heart ache. Summarize it up. Movies, Music, (itunes), documents, less used programs, games on HDD. Most used Programs and Steam on SSD. Questions? |
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Custom PC
Ryzen 9 5950X Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme 128GB DDR4 3600mhz EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming Samsung 980 Pro 512GB m.2 Samsung 960 PRO 2TB m.2 x2 |
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bowler7
Newbie Joined: 14 Dec 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 11 |
Quote Reply Posted: 16 Dec 2014 at 6:47pm |
Awesome Meller that helps a bunch and I did enjoy.
As far as steam goes, I'm assuming you are meaning steam the client, but actual games you'll want to flip flop as needed between the SSD and HDD? |
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DS Veteran Joined: 28 Oct 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1674 |
Quote Reply Posted: 16 Dec 2014 at 6:52pm |
Meller, you are probably a better sys-admin than I...could it be possible to put placeholders on your C:\ drive and have it point to a location on your D:\ drive so you could have your games on a secondary drive and not have to constantly fiddle with it all of the time?
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Meller
DS Veteran Joined: 20 Feb 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1627 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 6:59am |
All that would do is essentially create a short cut to the files on the HDD. As long as they're on the HDD, they can't utilize the flash memory and speeds associated with on the SSD.
But it's perfectly fine to just drag and drop the folder onto and off of the SSD whenever it's being used and not. @Bowler When you install Steam, inside your Main steam directory there will be a folder called something like SteamAPPS or SteamLibrary. Anyways, that is where the actual games are held. Basically you have to tell steam where this folder is in case it's not inside your main steam installation location. It's just a pain to move your steam library back and forth, just because you have to constantly redefine it's location in steam, which is why I say just install it directly onto your SSD and leave it though. |
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Custom PC
Ryzen 9 5950X Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme 128GB DDR4 3600mhz EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming Samsung 980 Pro 512GB m.2 Samsung 960 PRO 2TB m.2 x2 |
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DS Veteran Joined: 28 Oct 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1674 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 7:30am |
Does Steam not load most of the critical portions of the game into memory? Is there a particular reason why calls to the hard drive need to be fast? All I can think of loading of a new level/environment, but once it is loaded, you're good to go. I'm just trying to understand why the effort you are talking about is worth all the trouble.
Is there any way in which someone can create a virtual partition that the O/S can handle the pointers for? Therefore, whether the data is on the HDD, SSD, or even a RAM drive, the O/S will point any calls for data to the correct location. |
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Meller
DS Veteran Joined: 20 Feb 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1627 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 10:06am |
The entire point is to increase load times. Because once the current map is loaded, then there is no difference between an HDD and SSD.
SSD's also don't suffer from fragmentation. So that is a huge benefit in load times. Why would you want to start entering that kind of realm of virtual partitions and virtual directories. One: You're going to complicate something tremendously. At the end of the day, the only way to benefit from the speed of a ram disk or an SSD is to put the files on said disk or drive. The whole point is faster load times. Why else would you buy an SSD? Faster load times = smoother game play. Move onto SSD for smooth game play, move off SSD when done. You only move it off because SSD's are small and you want to conserve space. It really isn't that complicated of an idea. You're drastically over complicating and extremely easy to grasp concept, and attempting to make it 100000x harder on top of that. Bowler here was new to having multiple storage drives in his system a lone. You're expecting someone with little knowledge to have any idea on how to do extremely complicated things. Plus, if you made a RAM disk, you'd still have to move your files onto your new drive. So that a lone is more steps than simply drag and drop to the ssd/hdd. o.O |
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Custom PC
Ryzen 9 5950X Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme 128GB DDR4 3600mhz EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming Samsung 980 Pro 512GB m.2 Samsung 960 PRO 2TB m.2 x2 |
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DS Veteran Joined: 28 Oct 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1674 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 10:53am |
Yeah, I get the whole RAM disk migration need...you can set up temporary drives to host games and play off of the RAM solely, for that seamless gaming experience.
I wasn't suggesting that Bowler do this, as you are correct that it adds plenty of complexity; I was asking it more for general knowledge...I appreciate the feedback. I've gone the route of everything on SSD, but that is partly driven by an old laptop of mine that only had a single drive space in it, and I've taken that drive and put it into my Bolt II. I would be interested in experimenting with RAM drives in the future, when I have more memory in a computer to allocate partitioning space. |
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bowler7
Newbie Joined: 14 Dec 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 11 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 2:06pm |
I appreciate the help it has been awesome. I just have one more question. Let me just run a scenario by you just to make sure I got it. When I first install steam client I will put it in the C drive, I can then make and add a new folder in the D drive under steamapp2 or something to that effect. I then add that new folder to the setting in steam settings so steam can see both locations. As I start to download my games I can put the older or less used games on the HDD. The newer or ones I play most go on the SSD. Now if I get a hankering to play say warhammer II that's on the HDD I can take that games folder and drop it in the steamapp folder of the SSD and it should work, but with the added perks of the SDD. When done I can drop it back to the HDD.
Did I get it right? |
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Tidgxor
DS ELITE The Kokopelli kid Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13000 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 2:22pm |
With something like SteamTool you don't need to redefine paths in Steam, just click the arrow to move games back and forth between locations. Saves a fair amount of time. |
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My Two Digital Storm Rigs: Mr. Bojangles (HAF-X, 2010) & Mrs. Bojingles (Bolt I, 2013).
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Meller
DS Veteran Joined: 20 Feb 2013 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1627 |
Quote Reply Posted: 17 Dec 2014 at 9:39pm |
Perhaps it's better than it use to be... but that tool use to really screw over my steam library. Creating double copies of things. Causing over writes if I moved to the same location, thus messing up my saved games/profiles.
But perhaps it's a lot better now a days. |
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Custom PC
Ryzen 9 5950X Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme 128GB DDR4 3600mhz EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming Samsung 980 Pro 512GB m.2 Samsung 960 PRO 2TB m.2 x2 |
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Tidgxor
DS ELITE The Kokopelli kid Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13000 |
Quote Reply Posted: 18 Dec 2014 at 8:09pm |
I didn't use any of the earlier iterations, but I haven't had any issues since I've used it.
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My Two Digital Storm Rigs: Mr. Bojangles (HAF-X, 2010) & Mrs. Bojingles (Bolt I, 2013).
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