What to run and NOT run on a SSD!

[djkilla]

Need advice. I've got an Intel G2 80gb SSD on the way and need to know the best way to use it. On average I use about 25-30 gigs of apps including the operating system. Should I put all of my apps on the SSD and use my other regular drive for storage, downloading and whatever else or should I put only the OS on the SSD which would be a waste of space? Are there certain apps not recommended for a SSD?

I already know what setting need to be turned off in the OS for an SSD. I just need to know about apps on the SSD.

 

[Karndog]

Definatley have the OS on the SSD, and all your apps, antivirus, display drivers etc and the games you play most.
Music, downloads, movies etc can go on a seperate drive because as long as you have your media player on the SSD they will load up quickly anyway.

 

[Dan_D]

Definatley have the OS on the SSD, and all your apps, antivirus, display drivers etc and the games you play most.
Music, downloads, movies etc can go on a seperate drive because they dont have to be accessed as quick.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Pyrolistical]

Naw, just buy enough space to put it all on SSD

 

[UMtech84]

Yea, just put the OS, apps, and games on the SSD. One of the reasons that you pay the premium to get an SSD is so that all your apps are snappier load faster. Having the games on the SSD will also give you a small fps increase at least thats what the reviews show.

 

[Arcygenical]

Personally, I'm planning out my SSD attack right now...

I'll be putting the main OS, any of the games that loads substantial data in-game (IE: Oblivion) and full-duty apps (Photoshop, startup progs) on my SSD... My pagefile and light duty apps (MS office, 3D stuff, video players etc.) on my ADFD Raptor.

Should allow for the best gaming experience, and all-around quicker app loading times.

 

[Schwartz]

I left my pagefile on the ssd because of this. It is under the FAQ.

 

[InvisiBill]

If you're actively using your pagefile, get more RAM. Having the pagefile on the SSD will be faster, but if you're hitting the pagefile a lot, you'd probably be better off buying more RAM than a bigger SSD.

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory

To optimally size your paging file you should start all the applications you run at the same time, load typical data sets, and then note the commit charge peak (or look at this value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). Set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of RAM in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). If you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number.

Remember that putting your pagefile on an SSD is using memory chips to emulate a disk to emulate memory. If you just give it more RAM to begin with, it'll be even faster.

 

[LittlePud]

Put your Temporary Internet Files on your disk instead of your SSD, IMO. Chances are that your Temporary Internet Files will churn much more than your pagefile.

I would also consider moving user and system %TEMP% as well as %TMP% off the SSD.

 

[PHiZ]

I would also consider moving user and system %TEMP% as well as %TMP% off the SSD.

Yes. Definitely. Although I'll tell you upfront that on my Win7 install, many applications are hardcoded for \Users\[your account]\AppData\ . Even if you change the the two TEMP environment variables, it seems some applications do not check them when determining where to store their temp files.

Pagefiles are for pussies. I'm not going to turn this thread into a crapfest. Either you understand how computers work, or you don't.

So, want to cut down on writes, right? (the problem with excessive writes is NOT drive longevity, it is to reduce the necessity for writes requiring a read-modify-write). See http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=5

As far as identifying which applications are writing excessively to your SSD, best way is just to watch what processes are writing to the drive. You can do this with (the always awesome) Sysinternals program Procmon.exe. The fiter you want is Operation | Is | Writefile. I'm not going to spoonfeed you how figure out Procmon, if you know Ethereal/Wireshark filters, it should be straightforward.

Oh, and those applications that you can't change the location of the temp files from within the program, use symbolic links. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link