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[Deders]

The OS will benefit the most from an SSD, this also eliminates any disk grinding that might happen if you load a program that needs files from the OS drive or wants to use the swapfile so everything loads much quicker whether programs are on the SSD or a separate HDD, even when compared to having seperate OS HDD and program HDD.

Some apps and games will benefit from being on the SSD but for the most part because if issue's with SSD disk space it's is best to put most of them on a separate HDD.

There is absolutely no benefit putting documents/movies or music on an SSD, you might as well go for the better price ratio of a HDD.

 

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[Deders]

Yeah not much of an issue if you have the space.

 

[bonehead123]

Having just built a new rig with both a VelociRaptor HDD & Evo Pro SSD, I can tell you without a doubt that keeping the OS on the SSD makes a world of difference in OS performance.

I originally had the OS & all apps on the VelociRaptor, and YES it was fast....but now that the OS is on the SSD, it literally screams.....

 

[Charlie98]

No, if you are not going to have a HDD in your system for data or files, just run everything on one single-partition SSD.

I caution you to have a backup system in place, however. I speak from experience.

 

[Coup27]

I'm not sure why some people in this thread have been confused by the question.

There is absolutely no benefit at all in having the programs on a separate SSD. I have everything except bulk storage (TV, movies etc) on my single SSD with a single partition and it runs fine. The only benefit to doing this with HDD's is because the needle can only be in one place at one time, thus causing high latencies between accesses if everything was on one HDD. SSD's don't suffer this fate and can comfortably handle multiple requests at once.

 

[aigomorla]

There is absolutely no benefit at all in having the programs on a separate SSD.

+1

doesn't matter if u have a single large SSD vs a 2 medium size ones unless the medium size SSD's have less lanes.

Then the single large SSD would win.
But then your going to be comparing cross different SSD's and not file location.

 

[Charlie98]

I'm not sure why some people in this thread have been confused by the question.

I'm kind of wondering that people automatically think if you have an SSD in your rig, you have to have a HDD for files because of the higher cost/GB ratio may preclude a big enough SSD for all-on-one. Now that SSDs are easily at .50/GB or less and larger capacity is commonplace... we will see more and more SSD-only machines. I know, I just built one... and it's weird not having to manage 2 or more drives... but I'll bet I get over it. :biggrin:

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Hardly any difference. The idea of two separate HDDs was to essentially have two heads to avoid seek penalties. Since this doesn't apply to SSDs, there's little to no point in having separate drives.

 

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[Charlie98]

Is there any reason why you specify one partition? If I remember correctly, installing programs into the system/C drive results in UAC virtualizing certain things (eg. a game's .ini file might end up in a virtualstore directory), which is a royal pain in the arse.

What I meant was not creating a separate partition for data, files, media and such.

 

[tweakboy]

NOPE. do all things on the SSD if its large enough.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Lemme see a minute . . . I bought my first SSD in 2011 for use in SSD caching with HDD acceleration. It served its purpose.

More recently, people seem to worry about how many writes they can make to an SSD before it starts going south. So obviously folks deployed their SSDs of limited size to store the OS primarily, perhaps programs and even games second. Where you draw the line of demarcation is still a matter of choice.

You might compare the power-consumption for a single 1TB HDD running 24/7 for a year against an SSD. Will the savings even come close to accounting for the price difference between the two? Not very likely. You're satisfying your "need for speed" with the SSD purchase, even for the miniscule power-consumption it represents.

I wouldn't use an SSD to store DVR-captures or movies, large data files or any data files for that matter. Maybe in the future -- not now. HDDs serve a purpose for the time being.

 

[Charlie98]

Lemme see a minute . . . I bought my first SSD in 2011 for use in SSD caching with HDD acceleration. It served its purpose.

More recently, people seem to worry about how many writes they can make to an SSD before it starts going south. So obviously folks deployed their SSDs of limited size to store the OS primarily, perhaps programs and even games second. Where you draw the line of demarcation is still a matter of choice.

You might compare the power-consumption for a single 1TB HDD running 24/7 for a year against an SSD. Will the savings even come close to accounting for the price difference between the two? Not very likely. You're satisfying your "need for speed" with the SSD purchase, even for the miniscule power-consumption it represents.

I wouldn't use an SSD to store DVR-captures or movies, large data files or any data files for that matter. Maybe in the future -- not now. HDDs serve a purpose for the time being.

Depends... I wouldn't recommend a wall of SSDs to store TB's of media for an HTPC streamer, wouldn't make $ sense. But a single SSD system, sized big enough to fit everything on it, including games, media and such? Sure, why not? I'm doing it now in both of my desktops... granted, I have both internal and external HDDs to back everything up on, but all my data in each machine is carried exclusively on an SSD.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm kind of wondering that people automatically think if you have an SSD in your rig, you have to have a HDD for files because of the higher cost/GB ratio may preclude a big enough SSD for all-on-one. Now that SSDs are easily at .50/GB or less and larger capacity is commonplace... we will see more and more SSD-only machines. I know, I just built one... and it's weird not having to manage 2 or more drives... but I'll bet I get over it. :biggrin:

That depends on how much space ones needs, doesn't it?

 

[CakeMonster]

A bigger SSD that is not even remotely filled will last longer too. I bought "too large" this time around, but I'm quite sure it will last me a long time, and after that it can get a 2nd life in a friend's desktop or more likely laptop and still be able to handle lots of writes.

 

[Blain]

EDIT: This question has nothing to do with mechanical HDDs. I'm not going to be using any HDDs in this system.

When working with fast SSDs, is there still any perceivable benefit to having the OS on a separate drive to programs/games?

no

 

[VirtualLarry]

For those of you buying "big" SSDs (unlikely to be filled anytime soon)... will you replace it before it becomes "used up"? Or will you use it until it dies?

Edit: My experience, is that SSD wearout is way overstated in FUD articles, detailing all these little tricks to extend the lifespan of your SSD, while at the same time, taking some of the most performance-sensitive functions of the PC off of the SSD and onto a HDD. Quite frankly, you bought the SSD for speed, use it for that to the max! You'll be upgrading it long before it wears out. (Unless you're running a DB server on it.)

I'm debating now whether to use a couple of 80GB X25-M drives that I picked up. In theory, they should last nearly forever for my workloads. I bought a pair of 240GB Vertex Plus R2 drives, refurb, that are currently in my SATA2 desktop rigs as primary drives. But before I saw those, I was planning on using the 80GB X25-M drives. Now I'm thinking that they are so small, and prices on modern drives like the MX100 256GB and 512GB so cheap, that I may never get around to using them. I paid about $1/GB for them, which I thought was a steal at the time, given their longevity.

 

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[VirtualLarry]

I think I'll start to think about SSDs like giant consumables. Like a gallon jug of printer ink.

You buy one, you use it until it wears out (3, 5, 10 years down the road), or you decide you want a bigger jug, so you retire and sell off your old one.

 

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[CakeMonster]

Edit: My experience, is that SSD wearout is way overstated in FUD articles, detailing all these little tricks to extend the lifespan of your SSD, while at the same time, taking some of the most performance-sensitive functions of the PC off of the SSD and onto a HDD. Quite frankly, you bought the SSD for speed, use it for that to the max! You'll be upgrading it long before it wears out. (Unless you're running a DB server on it.)

I agree, but I've kind of given up on convincing people on enthusiasts sites about it.

My friends (the few that still want a desktop) that I build for, actually take my word for it, which makes it a whole lot easier to get them what is the best deal for them.

 

[Charlie98]

That depends on how much space ones needs, doesn't it?

Of course. Were not talking a media storage PC or something...

Look around... the days of the 32- or 64GB SSDs are over (except for caching or some other specialized purpose.)

 

[Fred B]

Think it is the way everybody put his system together is different , i like small ssd for os separate . The partition size is set to 37 GB to fit the small 40 GB XM 25 ssd and bigger with separate partition or just empty . It is easy to multieboot and backup the os ssd , backup or restore from clone takes a short time , it is only the os .
The program files are on partion D , that could by anything from hd to ssd raid :awe: