Am I filling my SSD too much up?

[T0bias]

Hi,


I got a OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD which I'm very happy with. However, I am not sure if I am filling it up too much at the moment. I have approximately 31GB free space (28%), is this too low?


I could easily move ~10GB over to my storage hdd (by moving Steam over to my HDD) - but if it's not necessary I'd rather keep it on the SSD for the improved loading times.


I don't know if it is of any importance in the consideration, but as I wasn't able to run AHCI I am using IDE - trim *should* work with this according to most people, but some says otherwise. So I am not 100% sure if trim is actually working as intended or not, but again - not sure if this is important for this consideration


Thanks in advance.

 

[Zap]

Read the part in this post "Regarding Trim" and follow the instructions to find out if Trim is active on your system.

 

[T0bias]

Read the part in this post "Regarding Trim" and follow the instructions to find out if Trim is active on your system.

Running the fsutil command described in there I do get DisableDeleteNotify = 0, but I remember reading somewhere that this is no guarantee that trim is actually doing its job as expected?

I also tried installing CrystalDiskInfo as described - I get health status "Good 89%" and supported features: SMART, 48bit LBA, NCQ, TRIM (APM and AAM are greyed out), but NCQ is not working with IDE i reckon?

Does this look as it should?

 

[corkyg]

28% should be fine. I would not fill much more than 75%. 25% freeboard is usually good for navigation and maintenance purposes.

 

[createdAmonster]

Read the part in this post "Regarding Trim" and follow the instructions to find out if Trim is active on your system.

Very informative sticky! I will try to abide by those simple rules.

One question though, when you wrote 'Do NOT endlessly run anything that writes huge amounts of useless data to your SSD.'
Does that include games as well? I understand that games will access the SSD to write stats and such and will do so often - after each online round.
Do you suggest the same for games as well or does it pertain to the amount of data, rather than the number of times written?

 

[Voo]

One question though, when you wrote 'Do NOT endlessly run anything that writes huge amounts of useless data to your SSD.'
Does that include games as well? I understand that games will access the SSD to write stats and such and will do so often - after each online round.
Do you suggest the same for games as well or does it pertain to the amount of data, rather than the number of times written?

No, the amount of data games write in that situation is negligible. He's talking about benchmarks who usually write a pretty large amount of data (measured in gb not mb) to the drive. Take IOmeter for example

 

[createdAmonster]

Duly noted. Thanks!

 

[T0bias]

Ok - sounds good This whole discussion about how much space to keep unused, is that just for performance or would it also affect the lifetime of the ssd if it was like almost full all the time?

 

[corkyg]

AFAIK it is a general rule that takes into account NTFS overhead as well as drive maintenence freeboard. You also need to clean out Temp Internet files now and then - they can grow a lot.

 

[Emulex]

windows 7 SP1 - you best thing about how big that mama is going to (need)

 

[Doggiedog]

AFAIK it is a general rule that takes into account NTFS overhead as well as drive maintenence freeboard. You also need to clean out Temp Internet files now and then - they can grow a lot.

On that note, would you be able to recommend any articles on how to move your Google Chrome temp directory? I've looked and tried methods but I can't get the directory off of my SSD. I don't understand why they had to make it so difficult and not give you an option.

 

[corkyg]

That has to come from a Chrome user - not watakshiwa. With IE8, you can easily move the temprary Internet folder - I keep mine on my data RAID 1 array. (Internet Options, Temp Settings, move folder, etc.)

If Chrome does not allow temp folder relocation, that's a good reason not to use Chrome.

 

[Doggiedog]

Watakushiwa? You mean "me" in Japanese? Interesting...

Yeah, I prefer Chrome now. I'll need to do some more research on it. It's a stupid oversight their part.

 

[Voo]

Yeah, I prefer Chrome now. I'll need to do some more research on it. It's a stupid oversight their part.

You mean because they use the windows user profile (and the actual users's temp folder) for what it's actually there? Is it now an "oversight" to actually follow the guidelines on where to put files?

Chrome puts small things like js files in its explicit cache folder while large stuff (vids and whatnot) lands in the users temp directory. So if you want to change that for whatever reason (I'd think a cache is exactly one of those things you'd want on a fast drive), you should be able to replace that dir with a link to a folder on another harddrive (though we're talking about a few mb here)

And how to change the %TEMP% dir is pretty well described around the net so that's easily done too.

 

[Doggiedog]

You mean because they use the windows user profile (and the actual users's temp folder) for what it's actually there? Is it now an "oversight" to actually follow the guidelines on where to put files?

Chrome puts small things like js files in its explicit cache folder while large stuff (vids and whatnot) lands in the users temp directory. So if you want to change that for whatever reason (I'd think a cache is exactly one of those things you'd want on a fast drive), you should be able to replace that dir with a link to a folder on another harddrive (though we're talking about a few mb here)

And how to change the %TEMP% dir is pretty well described around the net so that's easily done too.

Anything I download keeps appearing on my SSD c drive. Some of these files can be large. I would prefer to have Chrome download these files onto another drive. Is it too much to ask for an option that allows you to choose a download directory?

 

[Voo]

Anything I download keeps appearing on my SSD c drive. Some of these files can be large. I would prefer to have Chrome download these files onto another drive. Is it too much to ask for an option that allows you to choose a download directory?

What exactly does have explicitly downloading files todo with caching js, flvs and co? Completely different scenarios - you can tell chrome whether to save all stuff into a default download directory (as you can with FF) but you can just as easily either change it to something else or always let it ask you where to save files.

The option to change that is one quick google search or one peak into the chrome options away - Download location: <filepath> shouldn't be too hard to find (and the nice handy checkbox for "always ask where to save" is just beneath it)

 

[Makaveli]

windows 7 SP1 - you best thing about how big that mama is going to (need)

lol what???

Did tweakboy hack your account?

 

[Makaveli]

Anything I download keeps appearing on my SSD c drive. Some of these files can be large. I would prefer to have Chrome download these files onto another drive. Is it too much to ask for an option that allows you to choose a download directory?

I'm not sure where you are looking.

If you go to options in chrome then under the hood and scroll down you can set a default download directory.

One of the things that really annoy's me with the current version of chrome is you cannot set a different folder for its cache like you can in firefox, and I didn't want it caching to my ssd.

So I created a Ram disc for all my browser caches.

Now with chrome you cannot just edit about.config like in firefox you need to modify the startup shortcut.

Add this

C:\Users\i7\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --disk-cache-dir="H:\browser cache chrome"

With this string it now stores the browser cache on my ramdisc which is drive H:

As for the tmp folder they are speaking about above I've done the same thing.



Also to my ram drive, its temporarily on drive D at the moment for something else i'm testing.


With most all these folders off my SSD with 14months of use on my intel G2 i'm only at 1.2Tb of host writes.

 

[Doggiedog]

Thanks Makaveli! I will try it if I can get my crashing PC back up and running.

Voo, thanks. I didn't realize you could scroll down! Duh! I thought it ended at change proxy settings.

 

[Voo]

With most all these folders off my SSD with 14months of use on my intel G2 i'm only at 1.2Tb of host writes.

Which means that since the Intel drive has a pretty low WA you can use this drive for at least a dozen more years.. is that really important here? I mean even 160gb will be pretty small in say 3 years and you'll be able to get a much larger, faster drive pretty cheap.

The temp folder is pretty small (270mb for me right now) and is something which imho is predestined to be put on a SSD - well a ramdisk is fine too if properly configured - not a HDD (and chrome actually removes all its stuff when closing it - good behavior). The explicit chrome flash is even smaller..

 

[Makaveli]

I see the point you are making Voo and its a solid one. When the time comes to upgrade I plan to shift this ssd over to my laptop where it will remain for the rest of its life. You are correct with the temp folder being very small but I figured the ramdisc is even faster than the ssd so why not move it there.

Most people are fine leaving the temp folders and page file on their SSD which will most likely last until your next upgrade. The choices I made are just my personal preference and makes me feel better windows isn't writing to my $500 ssd all the time I bought it in dec 2009.

So to each his own.

 

[Voo]

No I see your point and since you're using a ramdisk which obviously IS a good bit faster than a SSD (and for temp folders you don't even have to worry about data loss and co) - I just want to devise people against putting their temp folder onto a HDD because they fear the amount of writes.

 

[Makaveli]

No I see your point and since you're using a ramdisk which obviously IS a good bit faster than a SSD (and for temp folders you don't even have to worry about data loss and co) - I just want to devise people against putting their temp folder onto a HDD because they fear the amount of writes.

Actually something else I wanted to add.

I noticed that Chrome doesn't really clear the browse cache on exit. When the machine is rebooted it seems too, but if I just exit chrome the ramdisk folder still shows data in it.

 

[Voo]

Actually something else I wanted to add.

I noticed that Chrome doesn't really clear the browse cache on exit. When the machine is rebooted it seems too, but if I just exit chrome the ramdisk folder still shows data in it.

Must be your ramdisk or some setting somehow - or are you talking about the explicit chrome cache? That's a longer lived cache, but the stuff in %TEMP% gets deleted just fine for me when I exit chrome.. just tested it again for a youtube vid.

 

[Makaveli]

speaking specifically about the chrome cache not temp.