OS on seperate drive from aps?

[paperfist]

Is this still the best way to run your system?

I just bought a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 and I already have a Samsung 830. The 830 has everything on it, OS, aps, games.

I remember back in the day when we had platter based HDs that the way to speed up performance was to have 1 drive hold the OS and the other drive everything else. I think the main reason was that each drive could operate separately from one another helping out the speed issue.

Does this make sense to do this now?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Somewhat, but not nearly as important as with HDDs. With HDDs, the pagefile was almost always on the OS drive, and that would slow down accesses to data files and media on the same drive, and games.

With an SSD, less so, as they are better at multi-tasking. With a PCI-E SSD (M.2 950 Pro), even more less so, as those are supremely capable of multi-tasking. But by the same token, they are expensive per GB, so it makes sense to purchase a cheaper and bigger SSD for media or games.

 

[paperfist]

Somewhat, but not nearly as important as with HDDs. With HDDs, the pagefile was almost always on the OS drive, and that would slow down accesses to data files and media on the same drive, and games.

With an SSD, less so, as they are better at multi-tasking. With a PCI-E SSD (M.2 950 Pro), even more less so, as those are supremely capable of multi-tasking. But by the same token, they are expensive per GB, so it makes sense to purchase a cheaper and bigger SSD for media or games.

Thanks Larry. I forgot all about pagefiles

 

[Coup27]

It's not necessary and won't help with performance. There are other benefits though. I choose to run 1 250GB SSD for my OS and apps and 1 larger SSD for my storage. I do this so if I want to reinstall my OS everything becomes easier with not having to move all my data about. I know you can achieve similar results with partitioning but it means you can't secure erase the drive before starting again or change the partition style (MBR/GPT). Having 2 gives more flexibility if you want to muck around.

 

[master_shake_]

still a PITA if you have to install and origin or uplay games after re-installing windows.

iirc origin has gotten better but uplay is still uplay.

all my games are on a shared network drive.

 

[paperfist]

still a PITA if you have to install and origin or uplay games after re-installing windows.

iirc origin has gotten better but uplay is still uplay.

all my games are on a shared network drive.

hmm I didn't know you could do that. It's what I'm facing with Steam and all my aps that will now have to be reinstalled if choose to use the m.2 drive as the OS drive.

 

[master_shake_]

steam is great.

just re-install it and point it to your games directory.

also you have to go in to internet explorer and change security settings for local intranet to tell it not to block files from the network. if you are running games from a network drive.

else you get a security warning every time you fire up a game.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

steam is great.

just re-install it and point it to your games directory.

also you have to go in to internet explorer and change security settings for local intranet to tell it not to block files from the network. if you are running games from a network drive.

else you get a security warning every time you fire up a game.

Here's a configuration that was very successful so far for my i7-2700K Z68 system (the sig).

Ok, like I'm the Emeril LeGasse of drive configuration. But I'm not -- really. Here it is:

Dual-Boot OS, programs and files Recipe

Needed items

post-Nehalem processor and DDR3, preferably 12 GB* or 16 GB. [* 2x4 + 2x2].

A decent reliable SATA-III SSD for main boot drive -- 250GB to 500GB [bigger is better. You really don't want to fill up a boot-VOLUME more than 60%.]

A well-rated or even "average" 60GB SSD -- SATA III. You can use 120GB or 240GB, depending on the size of the next item

One, large spinner disk, doesn't need to be WD Black or HGST or a "Barracuda." A WD Blue will be just great.

=====
Procedure

Install Win 7 and/or clone to the larger SSD [together with the Win 10, if such an HDD still exists on your system]

For the Win 10, it is best to choose Win UEFI mode in BIOS and have GPT boot disk. Conversion from MBR has been discussed -- other threads. Either will work.

All the system partitions like "EFI healthy" or "System Reserved" will be on the same disk. The main C: partition, booting from either OS, will be a split between total used space and unallocated space. You choose.


Optimize the SSD manually and separately in both OS's.

In OS A, open Admin Tools->Computer-Mgmt-> Disk Mgmt of "Storage." Change the assigned drive letter for the OS B main volume to "None." Reboot, do the same thing after booting to OS B.

Connect the 60 GB SSD. Connect the large HDD. Divide the large HDD into two partitions. Manage the drive labels in the same manner as the C: drive(s). Install PrimoCache in both OSes and for two tasks:

1) Cache the C: drive in each OS to RAM up to 2GB. [May need less with Z170 Skylake].

2) Cache the appropriate HDD "D:" drive to the SSD and cache the whole enchilada to RAM between 1GB and 2GB. You will need to separate the Cache for OS A and the Cache for OS B with "L2 Storage management, in which you split the cache or assign part of the small-SSD's size.

[I personally choose to use the whole small SSD for Win 7, and only cache to RAM for the Win 10 installation, since I spend a lot more time in win 7. Changes are easy.]

You can save cache contents at shutdown, to be loaded at next startup or restart. After the delay in boot, the hit-rate will be quickly restored for the caches.

You can walk on the wild side and configure Delayed Writes. I had the system running for maybe a week between actual Restarts (as opposed to Resumes). A Windows Update caused things "to happen." The Event Code 41 would be generated by "flying blind with no visual display, at user's inclination with the kill switch.

Purging the cache brought everything back to tip-top. For walking on the wild side, it pays to run weekly CHKDSK file repair once a week. For the HDD, You'll want to make a periodic file and physical disk repair -- inspecting all unused space.

Otherwise, don't use the Delayed Write feature. Maybe lower write scores in Anvil. But Reads are quite a healthy pile of savings anyway.

 

[Elixer]

It's not necessary and won't help with performance. There are other benefits though. I choose to run 1 250GB SSD for my OS and apps and 1 larger SSD for my storage. I do this so if I want to reinstall my OS everything becomes easier with not having to move all my data about. I know you can achieve similar results with partitioning but it means you can't secure erase the drive before starting again or change the partition style (MBR/GPT). Having 2 gives more flexibility if you want to muck around.

Yeah, life is so much easier when you can just wipe the OS partition/device and do a clean install again.

steam is great.
just re-install it and point it to your games directory.

Also, Origin & Ubisoft & GOG also let you do this as well...

 

[addverma]

Does it not make sense to have the cache and temp folders on a separate HDD and not on a SSD? There are applications, Firefox is one which comes to my mind, which write massive amount of data less than 4KB in size. If we have the cache along with the temp and page file systems in a SSD then due to frequent writes it might degrade the primary SSD performance and life over time. I am assuming that SSD will hosts the OS and Applications.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does it not make sense to have the cache and temp folders on a separate HDD and not on a SSD? There are applications, Firefox is one which comes to my mind, which write massive amount of data less than 4KB in size. If we have the cache along with the temp and page file systems in a SSD then due to frequent writes it might degrade the primary SSD performance and life over time. I am assuming that SSD will hosts the OS and Applications.

Yes, it "uses up" the lifespan of the SSD, to have the temp files and pagefile on the SSD. BUT! That's what it's there for, and provides the maximum performance benefit of an SSD, if those are on the SSD.

For a long-term install of Win7 64-bit, for example (over 2 years), I might consider cloning the contents of the OS SSD to a fresh new SSD and using that one, or cloning it to a HDD, Secure Erasing the SSD, and then cloning it back onto the SSD, to reduce / remove internal SSD fragmentation that can marginally affect speed.

Edit: Someone else on here said it best - "Consider, SSDs to be Consumables". Use and budget for them accordingly. They're still more expensive than a HDD, for equivalent capacity, but they're a lot cheaper than they were a few years ago. Sadly, I've been watching their prices trend upwards 10-20% the last few months, not sure why.

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, people really shouldn't worry about writing to SSDs, yes, writes lower the life span of SSDs, but, you are still looking at years of performance @ 30GB/day. Frankly, NAND wear is NOT the #1 problem for SSDs dying.
One other problem often overlooked with SSDs is, their performance degrades as the SSD fills up.
The less space the SSD has to perform garbage collection, the worse it gets.

 

[paperfist]

Yeah, life is so much easier when you can just wipe the OS partition/device and do a clean install again.


Also, Origin & Ubisoft & GOG also let you do this as well...

I guess I don't understand how network drives work. I always thought no matter where you stored aps/games/etc you always had to reinstall everything if you wipe the OS.

 

[addverma]

VirtualLarry I have a different take on the Long-term install of Windows, either 7 or 10, please bear with me. IMHO the long-term install of Windows generally is 5-7 years or more. Now considering this lifespan, and little to moderate load (browsing+video viewing + word processing + worksheet + presentation creation and viewing) I believe SSD should be able to last. But if the load increases, i.e we throw in video/image processing or gaming or code development then the life span of SSD will decrease. Moreover in countries like India SSDs are more expensive sometimes more than thrice as compared to plain vanilla HDD's.

Elixer you are correct that the SSD's spare capacity is a very important criteria in its performance. I do not know how much of this is true, but figures of 20-40% of free space are thrown about. I would request the gurus to correct me if I am wrong.

Now getting back to what "paperfist" said, dividing data between two disks makes sense. If the work load tends to go up, then due to the massive writes that occur, that too in the small KB's 1-4 KB range we might tend to see SSD's going kaput or its performance degrading. So if we have a SSD in which the OS, applications, paging/swap files, temp folder is maintained and in the other disk has the data then one might get better performance and one might be safe from data loss too. We can replace the SSD which has the OS+Applications+paging files + temp folders with other disk if it dies, while our data is safe.

The only fly in the ointment that I see is that most of current laptops and compute sticks do not have the provision of carrying two disks. If one gets a laptop with a DVD drive then one has the option to replace that with a caddying, but still it is not the most optimum. I would love it if PC manufacturers were to make PCs with two SSDs, one 2.5 inch variants and the other as PCIe one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Now getting back to what "paperfist" said, dividing data between two disks makes sense. If the work load tends to go up, then due to the massive writes that occur, that too in the small KB's 1-4 KB range we might tend to see SSD's going kaput or its performance degrading. So if we have a SSD in which the OS, applications, paging/swap files, temp folder is maintained and in the other disk has the data then one might get better performance and one might be safe from data loss too. We can replace the SSD which has the OS+Applications+paging files + temp folders with other disk if it dies, while our data is safe.

... or just get a "big enough" SSD for both, in your laptop, and remember to make good backups...

(Again, I don't think that NAND wearout is the primary killer of SSDs.)

 

[master_shake_]

I guess I don't understand how network drives work. I always thought no matter where you stored aps/games/etc you always had to reinstall everything if you wipe the OS.

nah.

map network drive

just re-install whatever platform (i guess they all work now steam origin gog uplay etc.)

point them to the game installs like i said earlier you'll have to change security settings in internet explorer for local intranet to unblock files.

it's just like a local drive but limited to 1gbps or in my case 10gbps.

 

[paperfist]

nah.

map network drive

just re-install whatever platform (i guess they all work now steam origin gog uplay etc.)

point them to the game installs like i said earlier you'll have to change security settings in internet explorer for local intranet to unblock files.

it's just like a local drive but limited to 1gbps or in my case 10gbps.

What I'm not understanding though is how mapping out a network drive for games or aps won't disappear after re-installing Windows 10?

Doesn't Windows 10 still use a registry which once gone removes links to everything that was installed?

 

[master_shake_]

I don't think it matters

Steam doesn't even need to have the game installed to run.

 

[paperfist]

I don't think it matters

Steam doesn't even need to have the game installed to run.

Oh I didn't know that

But this won't work for aps I have installed right, still need the registry for that?

 

[Elixer]

Once it is installed, it won't be uninstalled just by removing the drive.
That just makes it so you can't run it at that moment, but, once the drive is put back, then you can run it again.