SSD for OS only?

[MonKENy]

I plan on dropping 2 drives into my machine

1 for the OS and 1 for general use

What is the smallest I can use for just Win7?

Or do you recommend me not doing dual drives?

this would be my main drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147249

 

[Blain]

Drop a single 240-250GB SSD in your machine and be happy.
UNLESS you're doing extensive video editing and need a scratch drive, dueling drives are just so much drama that's unnecessary.

A case for an extra storage drive can be made if one has a substantial media file collection. But even that should be backed up on an external drive to avoid a rouge PS killing the spinning platter storage drive.

 

[MonKENy]

Im running a 1TB now and its more than 1/2 full. So I want a bigger drive to start rather than have to add later.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Typically I do a single SSD for purely OS. My current machine is dual boot so I have two drives. Was easier than trying to get windows 7 to play nice with Linux. It can be done was just not worth my time trying to figure it out. XP was easier to dual boot.

For data I use spindle drives in raid with backups and it's all accessed via NFS.

 

[postmortemIA]

In theory, even 40GB would be sufficient, but even windows updates waste a lot of space. 64GB is minimum realistic just for OS plus few small apps.

 

[corkyg]

64GB minimum to allow for maintenance "freeboard," and 120GB to really be comfortable.

 

[Morbus]

Don't forget to change the placement of your documents folder. If you plan on installing games, you'll want it changed to a HDD, cause save files may get considerably big, too big for, say, a 40GB SSD.

 

[ronbo613]

I have a 128G SSD for my Win 7 64 bit OS and programs. I do a lot of video and photo editing as well as building websites, so I may have more software than your average user, but there is only 35G left. I like to leave a little overhead on the SSD.
I have a WD RE4 as my "work" drive with scratch files and save folders. I guess it's because of the work I do but I always have preferred a "two drive" setup. The programs drive is easier to image for backup and in case of a virus or hardware problem, I won't lose projects that I'm working on.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I had a 90GB that was barely enough.

I replaced it with a 250, and it's great for SWTOR load times.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

What is the smallest I can use for just Win7?

Windows 7 takes up 15 to 20 GB, fully updated.

I have 55 apps installed, no games, and my occupied space is about 25 GB, plus about 5 more for System Restore points. I use an 80 GB SSD and have never felt crowded. Occupied space is growing at maybe 1 GB per year. I have no data on the SSD.

I don't see any particular reason to separate applications from the operating system.

If you can afford 500 GB SSD, knock yourself out.

 

[Moe Zart]

Windows 7 takes up 15 to 20 GB, fully updated.

I have 55 apps installed, no games, and my occupied space is about 25 GB, plus about 5 more for System Restore points. I use an 80 GB SSD and have never felt crowded. Occupied space is growing at maybe 1 GB per year. I have no data on the SSD.

I don't see any particular reason to separate applications from the operating system.

If you can afford 500 GB SSD, knock yourself out.

I think when an SSD is half full, its performance may become pitiful.
I'm speaking from experience, it's a matter of expedience.

 

[MonKENy]

So I will stick with the 500GB SSD and leave it there. If I fill it up i a few years I can drop in another.

 

[Morbus]

I have 55 apps installed, no games, and my occupied space is about 25 GB

That's nothing, I once saw a Windows install with well over a THOUSAND word documents, and it barely reached the 16GB...

 

[ronbo613]

That's nothing, I once saw a Windows install with well over a THOUSAND word documents, and it barely reached the 16GB...

Yeah, but those are files. The size of your SSD that is used for the operating system should compliment the purpose of the computer. Programs that do complicated tasks tend to take more disc space.

The number of "apps" doesn't matter, get the right tool for the job. When is the last time you saw a software update that made the program smaller? Plan ahead.

 

[Morbus]

I meant to sardonically ridicule the notion that "apps" - which is an idiotic byword for "software", which, obviously, is synonym of "computer files" - will or will not fill an SSD.

The number of "apps" does not matter, indeed. But so doesn't the number of "files".

 

[xantub]

My 64 (60) GB boot SSD is doing just fine and it's been there for like 2 years. I even use it for smaller games. Still has like 15GB left.
I didn't do it on purpose though, when I bought it SSDs were like $1.50/GB so I could only afford that, and my old 1TB data HDD. I later bought a 128GB SSD that I use to install games there. I don't see any real advantage of having a dedicated SSD drive.

 

[nk215]

I vote for a dual drive. A 128 GB for OS, a 256GB for my doc and part of my "program files" folder and my virtual machines files.

The key for a dual drive is that I can do an HD image backup of the OS drive very quickly. I do that before installing anything major and also as a way to backup my OS drive.

 

[Yuriman]

240GB are probably the sweet spot right now for price per gigabyte.

I have a 240GB SSD as my Windows / commonly used programs drive (recently upgraded from an 80GB) and two large storage drives for all of my other crap. 80GB was comfortable for Windows plus a few games, but Skyrim + mods, Battlefield, GW2 and my Steam library couldn't all be placed on the SSD.

 

[dclive]

With SSDs being so cheap now (256gb for $120-ish on sale?) IMHO it's a bit silly to get less than 256, and I'd be very tempted to just get it over with and get a 750GB or 1TB at the current prices.

 

[Morbus]

More than 256GB is too expensive if you're not really gonna use it... 400USD is a big load of cache that would be much better spent in something like a second and third screen, a mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse, a surround set, a headset...

 

[dclive]

I see 256GB SSDs for $90. That's just not that much, no matter how you look at it.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I find 80GB to be sufficient strictly for OS + programs (no games!) - that's the size of the OS partitions across all my builds, regardless of SSD size.

For games and messing around with VMs, I bit the bullet awhile back with a 500GB Sammy 840 and never went back. Can't fill up the damned thing to save my life! (Have a 1TB Spinpoint F3 as a mechanical scratch/data drive, with the remaining ~400GB mapped to a folder there).

 

[greenhawk]

The first SSD for me was 80GB. the 64GB seemed too close to being "just suitable" and the smaller ones again just took too much in the way of manual adjustments to work".

The 80GB was fine and had room for a few important programs/ utilities (in case I removed the program drive). I still had room to use the OS drive for the odd game or two I was playing at the time.

I upgraded to a 256GB and it is a very good size for OS and most programs without needing to care about where the programs are installed.

I did buy a 512GB a while later when I found a good price for it (using as a scratch drive) but while I am liking the idea of 1 1TB drive, the biggest issue I have is not enough sata ports for the SSD's, the 2 normal drives (4TB and a Raptor) and optical drive.

For the future issues OP, I personally would just get the largest I can afford and skip the "two drive" approach. Plenty of time for that later when you want to expand

 

[Morbus]

The problem is all SSDs bellow 250GB are noticeably slower than 250GB+... You have to take that into account.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The problem is all SSDs bellow 250GB are noticeably slower than 250GB+... You have to take that into account.

I wouldn't question your assertion there. But there WAS a time when the opposite may have prevailed: smaller was faster. And I only vaguely recall that -- so I could also be wrong.

So far, I've purchased four SSDs: A 128GB Elm Crest for Mom's system -- plenty of space left after OS, her software and files; a 60GB Patriot Pyro -- for the caching SSD in my ISRT configuration for a 600GB system drive; a 60GB Mushkin Chronos for my WHS-2011 boot/system drive; and -- a 500GB Samsung 840 Pro (MLC) which is still sitting in the retail box.

I have the option of using the Sammy to replace my ISRT configuration, or saving it for next year's new-computer build project. Since the ISRT seems to be still working tip-top after 30 months, I'm not in a big hurry.

For the 840 Pro -- call it an "offer I could not refuse."

Don't want to stir the pot here. I and others have contributed to threads about ISRT, and some say it's a "stop-gap" measure based on the higher prices per GB of solid state drives. Those prices have dropped, but you still pay maybe 75% toward the SSD for performance. The 25% could be spent on a single TB HDD.

If performance is 80% of SSD rated specs, you can have that speed for your habitually-accessed files -- programs and data -- on a 1+TB HDD with an investment of only perhaps $130 total -- provided that you have the ISRT feature in your motherboard's chipset.

I suppose I might recommend the simple SSD solution to everyone else. I just can't make up my mind yet about putting this 840 Pro in my ISRT-configured system.