The half-ass approach to SSD

[ShawnD1]

I was searching for a way to fix my computer's major hard drive lag when I stumbled across this.
http://articles.techrepublic.c...-10878_11-6177180.html

Finally, the /J option will create a hard link to a folder. This is also called a directory junction or junction point and instead of working like a shortcut to a folder, a hard link works more like a regular folder. For example, the command
mklink /J c:\one c:\two\three\four

will make the operating system work with the long directory structure c:\two\three\four just as it were a single directory named c:\one.

When you're finished with any one of these types of symbolic links, you can terminate the link simply by deleting the link. For example, to terminate the one hard link, you'd simply delete the c:\one folder. However, since the link is terminated first and c:\one folder is actually empty, you needn't be concerned about data loss in the c:\two\three\four folder.

I connected a fast USB drive and mounted it at "C:\_linked\a". I moved AutoCAD to that directory then did this command:
mklink /j "C:\program files\AutoCAD" "C:\_linked\a\AutoCAD"

The program started up just as normal, but it was a lot faster than normal. This probably doesn't hold true for most computers, but remember that I said my computer has a major lag problem since I'm doing a hundred things at once. This computer acts as the house file server, it has p2p running all day and night, and I also play games on this computer. I was so impressed with the speed of using a flash drive that I moved all of my common Program Files to the flash drive and linked them with the above command.

Thoughts/opinions?

 

[masteryoda34]

I never thought of running programs using Junctions like that. Interesting.

 

[soccerballtux]

Just make sure you have a fast USB flash drive. Some are dog slow.

 

[Idontcare]

I do this with my ramdrive to locate my programs log file folder and output folder on the ramdrive. (for my programs which I cannot explicitly configure the location of the temp/log/ouput folders)

I had not considered doing it with a USB thumbdrive as I figured anything going thru USB would be slower than local hard-drive access...it's nice to hear there actually is some benefits to be extracted with the thumbdrive route.

 

[EarthwormJim]

That's actually a pretty good idea. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could get a cheap 8gb or 16gb SATA flash drive and simply augment your current main drive with it and junctions

 

[taltamir]

that is a pretty neat idea, especially considering how overpriced used SSDs of lesser quality are on ebay and on retail too actually,the vertex is priced lower than many inferior models...

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
That's actually a pretty good idea. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could get a cheap 8gb or 16gb SATA flash drive and simply augment your current main drive with it and junctions

I was thinking about doing that with esata since I don't have any more hard drive slots in this computer. $75 for a 32gb esata flash. esata "flash" category on newegg

Only thing stopping me is the fact that I also don't have esata... yet 😉

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
That's actually a pretty good idea. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could get a cheap 8gb or 16gb SATA flash drive and simply augment your current main drive with it and junctions

I was thinking about doing that with esata since I don't have any more hard drive slots in this computer. $75 for a 32gb esata flash. esata "flash" category on newegg

Only thing stopping me is the fact that I also don't have esata... yet 😉

That's getting a little bit expensive, you might as well get a regular SATA flash drive and velcro mount it somewhere in your computer.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
That's actually a pretty good idea. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could get a cheap 8gb or 16gb SATA flash drive and simply augment your current main drive with it and junctions

I was thinking about doing that with esata since I don't have any more hard drive slots in this computer. $75 for a 32gb esata flash. esata "flash" category on newegg

Only thing stopping me is the fact that I also don't have esata... yet 😉

That's getting a little bit expensive, you might as well get a regular SATA flash drive and velcro mount it somewhere in your computer.

I'm always worried about stuff shorting out. I was honestly considering putting SATA drives on the bottom of my computer case, but I didn't do that because the case is all metal and the hard drive and its circuit board are all metal. It just seems like a bad idea.I guess theoretically I could put cardboard or something on the bottom of the case then put the hard drive upside down, on the side that doesn't have a circuit board.

 

[taltamir]

the 8GB and 16GB SSDs are WAAAY too expensive... but there are USB + eSATA pen drives like the ocz throttle for much cheaper, 30$ for 8GB, 50 for 16, and 70$ for 32GB... and with the eSATA port they get decent enough speeds.