What programs to install on my SSD?

[Shephard]

ok my new computer is setup, still no video card.

I am putting my main Western Digital 1tb in there today so I will backup data. I decided I will just do a reformat.

What programs do I want on the SSD and what do I want on the mechanical?

So far the SSD only has Windows 7, Firefox, MSI afterburner, and Prime 95.

Do I want to put my music program foobar on the SSD? My library is very big so it won't all fit.

What about media players, should they go on there? If I install codecs do they go on there too?

Should I put a game on there if it's small? Starcraft 2 is 20gb, I only have 78gb free.

anything else you can help with.

 

[Vectronic]

Any applications that you use often should go on your SSD.

With regards to smaller applications (media players, etc) they can likely be put on a mechanical drive and you won't notice any impact on loading speed because they are so small. However, even small applications that launch at boot should be on your SSD. Afterburner for instance if it runs on load, Skype, RainMeter, etc.

Don't bother putting any libraries (music, pictures, movies, etc) on your SSD unless you are constantly editing or viewing them and need the extra speed. (media players typically use a database, they don't read the files every launch/run).

Naturally anything you put on the SSD will be faster at loading, so it's really up to how much space you have and what you use the most.

Personally I stick to as little as possible on my SSD, effectively only "required" applications, the OS, Virus Scanner, various utilities, and things that are highly-bound to Windows (Visual Studio, stuff like WinRAR or anything that loads a DLL into Explorer, etc).

I have a separate SATA3 mechanical drive for Documents (excluding Local/Roaming/AppData etc), which is also my back-up drive (kind of my "grab and go" essential HD).

A separate SATA3 mechanical drive for applications/games.

A separate SATA3 mechanical for downloads.

That way rarely is there I/O locks, downloads, media, apps, and OS/Critical all have their own HD to play with.

 

[Shephard]

should you put something like Sony Vegas or Photoshop on an SSD? Does that help with render times or no?

Where do I move the libraries like downloads?

 

[Vectronic]

It won't help with render times, or image manipulation. Only in how fast Vegas or Photoshop initially starts up.

However, with video-editing especially, you should probably output/render to your SSD, moving your source/working-files to the SSD before editing may help as well, especially for a video that uses lots of smaller source videos.

If you only have two drives, SSD + Mechanical, downloads should probably go on your mechanical, simply to save all the read/writes to your SSD. If you have a really fast internet connection, and do a lot of downloading, I would highly suggest an HD dedicated to that alone, or to very little else... Downloads + Audio/Pictures/Documents would work. Otherwise downloading can really impact read/write speeds for other things.

 

[Shephard]

I only have two yes.

How do I move all those libraries without corrupting anything? Never had to do that before.

there isn't just documents. There is like public documents, yournamehere documents, and some other one.

plus when I install games how will it know where to locate the area for save games?

 

[Vectronic]

If you haven't found it necessary till now, you probably don't have to worry about it too much.

A couple hundred MP3's on your SSD won't make much of a difference.

Changing the location of libraries/documents depends on your operating system.

In Windows 7/8, you can just go to C: \Users\YourName\... right-click on folders, such as "Documents" and choose Properties, then go to the "Location" tab, and change it to the desired location, either using "Move" or manually setting the path to one that already exist ("Find Target").

You can also just do it from within Windows Explorer without moving any data or anything, in the side panel (folder list, etc) choose "Libraries" then select the Library you want to edit, go to Properties, and add another folder to it. (You can also that from from within the Start Menu too if I remember correctly).

Whatever you set your Documents folder to is set in a variable within the "Environment Variables" collection, that's what games will look in to find the location of your documents. (excluding poorly coded ones, that save to Local/Roaming, or some fixed location)

 

[Shephard]

So I don't need to move UpdateusUser or Public ?

I am using Windows 7 64 bit.

Also I have about 140gb of music. flac and 320kbps.

 

[Vectronic]

Nope, just the one with your UserName, or "Administrator".

DON'T move the root folder. C: \Users\UserName <-- don't move that anywhere, just the sub-folders of that folder, mainly:

Contacts
Favorites
Links
My Documents or Documents
My Videos or Videos
My Pictures or Pictures
My Music or Music
Saved Games

Basically the folders you would have found in your documents folder when using Windows XP.

You *CAN* move the entire structure somewhere else... but, it's not advisable because it can create problems, and because a lot of stuff gets read/written to places in that folder like AppData, and various hidden files, you are losing out on a bit of speed by moving them off the SSD.

 

[Shephard]

1 more thing.

Should I install my 1TB drive and format it in Windows.

or should I format it from the Windows 7 disc in the current computer before I put it in the new one.

 

[Vectronic]

Either way it will make no difference, whichever is easier.

 

[Shephard]

ok thanks for the help. I am backing everything up right now.

I will report back if I have a problem.

 

[Shephard]

ok I went to format the drive in Windows and I made sure to uncheck quick format.

It's been running 5 minutes and there is only a little green bar.

How long does this full format take?

Using Windows 7 disc all you do is click delete...

 

[Vectronic]

A full format of NTFS can take quite a long time on a large hard drive.

Practically speaking there's no difference between a full format, and a quick format. The actual formatting of the hard drive is the same.

What a full/complete format does, is also validates and zeros (erases any contents that might be there, rather than just re-writing the file tables, etc) the drive.

A full format doesn't really need to be done, and the only time it should be done is if it's a brand new drive, or you have recently deleted a bunch of partitions.

However, if it isn't done by the time you are reading this, that's much longer than it should have taken... but doesn't necessarily mean anything bad.

 

[Shephard]

I just got a BSOD while it was going. Not sure why I made another topic.

There is also "System E: Reserved" 69/99mb.

Is that part of the old hard drive? I never saw that before when it was just my SSD.

Do I format it?

 

[Vectronic]

That's a small amount for system reserved space. Windows 8 tries to reserve 350MB, Windows 7 I believe it's 150MB.

You *can* get rid of it, assuming it is on your mechanical drive, if it's on your SSD, leave it.

 

[Shephard]

no it's a new partition that showed up when I plugged in the mechanical.

It looks like this right now

Local Disk (C - SSD 76.5/111gb
System Reserved (E - 69.9/99.9mb
Local Disk (F - 1tb mechanical 931free /931gb f

 

[Vectronic]

well at least they're all happy... lol

Yeah it looks like it's on the mechanical (because it's named E: if it was on the SSD it wouldn't have a letter)

Edit: word of advice when dealing with disks, use computer management when doing lower-level stuff ("compmgmt.msc" or "diskmgmt.msc") it will more accurately tell you what partitions belong to what HD, and also allows for more options in general regarding disks.

(I assume you are just formatting it from My Computer or something?)

 

[tweakboy]

How big is your SSD. If its 256GB you can install all your programs on the SSD and OS.

You can also install 2 or 3 games, then install rest of your games on 1TB drive you got. gl

 

[Shephard]

yes I am formatting from My computer. Normally if it's a fresh install I killdisk the hard drive.

in disk managment there is only the 2 drives shown C and F. Also the optical drive D.

There are 2 System reserves, one does not have a letter. The other is E.

When I click E, it highlights the mechanical hard drive so I guess they are tied together.

The other system reserve says (System, Active, Primary Partition)

So what do I do? Just delete volume E?

 

[Vectronic]

yeah, delete E: and delete F: (again) format the whole hard drive as a single partition (or partition however you want) that little E: drive is just wasted space now from the previous setup/PC it was in.

 

[Shephard]

Ok here's what I did.

New simple volume.
NTFS
default everything
no file compression

name is New Volume E.

Is it good now? It's not going to autoplay or anything is it?

 

[Vectronic]

Should be good to go.

 

[Rikard]

Nope, just the one with your UserName, or "Administrator".

DON'T move the root folder. C: \Users\UserName <-- don't move that anywhere, just the sub-folders of that folder, mainly:

Contacts
Favorites
Links
My Documents or Documents
My Videos or Videos
My Pictures or Pictures
My Music or Music
Saved Games

Basically the folders you would have found in your documents folder when using Windows XP.

You *CAN* move the entire structure somewhere else... but, it's not advisable because it can create problems, and because a lot of stuff gets read/written to places in that folder like AppData, and various hidden files, you are losing out on a bit of speed by moving them off the SSD.

That is interesting, since I usually create a separate partition for Users in Win 7, and create a link to it so that programs always look for it in the right place. The only problem I had with that was when I installed SP1, it really did not like my layout... This is all for HDD, I never did this with an SSD installation. However, you move only selected folders since you say you are losing speed when the OS tries to read some hidden files from the Users folder if they are not on the SSD. I might have to rethink my setup. Do you have more info on this that I can read?

 

[tweakboy]

I would use the SSD as boot drive only.

Nah he can install couple games and ALL his apps and OS on his SSD. thx gl

:biggrin:

 

[Shephard]

I moved the folders and I have had 0 problems so far.

everything directs to the right place.

just had to change the download location in Firefox.