What to put on SSD, and what to keep on spindle drive?

[wgoldfarb]

I just finished reading several posts on the subject, and I confess I am more confused than I was before reading anything. When I started I had a clear image in my head: OS and Apps on the SSD, all data on the spindle drive. And then I made the mistake of trying to do research (gasp!) on the subject. I now know enough to be very dangerous.

I am about to install a brand new Intel G2 80GB SSD, and then put Win 7 X64 on it. I plan to install the new firmware before I put anything on the drive. I have 4 GB RAM. I also have a 320GB spindle drive.

I know I should put my OS and applications on the SSD. I plan to keep my music and pictures on the spindle drive -- they take up a LOT of space. Most of my documents and data (Word, Excel, etc) will also be on the spindle drive.

Now for the two big questions:

- I use Outlook for my email. The PST file is about 1.5 GB. I use it a lot -- it is probably the most used application, as my work relies heavily on email communication. So, from that point of view (speed) I want the PST on the SSD. On the other hand, this is a very large file that is very frequently written to and modified. I am concerned with the effect on performance degradation it may have on the SSD. What is the consensus? Do I put the PST file on the spindle drive, or the SSD? How much of an issue is performance degradation? OTOH, how much of a speed "hit" will I receive by putting the PST on the spindle drive? (I guess another way of assign the same question: when I start up Outllook, how much time is for the app itself, and how much time for the PST file?)

- Same question for the Windows pagefile. I saw posts that go both ways: some people suggest putting it in the SSD, others in the spindle. Any definitive answers on this?

I do want to benefit from the increased speed, but I don't want an excessive negative impact on performance. I don't understand SSDs well enough to really know how much of an issue performance degradation is.

TIA!

 

[dflynchimp]

I think you've answered your own question.

Plain and simple, keep everything that doesn't get modded/rewrite often on the SSD, that's OS and essential apps (office). Page files and PST stay on the spindle.

Actually a good way to help things along is if you got more RAM. With more RAM, you can manually decrease the size of the page file, to just a couple hundred MB's if you have 8GB of RAM in the system.

And for Outlook, can you have the program itself on the SSD and the PST file on the spindle?

 

[PUN]

I think you've answered your own question.

Plain and simple, keep everything that doesn't get modded/rewrite often on the SSD, that's OS and essential apps (office). Page files and PST stay on the spindle.

Actually a good way to help things along is if you got more RAM. With more RAM, you can manually decrease the size of the page file, to just a couple hundred MB's if you have 8GB of RAM in the system.

And for Outlook, can you have the program itself on the SSD and the PST file on the spindle?

I keep the pagefile designated on the SSD (2GB), though they never ever get utilized.
On the otherhand, I keep my Internet Temp files on the spindle drive.

 

[F1shF4t]

Just keep everything what you need speed for on the SSD. Since you have an intel one even with the worst performance degredation it will blow every other SSD not to mention spindle drives out of the water.

A lot of the optimisations were meant for the older jmicron drives which used to stutter, Intel one has no such issues.

 

[wgoldfarb]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. For now I ended up putting all data files on the spindle (including Outlook PST, Page file, and all user profile directories). I'll use it like this for a while, and then move the PST and other frequently used data files on the SDD to see how much of a difference it makes, if any.

To dflynchimp: Yes, you can put the Outlook PST file anywhere you want.