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Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to elwoodblues

MVM

to elwoodblues

Re: Hard Drive Deals

All mechanical drives are as slow as molasses, and using them for anything that needs high performance is silly. The difference between the fastest and slowest drives is tiny compared to SSDs, so the only reason to use mechanical is if you need cheap mass storage, at which point the quieter (or cheaper) the better.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium Member
join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

Premium Member

Not a realistic assessment, IMHO. This is going to be his backup/semi-portable game machine, the new one being some monstrous water- cooled supercomputer that is too heavy to lug around to LAN competitions. Every bit of performance matters. Of course an SSD makes a huge difference, and the new one has a ginormous SSD of some size that I don't recall, because I had nothing to do with building it myself. The old Dell was just being rehabilitated potentially for my own use, but I set it up as his backup gaming machine, and also built Windows in a 120 GB partition so we could easily move it to an affordable SSD in the near future. So we're really talking about the difference between distributing functionality between an SSD and a fast drive, vs. distributing it between an SSD and a slower drive. Or do you suggest I buy a 2 TB SSD?

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

MVM

said by Wolfie00:

Not a realistic assessment, IMHO. This is going to be his backup/semi-portable game machine, the new one being some monstrous water- cooled supercomputer that is too heavy to lug around to LAN competitions. Every bit of performance matters. Of course an SSD makes a huge difference, and the new one has a ginormous SSD of some size that I don't recall, because I had nothing to do with building it myself. The old Dell was just being rehabilitated potentially for my own use, but I set it up as his backup gaming machine, and also built Windows in a 120 GB partition so we could easily move it to an affordable SSD in the near future. So we're really talking about the difference between distributing functionality between an SSD and a fast drive, vs. distributing it between an SSD and a slower drive. Or do you suggest I buy a 2 TB SSD?

No, I suggest a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD, but at that point it's a lot less important how fast the 2TB is since it's bulk storage.

My desktop is SSD-only (2x 180GB Intel 330), but it's backed up by a file server which (as soon as the shipment arrives) will have a total of 44TB of capacity. The drives don't need to be fast, they're storing bulk data, and performance is helped by the fact that it's a RAID array (only two storage pools means only 2x the IOPS, although the throughput would be great if the GigE connection didn't bottleneck it).

Come to think of it, my laptop (Mac air) is SSD-only too, and the file server is doing everything off SSD except for the storage array itself. The things (SSDs) are just so darned cheap these days. I've seen 'em dip below $0.60 per gig on sale.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium Member
join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

Premium Member

said by Guspaz:

No, I suggest a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD

I agree, though I'm thinking a good 120 or 128 GB SSD would be adequate.

I recall that you also like Intel SSD's, and I agree with that, too.

Now, put our two points of agreement together, and we're talking about a 256GB Intel SSD that costs about twice as much as the WD drive that is necessary anyway and that I already complained about ripped off for! Which is the only reason I didn't get the SSD. When prices come down or something decent goes on sale, we're all set to move the 120 GB Windows partition to an SSD. I have a lot more demands on my limited finances than the fastest possible disk configuration, including many other computers that all need stuff, and for the time being, for a computer that is not going to be used very often, a good fast reliable HDD seemed like a good place to start.

linicx
Caveat Emptor
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
United State

linicx

Premium Member

You might take a look at Newegg or Fry's. I've gotten some pretty good deals at both.

FaxCap
join:2002-05-25
Surrey, BC

FaxCap to Wolfie00

Member

to Wolfie00
said by Wolfie00:

said by Guspaz:

No, I suggest a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD

I agree, though I'm thinking a good 120 or 128 GB SSD would be adequate.

On my last personal build I wish I had gone with a 256gig SSD rather
than 120gig for C:. I am constantly amazed at how much HAS to go
on C: no matter what drive the main installation goes on.

FaxCap

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by FaxCap:

On my last personal build I wish I had gone with a 256gig SSD rather
than 120gig for C:. I am constantly amazed at how much HAS to go
on C: no matter what drive the main installation goes on.

I have a 120GB SSD for my system drive and it's more than enough. You just need to make sure you set up Windows correctly to move everything except \Windows and the Program Files folders to a different drive. So long as you do that first, nothing "has" to go on C.

FaxCap
join:2002-05-25
Surrey, BC

FaxCap

Member

said by Gone:

You just need to make sure you set up Windows correctly to move everything except \Windows and the Program Files folders to a different drive. So long as you do that first, nothing "has" to go on C.

That's one of the problems, Gone....I have apps for running my
shortwave radios and SDR (software defined radio) that will not
install anywhere but C and all data also can't be installed anywhere
but C:. Now whether this is poor programming I can't say. Many of
you guys know tons more about programming than I do.

FaxCap

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Yeah, poor programming can do that, and when I say poor programming I mean *really* poor programming.

But when I said you don't need to put anything on C, I meant it. You can move these programs off of C with a junction point and then hide the junction on the C drive so you don't see it. Windows 8 has some weirdness where you need to manually create a junction for Users and ProgramData on the C drive even if you specify as part of the install to move them to a different drive. Windows 7 has no such quirk.

Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium Member
join:2005-03-12

Wolfie00

Premium Member

said by Gone:

Yeah, poor programming can do that, and when I say poor programming I mean *really* poor programming.

Agreed. Any program that "must" be installed on C: could only have been written by a twit that went out of his way to violate really basic Windows programming conventions.

But to put things in perspective about a 120 GB SSD being "too small", one of my computers still in use is so old that it uses PATA drives with a BIOS limit of 80 GB; I have two 80 GB drives on it with C: being a 20 GB partition on the first one. It runs Windows XP Pro and not only am I fine with 20 GB for C:, I even have all of the basic Windows apps and utilities and many others including Microsoft Office installed there, and it's also the main "Temp" scratch area.

Of course some new "modern" apps can be disk hogs and Windows 7 itself is a disk hog (not to mention Win 8) but come on, folks, my math skillz tell me that 120 GB is six times the size of my XP partition! Just how wasteful can some apps be, especially when you consider that almost everything can be installed to a different partition?

The only reason to have a larger SSD is simply to have more apps installed directly on it for performance reasons.

milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

One POSSIBLE exception is a notebook where a SSD adds a bit of protection against hard knocks when the computer is running.

I say "possible" because I have a nasty habit of loading my notebooks with way too many videos that I've already watched. That's the main reason I run out of space even on a 240 GB SSD!

As for the "poor programming" issue, definitely! Windows already provides you with plenty of registry entries and APIs to know exactly where nearly everything related to the operating system is located. There's really no reason to force anything on a C: drive!

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone to Wolfie00

Premium Member

to Wolfie00
said by Wolfie00:

Of course some new "modern" apps can be disk hogs and Windows 7 itself is a disk hog (not to mention Win 8) but come on, folks, my math skillz tell me that 120 GB is six times the size of my XP partition! Just how wasteful can some apps be, especially when you consider that almost everything can be installed to a different partition?

The only reason to have a larger SSD is simply to have more apps installed directly on it for performance reasons.

I took it a step further. I have a 120GB Intel 520 as my Windows boot drive with core applications installed. I think it's maybe half full. I then have three magnetic disks inside my machine - a 1TB WD Black and two 3TB Seagate Baracudas. There is also a 3TB Hitachi external USB 3.0 drive. The WD Black has \Users, \ProgramData and any "hogs" (namely games) that I have. Having a Z68 board and an always-present desire to do things crazier than I have to, I then use Intel SRT with a separate smaller 60GB SSD to cache the 1TB WD Black, making frequently used operations operate at SSD speeds. The two 3TB drives are for bulk storage and are independent of anything else. The 3TB external drive than backs up the Intel 520 and the WD Black.

About the only thing extra I could really do would be to get another 120GB Intel 520 and engage in some RAID 0

milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

60 GB Intel 330 boot SSD on my computer at home, with a 2 TB WD Red drive for mass storage. The only applications on the Red drive are a few video apps, and my entire Steam directory.

Steam did a decent job with their software. I had to move the Steam directory from C: to D: because the SSD couldn't hold it all, not knowing if the brute force move would screw anything up. Normally, you have to do a proper uninstall/reinstall of any software you want to move to another drive so that all of the software's internal drive and path references are correct. But that would have meant reinstalling all of my games which would have taken a few days to get through the downloads.

I modified all of the desktop shortcuts before launching Steam, and it immediately detected the drive change and readjusted all of its internal drive references. Even my saved games were preserved!

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Yeah, Steam is good for that. It is far less good for when you want one of the games to be on your SSD and the rest on a different drive. There is absolutely no way to do that from within the program itself, and to do it you have no choice but to resort to junction points.

This was a major pain in the ass for me at one point as I used to keep Portal on my SSD and kept the rest (like GTA 4) on my magnetic drives. Now that I've got SRT I just keep it all on a magnetic drive and let SRT cache what it needs when it needs it.
HoboJ
join:2008-03-27
Cornwall, ON

HoboJ

Member

said by Gone:

Yeah, Steam is good for that. It is far less good for when you want one of the games to be on your SSD and the rest on a different drive. There is absolutely no way to do that from within the program itself, and to do it you have no choice but to resort to junction points.

You can do this easily. Just choose the install path when you install a game through steam and put it on your SSD. I've done it a few times with my more slow to load games.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by HoboJ:

You can do this easily. Just choose the install path when you install a game through steam and put it on your SSD. I've done it a few times with my more slow to load games.

Hah yeah I just Googled that, the option is only a few months old. About bloody time if you ask me!

Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON

Mashiki to FaxCap

Member

to FaxCap
said by FaxCap:

On my last personal build I wish I had gone with a 256gig SSD rather
than 120gig for C:. I am constantly amazed at how much HAS to go
on C: no matter what drive the main installation goes on.

Really if you're careful you can get away with a 60GB drive with no issues. That's what I'm using in my case(1st gen ssd), the biggest sucker of space is usually games that want to store large amounts of data either in roaming, or in my documents. For whatever reason. That's easy to fix though by making a junction point.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

said by Mashiki:

Really if you're careful you can get away with a 60GB drive with no issues.

You sure can. On my primary system that I've been using for about a year, my C:\Windows\ drive is 30GB and my P:\Program Files\ drive is 15 GB which leaves 15GB for user data.

Of course if you have a hiberfil.sys and a pagefile.sys, you won't have a lot of room left over for files.

My NUC has a 60GB MSATA Intel SSD and it works just fine as one of my HTPC's.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

I'm at 350gb for Windows/Program files (x86) program files , program data and user data.

wasHighwire
@205.150.9.x

wasHighwire

Anon

Wow, I'm not sure what you guys need all that space for. Most of my computers are rocking either 120GB or 240GB SSDs, with the "stuff" on a NAS with ~8TB of space, 6TB of which is free.

Must... download... more...

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

said by wasHighwire :

Wow, I'm not sure what you guys need all that space for. Most of my computers are rocking either 120GB or 240GB SSDs, with the "stuff" on a NAS with ~8TB of space, 6TB of which is free.

Must... download... more...

That;s another 10 hard drives not online.

Mostly games, and applications