Hi all, Wasn't sure if this was supposed to be in Hardware or Software as it concerns both. I recently put together a new build and have an SSD. During installation I followed Sean's Guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds Which includes this: "How to have steam on the SSD while having the games on either the SSD or HDD: Delete everything in the Steam folder except for the "steam.exe" and the "steamapps" folder Have the "steam.exe" to a folder made on the C:\ drive (C:\Users\Sean\Steam) Have the "steamapps" folder on the HDD you want to store your games (D:\User\Program Files\Steam\steamapps) Make a junction from the "steamapps" folder to the SSD folder with the "steam.exe" in it Open the "steam.exe" and it will reconfigure steam Logged in and BAM! All your games are recognized and steam is on the SSD and the games on the other drive. Now, you can put what ever games you want on the SSD with Steam Mover (or junctions) Create another folder on the C:\ drive and name it (C:\Users\Sean\Steam Games) Run Steam Mover and have it move the game to that location and you are done! Now go play the games you want!" Steam Mover: http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover/ Now, I'm installing a game to my HDD at the moment to test this application out, and move the game to my SSD when I want to play. My question is, has anyone used this piece of software? If so, what do you think? My friend says copying an entire game to SSD whenever I want to play it would use a lot of writes and grind my SSD down. Is there any truth to this? Thanks
Did you get an ssd that is so small you can't have a game installed? I mean, I can see if you did you need steam mover, or some other junctions tool like this one. If you didn't then back up the install files to you hdd, and delete local content off ssd when you are not playing a title. This way you can avoid having to redownload and you can keep game you are actively playing on ssd for best load times. Some of these junctions tools are nice, but still. If you have room on the ssd, use it.
What's the difference between copying and using a junction? I have about 100GB left on my SSD. What do you mean by deleting local content off ssd when I'm not playing it? How do I do this?
100gb? Then why are you messing about with steam mover? I used it when I was really struggling for space on a 128gb drive but if I had 100gb free space I wouldn't have felt the need.
Well I haven't installed stuff like Office yet, but I suppose I just thought if I'm installing lots of games in the future, Steam Mover would be useful.
What size drive is it? I have numerous games installed on my 256gb and room for plenty more, I suppose you have to ask yourself, how many games do you need access to at any one time.
True. Well was meant to be 128GB but when I looked it said 119GB which was strange, then the OS took me down to about 107GB, now it's on 102GB.
I'm pretty sure it was steammover I used a year or two ago... if not it was something like that. If you're not too bothered about loading times then it's fine to move games to-and-from the SSD/HDD. Just switch things around when you need. Of course the easiest option is just to keep everything on the SSD but that only works if your SSD is large enough. Run some unscientific benchmarks on load time, put a game on the SSD time it to load a few times - move it to the HDD... the difference could be like chalk and cheese or depending on your system the differences might be minor... it depends on where the real bottlenecks are lying. I have a super fast 512GB SSD in my laptop but I don't want to fill it with games as I rarely get a chance to play so I have a 256GB 'Games' SSD running at slightly less than max speed in a USB3.0 caddy. It's all a bit overkill for my needs as I could probably just install a game or two on the primary drive but hey... a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
My suggestion is simple: -> Have the most played games on your SSD. -> All the small games or big games that you don't play much leave it on your HDD. -> Game that you finished, moved to the HDD. You can also purchase (in the case you have not already) super fast 7200RPM HDD, like the SpinPoint F3, or for more quieter drive that can access data when the paters reach 5400RPM all the way up to 7200RPM, the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB. While I did notice games load faster on my SSD and a slight hint of performance increase in games (texture load from drive to memory to be sent to the GPU, is faster) it wasn't anything super drastic. It's not like "instant game load", or something like that. Moving the game from the HDD to the SSD is ridiculous, as it takes time to do. You are limited by the HDD speed, so it kinda defeats the prepuce, especially if you just want to play a game for a moment, and not play for several hours straight. Plus you wear out the SSD stupidly, even if you have an SSD with synchronous memory which give you a significantly more write amount, it's still silly. Anyway, that my view on it.
hey all, here's my setup, some queries to follow: 128GB SSD = OS/Systems 1TB Spinpoint = Games/Steam 2TB Spinpoint = storage/movies/music/etc Now I just got football manager 2013, which is the type of game that would likely benefit massively from being on an SSD, as it's all loading times and data shifting. If I use the junction tool to move it to the SSD but STEAM itself actually stays on the HDD, will I get any benefit at all? Or do i need to move steam too?
Steam mover works great. Alternatively you can use something like Symlink creator to move other non steam apps but it all works well. Read up a bit on Directory Junctions and play around with symlink creator for a bit so you solidly understand what it's doing and how it works etc.
