Just bought a samsung 840 240gb ssd for a new build but without much thought how im going to use it, my first thoughts are put windows and all apps on it and use my 1tb hard drive for mas storage, but cant decide where i should install games, thoughts please
Not that many games benefit from quicker loading times but battlefield 3 is definitely one of them. I would say put the games you are actively playing on the ssd and then use an app like steam mover to move games to and from your ssd. You can also do this without the app in command prompt but I have no idea how.
BF3 and Crysis 3 on the SSD. Though the differences in loading BF3 mulitplayer map using my 2TB WD drive to my SSD, is about 8 seconds. Which if your jumping in and out of Servers, is quite quick. Usually I'm one of the first to load into a map change, which then you have to wait for the rest to catch up, so does it really benefit? No, not really. So this is why I have a small SSD for Windows, and the rest is on my Mechanical HDD.
Steam now allows you to install to a different location. And if you wanted to put it on your ssd you could move the files and use steam to verify the install making them usuable again. Battlefield 3 is best on a ssd. I switched to an ssd a year ago and now load into a map in seconds rather than minutes.
I have most of my games on a mechanical HDD but for some games (as t_g said like Crysis 3 etc - the more graphically intensive ones) I have on my ssd - not sure if it makes a difference but when they released the hd textures pack for Crysis 2 one of the recommended specs was having it installed on a SSD...
I went the 512GB SSD route, and have all apps and games on it. I pruned my Steam install a bit... the ones I rarely play, or have played to death... I can always re-install if if I want to play again. As soon as there are RAID drivers with TRIM support for my mobo (of I get another mobo), I'll get another 512GB 830 (or two 840 pros) and stripe them. I don't see the point of having a SSD and having all your stuff on a mechanical drive. Mech drives are purely storage for me at the moment.
Yep, Crysis 2 did benefit from loading a little faster than the HDD. But it wasn't like 'Click Play Game. Boom! I'm playing it Sort of Wow factor' This is all on the assumption everyone is using a fast HDD. Otherwise those with Green type of HDD, will see a bigger differences using a SSD.
im thinking put the games on the ssd but just keep the one im playing, with 250 gig im sure I will have room for at least 5 to 10 games
It depends how many games you have installed at once, I personally have all my games and programs installed on my 256gb M4, but then again I don't have all my games installed at once etc.
I'm still using Steam Mover to swap stuff between my HDD and SSD as required. I know Steam lets you specify an install location, but my Steam library is still on my HDD (as it was started well before Steam added the install location functionality) and I use the mover to stick specific games on the SSD as required.
im going to have to look into this steam mover, looks the way to go, to do this would steam itself be installed on the ssd
I have steam on my ssd and then have set up a steam folder on the hdd that I transfer the games I don't want on the ssd onto. It might work the other way around but not sure.
I have Steam and its library installed on the HDD, and move games across to the SSD - this is because originally, you had to have your library installed in the same location as Steam. These days, you could install Steam to the SSD and have your library on the HDD. I shouldn't imagine that having Steam installed on the SSD or HDD will make much difference, however. Basically, it looks like I do exactly the opposite to atc95 Don't think there's necessarily a right and wrong answer here.
For me all applications I am using go on ssd main system. All my music, movies, pictures, and application installer files (or folder back up from steam so I can just copy back instead of download again) are on hdd on my server.
thanks for the heads up on steam mover, i installed steam and games on the harddrive then just moved the ones i wanted to play to the ssd, works a treat and very pleased
