Hello Bit-techers, I've got a SSD arriving tomorrow, a 60Gb Corsair jobbie, and was wondering how best I should ues the space. I know 60Gb is on the tiny side, but its all I wanted to go for. I was thinking of having my OS on there, but not sure what else to use it for. Would it be worth putting a game I intend to play heavily on there like BF3, to improve loading time? Or would it be better to put software like Adobe CS4 and my CAD software in there? Or all of the above if it fits? Your help is very welcomed
A game would make more sense, as the only real use Photoshop would have a for a SSD would be as a scratch disk, so you'd only really see advantages if you run out of RAM. that will only happen if you're a serious user anyway, as most PCs have 8GB or so of RAM. Stick BF3 on it. Don't forget you'll need to partition it to less than 60GB for over partitioning... tricky with such a small drive, as most people recommend 20% or so. I only use 12% for OP though, and I seem to be doing all right.
If it's a SSD using sync system for the nand (Corsair Force 3 GT, for example), then they have so much write ability, that you simply not care about it. Use, enjoy, like an HDD. The SSD has a 5 year warranty, at 3, I can assure you that you'll be changing it (for higher capacity and/or faster). If it's the async memory (Corsair Force 3, for example), and you plan to be tight in space, do what pookeyhead said if you want maximum performance and no issues down the road of 3 years. Personally, I would get a 128GB Sync memory. I got mine for my laptop (Corsair Force GT), and I have everything on (I don't play big games on my laptop.. that is why I got the OCZ Vertex 4 256GB on my desktop, which is also sync memory ), and I have plenty of free space, and I use it just like I do with my HDD that was before it. No tweak or anything. SSD life meters says that I am good for almost 10 years on both systems. And I program, so I do LOTS of compiling.. and that means, lots of writes. Considering that my laptop SSD was only 80$ on special.. even if not, 100$, it's, in my opinion, definitely worth it to get sync SSD, especially that the async one, are a few dollar less (in Canada at least). Anyway, I would put the OS, any big software that takes time to load (I guess in your case, 1 or 2), and possibly 1 game. Like HDD, don't have your SSD filled to the max, for proper performance. Or you can put OS, 1 game, and maybe 1 or 2 large projects so that they are fast to work with, and take the benefit of your SSD on a daily basis.
Personally I would have the OS, drivers and such on there only. Anything goes wrong it is a snip to wipe and reinstall. That is all I'm going to use the SSD I just ordered for. Just windows and peace of mind. Everything else can be on the terrabyte drives.
Over provisioning rather, or under partitioning..... sorry.. it was late. It's a way of maintaining a certain level of free space so the drive can always have a store of working memory should blocks fail, so it increases drive life. It also helps TRIM maintain speed.
Well I have no idea about any of that The drive i've got is a 60Gb Corsair Force 3 if thats of any help.
It's quiet simple. By default your SSD already reserves a certain percentage of space for long usage, where if there is a place it can't write anymore, it will use this "put aside" space. The idea of making an even smaller partition than what is available to provide it with even more free, unused space for the SSD to use, so that it lasts even longer.
&, as Pookyhead indicated, so that it can significantly better maintain speeds (esp where there's a reasonably large element of small random i/os - as there is with a typical OS/apps usage) no matter whether an actual nand longevity increase is of benefit to your personal r(ead)-e(rase)-w(rite) cycle usage. Yeah, with the current SSDs, the cycle usage is only of any real import if (a) you really need it to last for half of ever, (b) the nand has an unusually low cycle rating or (c) you're really going to be hammering it with (esp) random r/ws & want it to last for something like the warranty period... (or you choose an odd SSD, like the Octane, which has a stupidly high max write amplification) ...whereas maintaining speeds is important. As per the usual recommendation, i would add at least 7% OP (ie under partition by 7% of the formatted space) & leave at least 15% of the formatted space unused... ...though, i personally go for at least 28% total OP & at least 20% of the formatted space being unused. Otherwise, i would go for Adobe or something along with the OS - game loading time is so inconsequential irl... ...& so much of them tends to be fairly sequential reads that i can't see the point on a tiny SSD. Naturally, there is a gain from having games on SSDs (i'm not pretending that there isn't) - but it's not what i'd see as being the thing that'd provide the most benefit.