Small drive tips

Discussion in 'Technology' started by bfun, May 20, 2011.

  1. I ordered a 96Gb SSD which I want to use for my OS. I've used small SCSI drives in the past and I hate managing the space. Even things like browser cache can get annoying after a while. Any tips for keeping the drive clean? Any tools that would be useful?
     
  2. I am using a 120GB SSD at this time. Add an extra ordinary drive in there for space consuming stuff like games.

    Put everything Windows and apps on the drive and not more then 1 or 2 games that you really like to load fast. The rest you dump on the normal drive.

    That's what I do at this point.
    Storage is on my server anyways, so not a problem there. But, you could use the secondary drive for that too.

    Just when you don't need something for certain, remove it.

    Never ever use a defragmenter program on it! Each cell has a certain amount of write cycles. Obviously defragging will use those cycles and kill your drive faster. A SSD has the some read/write speed on every cell opposing to normal drives.
    To speed things up, leave Windows idle on the login screen for some time once in a while.
    I have to boot the pc and then when it is running select log off.
     
  3. The main reason why I'd consider buying a momentus even though it's not even really cost effective, is that I wouldn't have to deal with this shit. Hell I coud raid momentus' and be happy for a long long time.

    I'm still holding out for an upgrade. it's what, 9 months old? its gotta be upgraded some time...
     
  4. I've had a 120GB (112GB formatted) SSD since 2008 and it's pretty easy to manage. You can turn off indexing and system restore but I don't think you have to. Just install your main apps on the drive and any that are less critical onto another drive. Really, as long as Windows is on the faster drive, you'll see most of the benefit even if other apps are still on a mechanical drive. Don't bother with games unless the particular game has pretty bad loading times, or if you have enough space for your favourite/current games to be on that drive.
     
  5. Well there never seems an easy way to manage it. Browser cache and downloads, saved games, documents. By default that will all go to the main system drive and builds up over time.

    I have about 200GB on my drive now. I'll need to get that down to about 50GB before I clone it.
     
  6. Wouldnt there be a great speed improvement in games with an SSD? I mean for the loading times, for example BF2 loaded twice as fast going from an old 120GB drive to an 1TB WD Black.
     
  7. Probably. Fast load times are really important in BF2. Early spawners get the best vehicles.
     
  8. Yeah, especially on Wake/China, where aprox 32 people try to get a J10 one-seater :D
     
  9. This is why I'm holding off on an SSD for now. They're just two damn small. You end up having to constantly swap stuff to a standard HDD. With 2TB in my desktop, I've grown accustomed to not worrying how big things are.
     
  10. Is there a program that will show drive usage by directory on a pie chart?
     
  11. I don't know specifically, but I'm sure there's a file manager out there for that... that IS their main function afaik
     
  12. I had one a long time ago. It was great for freeing up drive space. Win 7 might have it built in but I’ve never seen it.
     
  13. So how will I handle Steam? I want some games on the SSD and some on the hard drive. Do I install Steam on both drives?
     
  14. You could try this program:


    http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover

    http://lifehacker.com/5626931/steam-mover-relocates-applications-to-free-up-space-on-your-primary-drive
     
  15. That looks perfect.
     
  16. That program works great. Recommended.
     
  17. Yea nice program, could come in handy sometime, never knew it were possible.
     
  18. I haven't tested it yet but I think it will work with non-steam games as well.