Hard drive questions....

R

Ratchet91X

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What's up guys? I wanted to get some input on how how drives and programs function. I'm about to add two SSD's to my rig and was wondering if it's possible to have the operating system and windows program on one drive and put other programs like adobe, TS, skype, and etc on the other. Is that a feasible way to run a CPU? Thanks in advance on any tips!
 
Skipping over the use of CPU to describe computer (sorry lol, my grand father calls it that).

Many programs will run on a second hard drive with no problem. One thing to consider is that things like Origin or Steam generally only support having games on one drive, so you can't often say install some of the games under one on drive a and then some of the others on drive b. You have to pick a drive for all your steam games. Though lets say your only Origin game was BF3 you could have BF3 on the SSD and all your Steam games on a regular mechanical drive.

Not sure what your plan is with 2 SSD's? Nothing wrong with any ideas involving 2 SSD's just not something you hear people say often.

Anyways remember that some applications will not work on another drive or have issues. Some files will often end up on the OS drive and you will find yourself trying to keep a smaller SSD from filling up. Your desktop for example is going to be on the boot drive so if you happen to keep any large files on the desktop you will want to get out of that habit.
 
Actually, Rain, things are a changin'.

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Both support multiple drives. In ye olden days, you'd just have to map the second drive to a directory instead of assigning it a drive letter. Shortcuts could sometimes be used.
 
SWEET. Only I see only Steam supporting it.

Origin still shows what it did from day 1, download location and game location hence ability to install on one drive. But yeah you could try doing a junctionlink from a folder on one drive to another. Really messy and problem inducing on windows but it can work as well.
 
Look closer, Rain. "Your games will be installed to the following location:" (You can change where it points.) Otherwise, if that isn't working, you could simply install Origin to a different drive entirely, in which case it'll probably default to that drive for an install location.
 
Bobsama said:
Look closer, Rain. "Your games will be installed to the following location:" (You can change where it points.) Otherwise, if that isn't working, you could simply install Origin to a different drive entirely, in which case it'll probably default to that drive for an install location.
Click to expand...

...You can change where it points. Yes so every time you want a game on a different drive you have to swap it back and forth. Thats not actually called support. The platform with the games that have the most problems with being installed on different drives is not the one I would want to try that move on :p

You have been able to change where origin points for about as long as I can remember. Then again i barely remember the launch or the EA download manager that preceded it.
 
I changed my Download location( which is where origin installs the game) to a secondary drive. When origin downloads one of games, it downloads "pre-installed". Meaning it's ready to play as it downloads. Though origin may say its installing a game. All it's really doing is checking to see if all the files match.


I run a 128G SSD + 500G platter drive where All of my files are located except the OS. This includes all of the files in my library( downloads, pictures, my documents etc. )
 
There's a program somewhere called SteamMover that uses junction points to shift stuff around so you can have Steam install stuff to the SSD, then move it to a mech drive if you don't play it so much. Without having to redownload all those gogabytes.

http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover
 
I have 2 ssd's now but that was because I bought a 128 a couple of years ago when they were a lot more expensive and, after maxing it out with drive intensive stuff (or things I like instantly) I bought a second 256 one. The 256 now has the os, games, and general system crap. I kept the 128 for my productivity stuff and have a 750gb regular drive for storage and the image of my os disk. The only reason I did it that way was to keep from getting some of the issues of having games spread across different games and, if something goofy happens to that drive, I can wipe it (or replace it) and be up and going in no time with the backup image.
 
A workaround for origin (or any similar programs) is to symbolically link folders between your ssd and hdd on a case by case basis. If you want BF3 to load faster you keep the game folder on your ssd, but if you install some game like Fifa and don't care about load times and want to conserve ssd space, you move it from your ssd to the hdd and then use the command prompt to symbolically link the hdd folder to the same location on the ssd. So origin sees that exact same folder on the ssd but for all intents and purposes it is stored on the hdd.
 
I personally use two 128GB SSD's in Raid 0, and use a old (1 year) laptop drive as my storage drive for extra stuff or games/programs that don't need or use the benefit of the SSD. One thing I will do with games I almost never play is back them up to the normal Harddrive, then restore them when I am ready to play them so that I don't use up lots of space on a game I'm not going to play for awhile (but don't want to have to re-download).
I don't know if this is any help, but good luck!
 
If I had 2 SSDs and a hard drive I would put them in Raid 0, and put the operating system and my games on them, using the hard drive for "big files" like video files, music files, etc. etc.

The ideal is to have your OS/"scratch file" on one drive and the games on another drive, but you'd have to have 4 SSDs for 2xRaid0 for that... or you can just not raid0 them, and put the OS on one and the games on the other.

Also, steam actually finally officially has a prompt where it asks you where you want to install your games. I keep them under the client folder anyway (and you can obviously install the client itself anywhere, like any windows program).
 
HeatSurge said:
If I had 2 SSDs and a hard drive I would put them in Raid 0, and put the operating system and my games on them, using the hard drive for "big files" like video files, music files, etc. etc.

Also, steam actually finally officially has a prompt where it asks you where you want to install your games. I keep them under the client folder anyway (and you can obviously install the client itself anywhere, like any windows program).
Click to expand...

This is precisely what I do. You just put it better.
 
NEVER NEVER USE RAID 0, if a drive crashes, that's all you're going to recover...0; at minimum use a RAID 1 for security and file redundancy.
 
I've had raid 0 on a couple of hard drives for about 2 years now. If a hard drive crashes, usually you recover 0 anyway xD ... granted, with 2 the chance is double, but whatever - the chance is low enough and the data is useless enough (re-downloadable games) that I don't care.

Of course, if you're storing anything that you actually care about, raid 0 is probably a risky option.
 
I don't keep anything important on a raid 0 setup. Everything is on the NAS and on the cloud. Of course,not everyone can afford to do this so in that case raid0 would be a bad choice.
 
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