Moving programs (SSD/HDD - two-drive setup)

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gheedorah

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Nov 9, 2011
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I'm on a new machine and have 250GB SSD as the primary, and a 1TB HDD as the secondary.

I know of pagefile and virtual memory, but don't entirely understand them. I also know that I should strive for as little writing as possible on the SSD.

I have configured the virtual memory to exclusively use the HDD. Can the same be done with the pagefile?

If so, would using the HDD for the pagefile negate the speed gains from having an SSD as the primary/OS drive?

I've read posts where people mentioning "moving" programs onto the SSD when they use them.

Would moving programs (e.g. Steam games) onto the SSD speed up the performance any (enough to make it worthwhile)?

If so, is that as simple as dragging a program's entire folder (I have a directory set up on the secondary drive- E:\Programs) to the programs (or programs x86) folder in the Windows directory on the SSD?


Thanks for any help.

 
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chugot9218

chugot9218

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It depends on the amount of RAM you have/use. The page file is used when you run out of RAM and it has to put data somewhere, so it writes it to the physical disk (HDD or now-a-days an SSD). I have 16gb of RAM and will never hit my limit, so I simply disabled my page file, or shrunk it quite small and moved it to my HDD. Games and such will benefit from faster load times on the SSD, but no graphical or processing increases. And, generally it is not enough to simple move a folder from one drive to the other, there are entries in the registry that correspond to the original install locations so those would be broken. You can use a program like Steam Mover to create virtual links from one drive to another without losing too much performance. There are also DOS commands to do this (what steam mover uses) if you prefer to learn to do it yourself.
 
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gheedorah

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Build =
i7 3770k (not OC'd) with Corsair H60 cooling
Asrock z77 Extreme4
16 GB RAM (Crucial Ballistic Sport 1600 [8GB x 2])
250GB SSD (primary [Samsung 840])
1 TB HDD (secondary [7200 RPM 32MB cache])
750 Watt PSU (Corsair modular- I forget specific model name)

Enough RAM to disable pagefile? Worth disabling pagefile?

I keep seeing things about moving user profiles to the secondary, changing the default installation path for programs to the secondary, etc., and I really have no idea what I should do- I just want to make the computer move as quickly and efficiently as possible without wearing out the SSD too quickly. I can't find any good guides, and the ones I come across frequently begin with "don't bother customizing anything" (I've already installed Steam, UPlay, and Origin, and downloaded a few games through them, though I haven't put on Adobe Creative Suite yet).

Would it be too late for me to do this?:

1/ Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start > Run > Regedit.
2/ Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion.
3/ In the right pane, double-click ProgramFilesDir and change the path in the String Editor to the drive and folder you want (i.e. H:\Program Files). You must also modify the entry for ProgramFilesPath. If your path is H:\ like mine is, the path would be H:\Program Files
4/ Exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.

 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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That still won't work. Applications and games make many, many registry entries. Not just a simple PATH variable. MS Office, for instance, probably makes several thousand.

On the Steam site, they have a detailed description of how to move your whole Steam install to a different drive.
Everything else, just reinstall where you want. Some on the SDD, some on the HDD.
 
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gheedorah

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I'll take a look, and check out Steam Mover as well.

Thanks!
 
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