How much space to leave on ssd?

[npowers86]

i have a new ssd, a 60gb ocz agility 3, and was wondering how much free space to leave so it doesnt slow down.
right now i have windows 7 ultimate, photoshop cs5, microsoft office, and some other software. i currently have 24gb free but wanted to install a game or two. all my music and movies are on a secondary 2tb drive. if i fill up the drive will it slow it down? thanks!

 

[idjlee96]

From what I have learned, it is best to keep about 20% of an SSD free. In your case that would be about 12GB of space.
With 24, I'm pretty sure you will be okay.
You could also look into clearing space with some SSD Tweaks.

 

[groberts101]

From what I have learned, it is best to keep about 20% of an SSD free. In your case that would be about 12GB of space.
With 24, I'm pretty sure you will be okay.
You could also look into clearing space with some SSD Tweaks.

^+1

can also kill the hiberfile of you don't hibernate. Run CMD as administrator and type <powercfg -h off> to gain some gigs back.

set swap file to 1024/1024 if you have more than 4 gigs of ram(or even set to 0 if you have 8 gigs or more) and get some more gigs back.

turn off system restore and use a third party app. Can also set the amount of space to a little less if you prefer to keep W7's built in backup/recovery utility.

If you have 6-8 gigs of ram installed on that system(the more ram you have at install?.. the more space you get back).
?.. you can get back upwards of 6-10 gigs of space with all of the above.

 

[LordConrad]

Better yet, disable the swap file on the SSD and put in on your Hard Drive. It'll be there if you need it, but not using up your SSD.

 

[buzznut]

Better yet, disable the swap file on the SSD and put in on your Hard Drive. It'll be there if you need it, but not using up your SSD.

+1
You can slipstream some of these things by doing a WIN7 lite install.
Win7 lite:
http://www.dl4all.com/6tz/tag/win7+lite.html

I move my system cache to another drive anyway. Wouldn't matter with an SSD, but with a mechanical drive it could ping your boot drive with stuff while you're trying to work. Also, disabling UAC will reduce hard drive space. Its not wise for everyone, but if you have a good handle on what is safe to install and what isn't and have a good firewall/antivirus you can live without UAC.

I also agree with the 20% free. With a smaller drive like my 40GB, a little more might be prudent. Mine's sitting at 18% free right now and I haven't noticed any detrimental effects, but since I've just checked its time to do some disc cleanup!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

You bought an SSD for speed. While there are many reasons to move the swap files to a HD (wear and tear, room., etc.) just remember that the page file is the most frequently accessed file on the computer.....assuming you are doing something whereby it is needed. If ya have 8 GB of RAM, ya might **consider** turning it off. At 12 GB it's less of a question. Read this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-7.html

Or consider a RAM Disk as described here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-9.html

The other thing is .... have you moved your user files ? Every time I'm asked to "help" with a full SSD, invariably the biggest % of recoverable space that I find taking up space is in the User file directory, most of it taken up by undeleted e-mails. Move this stuff over to the HD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html

 

[LordConrad]

@JackNaylorPE
I have to disagree about moving the USER folder. It can cause problems, and I remember Microsoft having a couple warnings about this on their support website.

 

[groberts101]

LOL.. I disagree about moving just about anything off the SSD. Too much emphasis on lifespan and we are slowly learning just how rediculous it is to even take the time to swap all this stuff around.

Another year or 2 and you will see all these tweaks starting to be old news. Only time it's "necessary"?.. is when the user has skimped on capacity for a given workload or outgrown it.

Buy another larger drive or add another for a fast R0 setup and forget about all this stuff if at all possible. Trimming Windows piggish and resource hogging ways can have greater effect than all this stuff combined in most cases.

 

[LordConrad]

@groberts101
I usually argue against RAID 0 setups. Unless you're using the array for large temporary files, the added speed is not worth the decrease in reliability.

 

[groberts101]

There's another fallacy being perpetuated. I have had NO failures with my current 6 drive array. No failures on my 8 drive Adaptec 5805 array. None with my Gigabyte(JMicron) array. None with my Mavell array. No failures with my previous 6 drive array(different SSD controller). And 0 failures with another that has been running for nearly 7 years now. EVERY one is an R0.

Even if your hardware(or knowledge) is not up to the task for excelelnt reliability?.. a dedicated backup/recovery strategy is very easy to do(I use Acronis True Image). My secure erase/reimage strategy takes less than 10 minutes for all 6 drives in my array. Even folks that don't have 8 drive HDD arrays to recover images from can do it in less than 20 minutes.

Not all is what it seems with R0 and the benefits are there if the usage is heavier(SSD's use channels and the more the better) or speed is needed. Who doesn't like to save time, right?

The main point was the need for capacity.. and raid can do that as that's the very reason it was created in the first place. The speed with R0 is just a bonus.

 

[LordConrad]

@groberts101
Like you, I used to push the envelope to get as much speed as possible. I find that as I get older, I prefer to err on the side of caution. I have a lot less problems now than I used to, technological and otherwise. Patience is not one of my virtues.