Question Regarding Programs Installed on a Dual SSD/HDD

[dklittle]

Hello,

So I have dual hard drives, a 128 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD, and I was wondering, other than the operating system is it suggested to install ALL applications on the SSD and all documents on the HDD? Is that how the SSD increases speed?

...I'm not even sure if my question is worded correctly, I'm new to SSDs.

Thanks

 

[WyomingKnott]

That is, indeed, the usual setup.

The SSD will increase the speed of access to anything on it. In almost all cases, this is much more important for OS files, programs, and even game levels than it is for Emails, documents, or music files, which don't need to run fast. The idea is to put whatever you spend the most time waiting for on the fastest storage.

 

[eXistenZ]

I noticed that when I burn a data DVD, the facility in Win7 seems to copy the entire DVD's worth of information to my SSD, and then burn it to the DVD.

I put third-party DVD burning software on D:\program files (x86) in order to avoid filling up the SSD with something that is going to take 7 minutes to complete anyway.

Thoughts?

 

[WyomingKnott]

eXistenZ

It's probably making a copy of the data in a scratch directory.

Simplest thing to try: Change the environment variables TEMP and TMP to point to a directory on the HDD, then see if it's the HDD that gets more space used during the burn.

Or the directory might be configurable in the software itself.

Next time, please start a different thread rather than adding a question to an existing one. Thanks.

 

[raytseng]

still depends on the configuration of the burning software and how it is setup whether it does an full image to prepare before burning, or if it just burns the files directly (stream) with a smaller memory or file cache or whatever.
That being said, it's not going to make much of a difference, since your 4.7gb dvd image burned over 7minutes is a pretty low data rate, so either drive will keep up with that rate; no matter if your source files were on SSD or HDD.

But, if you made your SSD purchase wisely and got like 128gb and have a good chunk free. then you shouldn't need to worry about micromanaging every last gigabyte.

USE your SSD- don't just leave it on a shelf.


There are also other reason people separate C and D drives for administrative reasons. This goes back even before you had the huge differences in speed.
When you separate out Apps and Data, yes there are performance benefits. But also, should there be a failure on C drive, you can rebuild the Apps drive pretty easily and not worry about it.
Datadrive, you should backup if it is important, but the separation there is you can then take your Data with you to new computers or redo a new operating system or upgrade without having to sift out the Data.

 

[eXistenZ]

eXistenZ

It's probably making a copy of the data in a scratch directory.

Simplest thing to try: Change the environment variables TEMP and TMP to point to a directory on the HDD, then see if it's the HDD that gets more space used during the burn.

Or the directory might be configurable in the software itself.

Next time, please start a different thread rather than adding a question to an existing one. Thanks.

Environment variables go to RamDisk.

I don't really think my comment required a new thread.

 

[mad-max79]

Your setup is right, but for my case I left the Outlook .pst file on the SSD, because of its huge file size, I would lose performance on the HDD. Documents are stored on the ssd.
Your worries regarding burning a disk are unfounded. SSDs are built to be able to write 30-40 GB/s a day for many years. If you write really many DVDs try this:
1. Open Computer by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Computer.
2. Right-click the drive that is your disc burner, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Recording tab, and then click your desired drive from the drive menu. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

 

[dklittle]

Best answer selected by dklittle.