Windows 7 on 60GB SSD?

[armedcanadian]

I plan on getting a 60GB SSD -- OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SATA II MLC SSD. I designed my computer for gaming. I have this as my other harddrive ---Samsung Spinpoint 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB. Should I install Windows 7 64 Bit on my SSD and take up 20GB of space? I plan on getting Shogun 2 as well and putting that on my SSD, but thats nother 20GB. I will be lucky to fit another game on my SSD with those 2 installations alone. Hence, should I take up precious game space with Windows 7?

 

[boiler1990]

You should ABSOLUTELY install W7 on your SSD. Forget putting games on it; you'll get a much better experience with the OS on your SSD.

 

[WR2]

Hello armedcanadian;
You need 20GB on the SSD to unpack and install Win7.
But after installation you can clean things up so it only takes up about 10GB~12GB depending on the features you need. If you have 8GB of RAM you'll have a 8GB SSD requirement for Hiberfil.sys - the hibernation option. Limit your restore points. With 8GB of RAM you can get by with a 1GB page file. Keep your temp folders on the HDD.

 

[WR2]

As far as I can tell there isn't any way to tell Shogun 2 to install only the executable files on SSD and the rest on HDD. I'd say @ 20GB Shogun 2 is bound for the HDD.

The recommended system requirements for that game are mental too... Sandy Bridge i5 or better.

 

[armedcanadian]

Yes I know the requirements are ridiculous. However, it becomes apparent how many forums you answer WR2 because you just recently help me put together my i5 2500k home build. (thank you btw)

Could you please explain the Hiberfil.sys. What does this do because I do plan on having 8 GB of RAM. What would be a 1GB page file? I am assuming you mean I can reduce the amount of space the OS will take up because I will have 8 GB of RAM, or have I missed the target completely?

 

[WR2]

Sure I remember that thread. You had a lot of questions. Hope you got good answers to most of them.

Because you do have 8GB of RAM your system will have very little use for the pagefile which is why setting to 1GB on a SSD isn't a bad idea. If you'd like it larger you can put the page file on the HDD.

from the guys @ MSDN
(added by me)

Sleep (RAM On) : All of the open programs, documents and files are preserved in system RAM and the rest of the system is powered off. Because only memory is powered, Sleep consumes a very small amount of power—typically less than 1W on a mobile PC and typically less than 3W on a desktop PC. The primary benefit of Sleep is that resume is very fast—most systems resume from sleep in less than 2 seconds.

Hibernate (RAM Off): All of the open programs, documents and files are copied from system RAM to the hard drive. The resulting file is called the Hiberfile. After RAM is copied into the Hiberfile, all of the PC is powered off. Hibernate is most often used on mobile PCs because it consumes nearly 0W on most laptops, and even if the battery does eventually drain, all of the open programs and documents are saved in the Hiberfile. As RAM continues to grow, and as some PCs have limited storage, Hibernate might not be the best option for folks. (As a quick tip, the disk cleanup wizard, or powercfg –hibernate off, can remove the disk space pre-allocated to hibernate).

 

[WR2]

There is no problem testing Shogun 2 on the SSD. Just test in on the HDD too.
Run it for a week or two on each and see how much difference it is.

Most of the time Win7 will grab data and upload it to RAM in time to have it available when it's needed by the CPU. RAM is just faster storage than the HDD or SSD. And the HDD/SSD just needs to be fast enough to get it into RAM before it's needed. The more often you run a program the better Win7 learns when to move stuff into RAM (SuperFetch).