What should one put on an SSD? An investigation into the balance of performance and lifespan - Hardware & Software

I am getting a 128 GB SSD (Crucial m4) soon and I want to know what kind of files I should put on it. I currently have three HDDs in my system: 2x 250GB (They aren't in RAID of any sort. I just have two) @ 7200 RPM, and one 800GB (I think it's 800GB. Maybe 1TB) @ 7200 RPM. Windows Experience Index of 5.9 in storage (7.x across the rest of the board). I use this (the one I am talking about. Not the one I am writing from) computer for gaming almost exclusively. Anyway, I was wondering what files to put on my new SSD. Here's what I have decided so far: - Windows and OS files of course - Frequently used small applications - (Some) Games Here's what I will not be loading onto the SSD: - Content (Images/videos/music) - Less-often used programs - Large/heavily modded games - Games that run fine already/are not storage bottlenecked Here is what I am unsure about: - Save files Basically, since save files are so often written, overwritten and erased, I am worried that their presence will vastly shorten the life of the drive. If [URL="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/5"]this description of how SSDs work[/URL] is still true (take note that the article mentions 10k p/e cycles per block. [This is a property of NAND flash. That I have ordered one of the drives known for reliability won't change this. Crucial/Intel/Samsung's reputations for stability come from their controllers and firmware, as those are more commonly the source of sudden death, not the gradual durability of the flash itself] I don't know if the technology has advanced in the two years since the time of writing), then it sounds like a save-file directory could burn a drive out pretty quickly, especially for me, as I am somewhat of an obsessive-compulsive saver. On the other hand, saving is one of those things that creates an annoying little hang in games if data is written to a spinning disk. Also, I am not quite sure what I should do about which games I put on the drive. The whole point of the drive is to improve performance of my games, but I struggle with the conflicting desire to prolong the life of the drive. For example, I still play Oblivion. Only I have about 25GB of mods, which I am constantly changing and reconfiguring to make the game run for more than minutes at a time. I would not put that onto the SSD, at least not until I have a game that is stable and that I will not change, as stability is more of an issue than performance at this point (though performance is definitely storage bottlenecked). It would take up a lot of space and the reconfiguration would burn a lot of p/e cycles. Anyway, thank you for bearing with me through this long OP. I appreciate your guys' advice. [B]tl;dr: [/B]Have fast drive. Want it last long. Want enjoy it. Wat do?

I wouldn't mix SSD and HDD together, you will get a bottleneck of speed caused by the HDDs. At least that what my experience was when I used to have a 256Gb SSD, I had it for a week and saw pretty much no increase in speed. So I returned it, seen as I spent so much I saw it as a waste of money. I was advised by the shop that, that was the problem.

wat. Installing OS and some games you mainly use on the SSD, other shit on HDD.

I store my VMDK's on an SSD

What I put on my SSD: Windows apart from the 'Installer' folder Users apart from search indexes, temp and documents/media/desktop folders (also browser disk cache disabled or on HDD) Programdata Program Files apart from games And all the obvious stuff like no pagefile, no hibernation, etc. [url]http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html[/url] is very useful

make 2 partitions one is dedicated for the OS and the other part is for that intel smart response stuff

[QUOTE=Meekal;34372338]I wouldn't mix SSD and HDD together, you will get a bottleneck of speed caused by the HDDs. At least that what my experience was when I used to have a 256Gb SSD, I had it for a week and saw pretty much no increase in speed. So I returned it, seen as I spent so much I saw it as a waste of money. I was advised by the shop that, that was the problem.[/QUOTE] somehow everything you just said managed to be wrong

[QUOTE=Ducky NW;34370890] [B]tl;dr: [/B]Have fast drive. Want it last long. Want enjoy it. Wat do?[/QUOTE] SSDs last much longer than they used to. I wouldn't worry too much about saved games affecting their lifespan.

I think people worry too much about how long they last. From what I saw, it a SSD would last an avarage of 30 years with decent usage. I say, use it all you want, you'll buy a new one within 5 years anyway. Who keeps a hard drive longer than 5-10 years?

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;34379125]somehow everything you just said managed to be wrong[/QUOTE] I was just advising from my personal experience, which is true. I may be wrong about mixing HDDs and SSDs.

[QUOTE=Meekal;34420142]I was just advising from my personal experience, which is true. I may be wrong about mixing HDDs and SSDs.[/QUOTE] No. Please. No. Stop. If the shop told you this then they are wrong and have no idea on what they are talking about. You should really read up more on SSD's before commenting.

[QUOTE=Meekal;34420142]I was just advising from my personal experience, which is true. I may be wrong about mixing HDDs and SSDs.[/QUOTE] I assume you just stuck the SSD in the computer and expected it to shit rainbows and cure cancer?

[QUOTE=Meekal;34420142]I was just advising from my personal experience, which is true. I may be wrong about mixing HDDs and SSDs.[/QUOTE] You were clearly doing it wrong then.

[QUOTE=Meekal;34372338]I wouldn't mix SSD and HDD together, you will get a bottleneck of speed caused by the HDDs. At least that what my experience was when I used to have a 256Gb SSD, I had it for a week and saw pretty much no increase in speed. So I returned it, seen as I spent so much I saw it as a waste of money. I was advised by the shop that, that was the problem.[/QUOTE] What, did you like just drop the SSD into the computer and think it would make it faster automatically?

Op, if you want your SSD to last long, Intel SSDs last much longer than other brands. They are much more costly however. [editline]28th January 2012[/editline] But for the love of god never put a page file on one. [editline]28th January 2012[/editline] Failure rates: Intel 0,59% Corsair 2,17% Crucial 2,25% Kingston 2,39% OCZ 2,93% (according to one french retailer)

I would either go for intel or OCZ, but SSD are mainly used for faster loading times on games and for windows, AFAIK.