Purchased Revodrive-Replace SSD for Windows, or use for installed games?

[Majicplicity]

I just purchased a 50gb Revodrive (revision 1, but too good of a deal to pass up imo), and am deciding whether to use it as my boot drive, or use it as the drive to install my primary games. Just looking for some feedback and opinions as to where I am going to get the most benefit from the drive. The current SSD will stay in the configuration, just a matter of whether it will be a boot drive, or game drive.

Current SSD:
OCZ Vertex 2 50 GB*
Max Read: up to 285MB/s
Max Write: up to 275MB/s
Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 50,000 IOPS
Native TRIM support
Seek Time: .1ms

Ordered Revodrive:
OCZ Revodrive PCI-Express x4 50GB*
Sustained Sequential Read up to 540MB/s
Sustained Sequential Write up to 450MB/s
ECC: 27 bytes of redundancy per 512 bytes data. Up to twelve 9-bit symbols correctable
Sustained Write: up to 350 MB/s
4KB Random Write (Aligned): 70,000 IOPS
Seek Time: 0.1 ms

*Newegg used just for reference, not where either drive was actually purchased

I am leaning towards using the Revodrive as the boot drive, however am open to ideas. If I do use it as a boot drive, I would prefer to use some type of disk imaging software to copy from the current, as opposed to doing a fresh install. I see a lot of people recommend Norton Ghost, but have also read about some free software out there. Any recommendations?

 

[Theocnoob]

Logic dictates that the faster drive is your boot drive and your page file and that the slower vertex is for game installs. Then your 1 and 2TB drives for less 'important' game installs as you'll only get 4 or 5 on 50GB.

 

[Majicplicity]

Logic dictates that the faster drive is your boot drive and your page file and that the slower vertex is for game installs. Then your 1 and 2TB drives for less 'important' game installs as you'll only get 4 or 5 on 50GB.

That is pretty much my thought as well. The 2tb drive is strictly just storage, and the 1gb currently all installed software other than windows and core drivers. I really only would want a few games installed to the SSD, and when BF3 releases, only one haha.

 

[Idbjorg]

I'd only keep 1 game on that drive, BF3 is a good choice.

 

[Majicplicity]

I have looked quite a bit to find a clear answer, but am yet to find any type of "official" correct answer as to how much space should be left open on a SSD. Some people say 5-10%, some people say more, and some people say it doesn't matter, you can fill it to 99% without affecting performance.

 

[grumperfish]

It depends on the SSD. From what I understand, certain Kingston models need 15-20% of the drive left unfilled for proper garbage collection.

I don't think it really matters for OCZ or other Sandforce SSD's though, so you should be able to fill them up for the most part without issues.

 

[Majicplicity]

Also as a follow up question regarding cloning the OS drive, from reading a fair amount of articles and forums, the built in backup imaging within Windows 7 seems to be a decent no cost option. Has anyone had any issues doing so, or know of anything I would need to watch out for going that avenue?

 

[Cisco Kid]

Also as a follow up question regarding cloning the OS drive, from reading a fair amount of articles and forums, the built in backup imaging within Windows 7 seems to be a decent no cost option. Has anyone had any issues doing so, or know of anything I would need to watch out for going that avenue?

I am looking for some feedback on this drive as well. I have just purchased a OCZ RevoDrive 180GB , version 1 based as well. I am using an Asus 890FX Crosshair IV

I see that OCZ updated their compatibility list for their new Revo 3 drives and the CHIV is on their as long as one has the latest 1902 bios installed. On the RevoDrive compatibility list the CHIV is not supported but they only show bios 1304 which is older, since the key factor is ability to boot over pcie I would assume the RevoDrive wil work on my CHIV w bios 1902.

How did you find the process of installing your OS if you opted to use the Revo as your boot drive?

Currently I have a Vertex 2 as my boot SSD w 2x WD 640's in raid 0 and a WD 1.5 TB for critical data backup. I run a couple games on the Vertex 2 and others on the WD 640 raid array.

I would like to make the new Revo 180GB drive the boot drive and still use the WD 640's in raid 0. I would like to Acronis image whats onthe Vertex 2 and use this onto the Revo Drive or will I be forced to start from scratch> I would like to do this because I do not want to lose game progress in a couple of games otherwise I wil just stay with the Vertex 2 but I really would like to go to the Revo as boot drive.

thought feedback is greatly welcomed