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Uggh, I Wish I Never Got an SSD

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noname2020x

Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
So here is the deal. My C: drive is an SSD (OCZ Agility 3) and it holds my OS and some of the programs I'd like to start a little faster. Then my D: drive is my DVD RW, my E: drive is my virtual drive, and then I have my F: drive (1TB Seagate Barricuda) which I'd like to be my main drive (music, videos, bigger programs etc.)

The problem is, certain games/programs download automatically to the C: drive which I have no space on. So how the heck do I change the automatic install? So I was thinking maybe I could just wipe my SSD with a linux boot cd and reinstall the os, then change the regedit and then specify certain programs to install on the C: drive right? Wrong (it seems). In a ditch effort I made a programs (x86) folder and a (programs) folder on my F: drive, cut all of the programs from C: and pasted to F:, and went into windows regedit and changed the Directories. Not only did half of the files not want to transfer, but the default installation is still the C: drive and some programs want me to install them again. So if changing the default install directory to F: doesn't work then what would be the point of wiping my SSD and starting over. I feel like I am missing something because there are so many people with SSD boot drives and HDD main drives that have no problems. WTF?!

I'm legitimately half tempted to ditch my SSD and just put my OS and all on my HDD.

P.S. Member "RGone" has been a huge help to me so far, but my last thread is jumbled and very confusing so I thought I'd put everything in one place to make things a little clearer.
 
I know of very few applications that do not allow you to customize the install path, which ones are you having trouble with that are forcing you to use C:\ without prompting at any point during the install to choose advanced/custom in order to change the installation directory? When you have an SSD you can't just click Next->Next->Next->Finish when installing applications and expect to still have space.

I know it is possible to re-direct the different folders onto other drives, although I've never needed to do it. I don't think you will have much luck doing it with an OS that is already having issues, you would likely need to format and start from scratch (at least that is what I would do, but maybe someone here knows a way around it).
 
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Are you talking about steam games? Steam games automatically go to whereever steam itself is installed. If you're talking about steam you need to install steam on the HDD as well. There is a steam tool that allows you to move all steam files to a HDD.

If you're not talking about steam... I have no idea. I've yet to come across a game that installed automatically to my c drive..
 
It was Steam and Tom Clancy's Hawx, and I think one other game. Perhaps I over reacted, but now I still have to reinstall windows on my ssd considering I screwed everything up lol (or would a system recovery work?)

Is this a good guide: http://www.ocztechnology.com/blog/?p=367?

Also what does it mean when it says "slight drop in performance may be noticed temporarily"? Do I have to do something to make it perform at normal levels again?

Also thinking I might as well wipe my HDD too =p. Can someone help me with wiping that (as in what is the best way to do it)

Or I could just use my motherboard's Intel Smart Response Technology and use my ssd as a cache. But my hdd is sata 1 and my ssd is sata 3. would that matter?
 
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A fresh install is sometimes the best. Remember to install steam itself to the hdd this time :p.

I love my ssd. Couldn't live without it tbh lol.
 
It sounds like you hacked your Windows install to pieces and are frustrated that it's hacked to pieces. Hmm. I'd recommend a fresh install at this point as well.

Using the SSD cache would be a very simple way to go and you'd get a lot of the benefits of using an SSD. Doesn't matter if one is SATA 3 and one is regular SATA.

I have a setup like you described, where all of my storage is on other drives, and it works fine. You just have to be careful to change the install path during the install process if you don't want to put something on the SSD.

The other thing you can do is make symlinks to folders. Instead of cutting/pasting to move applications to a different drive, you should move the data and then leave create a link from the old location to the new location. Doing this is a little more advanced and you need to use the command line, but I've used it for games that I wanted to move after the fact. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/
 
You can also pretty much just copy(cut)/paste the entire steam folder onto another drive and it works for the majority of the games that I have tested.


But yeah, if you've already gone through and tried reg-hacking a bunch of stuff I would vote to start over and make sure everything gets installed properly the first time (making sure to specify install directories instead of accepting defaults - I've been using multiple partitions for things for years so it is second nature to me for it, but I can't assume others have done the same :))
 
Also you can redirect documents, music, pictures, video, pretty much any folders that arent system related to hdd to save ssd space, a very good example of how useful this is would be dragon age its save/dlc/mods folder is located in documents and mine is about 6GB so i rederected my documents folder to my raid 0 hdd's, also check out part 1 and part 2 of this youtube video on how to optimize your ssd speed and space
 
Awesome, so what about wiping my HDD? Whats the cleanest way to do that? And I feel compelled to use Intel's Smart Response Technology because it would make everything so much easier. =p Thoughts?
 
I always just format with the Windows utility. If you want to do the SSD caching thing it would make things easier but you wouldn't get the same gains that you do out of an SSD, but ultimately it is up to you.
 
Sounds like you need: http://windirstat.info/

I use this because programs like to throw their save directories and such on the C drive (my SSD) and I don't like that. Every month or so, I go through and check there are no large files that aren't system files. It also lets you delete any file you would like (hidden and all) so go nuts. :thup:
 
Those were good tips on the "steam'' games. Like I said I do not game. I have looked at 100's of posts in many threads since we first started in your other thread and had become just about fully convinced that getting programs to install to one or the other location would be a tremendous job unless the swapping was done AT each program install. Now knowing what to do about "steam" well it is now more clear for you.

ISRT is an awesome idea until they bring up using part of the SSD for the caching and load Win 7 on the rest of the SSD. Then you are back to having to make sure the program install is designated for the location you want it to go.

If you use that whole 60gig SSD for caching and install Win 7 to the HDD, well then the program installs are all going to one place without worry to make sure where the program installs. In those 100s of 'reads' I have done, the whole SSD caching and the HDD having everything installed on it is about 80% as fast as having the operating system on the SSD. Don't know if giving away that other 20% in speed for the ease of just installing to the cached plattered drive is worth it or not. One thing for sure. Using the whole SSD for caching your plattered installed operating system would remove the problem of designating 'where' to install an application for sure.
 
80%! Holy cow, thats way better than I though it was going to be. I'm pretty sure I will be going for ISRT! As for loading w7 and caching, I didn't know you could even do that with one ssd. Yikes, that makes this decision harder I guess, but I really don't want to deal with this program installation nonsense.

@Janus, do you have a guide on how to install and partition everything so that my auto install is my hdd?
 
If you don't want to hassle with manually setting where you are installing your applications (not a huge deal to me, but to each their own) then I'd go ahead and just do the IRST caching thing and call it a day
 
Yeah, I'm about 95% sure I'm going to go the ISRT route. However, I know you can allocate some of your ssd to be a normal drive and some of it to be cache. If I do that, will the normal drive part turn into my default installation (I'm assuming not)? If it will, I'm definately not doing that. If it won't, then 30gb is going to cache and 30gb is going to ssd..or maybe 40-20=p

Also, on maximum performance mode if I suddenly lose power, I lose all my cached data, so my question is, do I need a 750w ups for my 750w pc, or can I get a cheap 200w ups and just have my system be on long enough for me to shut it down so i dont lose any data? And will losing cached data just make me lose speed until it rebuilds the cache or make me lose my actual data?
 
To me it sounds like the best way for you to go is just using the full 60 to cache the SSD, as you don't want to be installing things specifically to the SSD if you are going to make it even smaller (besides the point that you don't want to spend the time manually setting install directories as well from what I gather).

I'm not aware of actual loss of data, but I haven't used IRST personally, maybe someone here can confirm/deny how that would work.
 
Also, on maximum performance mode if I suddenly lose power, I lose all my cached data, so my question is, do I need a 750w ups for my 750w pc, or can I get a cheap 200w ups and just have my system be on long enough for me to shut it down so i dont lose any data? And will losing cached data just make me lose speed until it rebuilds the cache or make me lose my actual data?
Watts is a continuous measure of power relative to time (it's actually joules/second), like a measure of flow. That means that if you do get a UPS, it needs to be able to supply the flow demanded by the components you have plugged into it. If your PSU peaks at 750w, your UPS should also be able to supply 750w. How long the battery lasts is different. Just saying. :)
 
Before I get going on this I want to make sure I have everything figured out here. I will used windows reinstall method to clear my hdd and the link i put up above to clear my ssd, then once windows is installed, change my bios to accomidate for ISRT, then open a program and tweak it and then I'm good?
 
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