CliveG Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 This may be a bit of a subjective question but I'm purchasing my new machine and have included a single 128G SSD to go with two 1Tb spinning media in a mirrored Raid1 array. How is it best to utilise this SSD disk, I'm guessing it would be as a sort of cache for regularly accessed info or the scratch disk for paging, but how do I configure this and still keep my actual data safe on the mirrored disks. Is it an operating system level configuration or is it in each individual software package. Oh and is 128G enough or should I try to afford 256G? Again if someone could explain for the technically challenged, I'd really appreciate it. Win 7 - Max / Vray / P-shop / AutoCAD are the main tools in the toolbox. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 Auxiliary? The SSD will be your "main" drive, with OS and main programs in it. The HDD array will be used as "storage". Yes, 128GB should be enough for a basic Max/ACAD/Adobe Suite installation over Windows 7 64. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveG Posted September 12, 2013 Author Share Posted September 12, 2013 Thanks Dimitris, So it'll basically be my C: drive and I should set up partitions on the others for d: e: etc. It's incredible considering I started in the 80's on an IBM XT that I'm worried that 128GB isn't enough room! Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 If you are a bit careful it's enough room. Install Windows and commonly used programs on the SSD (which becomes the C drive) and make a folder on it for your current active projects. If you have other software you don't use often, install it to the larger disk, and make a folder on the larger disk that you move projects to when you finish them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveG Posted September 12, 2013 Author Share Posted September 12, 2013 Thanks to all, Your patience in probably repeating the same things to the (sometimes) hard of thinking is really appreciated. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyderSK Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 I would advise against the 128GB only, yes, it's manageable, but just so-so :- ). I've adopted SSD's very early, starting with barely affordable 64, managed to get by, then 128,managed to get by, but eventually found sweet-spot between 180-256GB. All this time using classic HDDs in Synology NAS. Windows8/3dsMax/few adobe apps, PS/LR/AE, AutoCAD,etc.. will fit to 128 but you will have to keep very low amount of disk for recovery and paging (or disable that at all and just use high amount of ram anyway). It will eventually clutter up, and SSDs perform best with some free space left. Then you will want 3dsMax to autosave to SSD too (because damn speed) and that's quite a lot of space... Imho, they got as cheap as they'll get right now. You can get really fast latest generation 240GB for around 200 euros, and that's really great deal for what you get. Even 1TB SSDs (like Crucial M5) are nicely affordable even for single freelancers. Never save on HW, in long run it's such low investment compared to price of work and the productivity it will help with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notamondayfan Posted September 13, 2013 Share Posted September 13, 2013 Although not speaking about SSD's, I would say keep your C drive for software, and another drive for storage. The main reason I say this is if you have a drive purely for storage, then in the future swapping drives, upgrading, etc is really easy. However if you have software also installed on the 2nd drive, you've got to uninstall and reinstall, which might cause problems. As mentioned, the price increase for a large SSD is really money well spent. Dean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveG Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 I'm going to try and give this post a bump.... because I'm now seeing what Juraj means -It was too late to change my order by time of that post So I have my new machine now and am trying to set it up..... trying, but 128 isn't enough to take OS / MAX / working files etc! Every piece of software that I'm installing wants to install itself with the OS and some simply won't / can't be installed on d: (anti-virus etc.) As well as all of the dumb things like Recycle and temp files etc. that will need constant attention or they'll balloon. I'm thinking that having the OS on the SSD is actually not a good idea in this circumstance. I am now considering whether I should put all of my OS on spinning media Drive D: and boot from there (Raid1 mirror) and install MAX and project files on the SSD as well as set up all my page files on the SSD. Do you think that this is a viable alternative approach to setting up an SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 no keep your ssd for system only.....only software you really need then put in 2 x 7200 rpm one for assets, one for backup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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