Balancing SSD with HDD

[DairyCreamer]

Hi there,

So, in consideration of an eventual upcoming build for my wife and I (gonna make a duplicate build for the most part), I'm now considering storage options.

I'm about 99% sure I want an SSD in there, and we have plenty of existing platter space available to move over to D/E drives as necessary. I don't particularly want to drop on a 160 Gig SSD, and even the 120/128s are a bit on the high side IMO (but can go for it if necessary).

The question is how to balance the thing. We're both occasional gamers with lists like:

Her's:
[list=]
Rift
WoW
Dragon Age I/II
Guild Wars
SWTOR (when it comes out)
Oblivion
[/list]

Mine:
[list=]
Flight Sim X
Starcraft 2
Orange Box
[/list]

FSX is a gigantic HD hog with add-ons and the like. Her games aren't so bad otherwise. Should I just go with a small <=64 GB SSD for the Windows Boot and maybe a "primary" game or two and the rest on normal platters?

I'm just not entirely sure how miraculous an SSD is performance-wise for our kind of gaming.

[adam1378]

I wouldn't put games on the SSD, use a HDD for that. I have a 64gb SSD for Win7, Photoshop and a few other heavily used programs. I still have 20gb of space left and have all my games on a 150gb Raptor and 500gb HDD.

[Synchromesh]

I would go with a 128GB or a 160. Then you can put all your games on it. They will load very quickly and that's definitely worth it.

[BloodSoul]

I am going to have to agree to disagree on that one(first response). He'll notice considerable load time boost from switching to an ssd, and if he is building a system primarily for gaming it would be silly not to take that it consideration.

[Bauxite]

Put MMOs and FPS on SSDs for sure...I love acronym soup don't you? Wow for example might be a dated gfx engine, but it loves to thrash hard drives.

Actually put anything that does map loads/transitions all the time during regular gameplay too, so the dragon ages are good candidates.

Leave room for your daily driver stuff unless its ridiculously large, OS+browser etc are a given.

[DairyCreamer]

In fairness, we're not hardcore gamers quite so much. We do enjoy loading up on occasion and playing of course or I wouldn't be posting.

I like that info there Bauxite... this is the kind of stuff I'm unsure of. I don't know how most games handle info stored on SSD/HDD after the initial level loads. We're planning on an 8 Gigs or RAM system, but I'm sure windows doesn't load the whole damned program in to RAM at once.

So yah... again, just not quite sure what kind of price premium to allow myself for the SSD performance.

[JustAnEngineer]

I recommend a 0.080 to 0.160 TB SSD and a 1.0 to 2.2 TB 7200 rpm hard-drive as a good balance. Put your OS, web browser, office and helper applications like media players, etc. on your SSD and then put your games and other storage hogs on the hard-drive.

[MrJP]

Have a play of your current games and try to take note of any times you're sat waiting with the HDD light flashing. If this is happening with most of the games, it might be worth splurging on the bigger SSD option.

[DF bobo]

I dont like to put multiplayer games on SSDs because (lets say its an FPS like black ops) even if you load the map in 5 seconds, you're still stuck waiting for everybody else to load, and it doesnt end up saving much time in the end. So, I'd leave orange box to the HDD.

with FSX + add ons + OS on a 60gb SSD, there will be very little space for anything else (though FSX should benefit a lot from an SSD). if you want that, I would go for something a bit roomier (80-120 gb).

[Dent]

From the sounds of it, I would suggest you just skip the SSD's. Put the cash into the next system or better video cards. From your descriptions you dont really need one. Just get a decent 7200rpm drive (not greenpower), and make sure you have the right amount of ram - 4GB minimum.

For myself, I would not put the OS on the SSD, I would put the game im playing on it, because I want fast loading and zone transition times etc.
I reboot once a day at most, so waiting a couple of minutes (of making coffee) is fine by me. I dont have a SSD.