SSDs and Partitions - Speed/Etc.

[Coldkilla]

If I had a fairly large (100-250gb) SSD, is it better to keep it all in one partition with the OS? Or is it perfectly okay to split say 35gb off for the OS and a few extras?

 

[Dark Shroud]

Just keep it one partition for simplicity.

 

[mv2devnull]

Split for the other kind of simplicity.

 

[Charlie98]

Just keep it one partition for simplicity.

That's my plan... as soon as I upgrade to a SSD big enough for everything, it's all going on one drive, one partition (minus my media files.)

 

[nk215]

I vote for split. I keep the OS separate from the majority of my programs/games/data. The reason is simple. I create an image of my OS drive very often. Sometime before I tryout some major software update. With a smaller OS partition, I can create the image quicker and it takes less space to store (I store up to 4 copies of the partition images).

I use junction/symbolic links to move programs in and out of the main OS drive when I need certain programs in the image.

 

[john3850]

I have my os and ms office plus a few other things on a 64GB ssds.
My games are on a seperate 128GB ssd.
My media is on spinde drives.
I do realize that I loose some speed by using a smaller ssd for the os but I keep 50% of the os drive free space.
I always had the os on a seperate partition so why change now.

 

[remyat]

Are SSD partitions the same as HDD partitions? I mean, HDD partitions seem "physical" as they "divide" the drive in sections.

Are SSD partitions "logical" so the controller will still use all the channels/nand available for maximum performance or are they "physical", dividing nand and channels and limiting the performance because some channels/nand will be in another partition?

I explain myself like crap, I hope you can get the mental image.

 

[Eug]

35 GB is not very much for the OS, esp. if you ever want to use the hibernate function.

I think the Windows 7 OS install alone, not counting any applications like Office or whatever, will be over 20 GB (64-bit version). And who knows how much Windows 8 will require, real-world, after a few service packs.

 

[Dark Shroud]

I vote for split. I keep the OS separate from the majority of my programs/games/data. The reason is simple. I create an image of my OS drive very often. Sometime before I tryout some major software update. With a smaller OS partition, I can create the image quicker and it takes less space to store (I store up to 4 copies of the partition images).

I use junction/symbolic links to move programs in and out of the main OS drive when I need certain programs in the image.

We're talking an SSDs here, most people are running 128GB at best. At that point you might as well just get a very good quality 64GB SSD for the OS and split everything else off onto another SSD/Spindle drive.

I personally am running my OS & Software on my 128GB Samsung 830. All my data/media & games are going onto my spindle drives. Eventually I'll be buying another SSD for my games.

 

[mv2devnull]

Are SSD partitions the same as HDD partitions? I mean, HDD partitions seem "physical" as they "divide" the drive in sections.

Are SSD partitions "logical" so the controller will still use all the channels/nand available for maximum performance or are they "physical", dividing nand and channels and limiting the performance because some channels/nand will be in another partition?

Both disk types present LBA's (logical block addresses) to the OS. Consecutive LBA's might correspond to physically consecutive sectors on HDD, but should the disk fail to write to a sector, it would remap the LBA to a different physical sector. So much for being "close".

HDD has head(s) to read/write, just like CRT monitors had single ray from electron gun; it can point to only one spot at a time and it has to move physically. SSD (and LCD) access the spots in different manner. SSD still shows LBA's to the OS.

A "partition" is a set of consecutive LBA's. I would guess that SSD maps LBA's initially quite "physically", but SSD do remap -- not only on failure but for wear leveling too. I presume.

I see no real difference.

35 GB is not very much for the OS, esp. if you ever want to use the hibernate function.

"OS". 10 GB is more than plenty for OS and applications (sans games) if the OS is Linux. Hibernation ... goes to swap partition, doesn't it?

Junctions/symlinks/mount points are lovely tools for decoupling physical and logical volumes.

 

[rumpleforeskin]

Incorrect partition alignment can cause very large performance degredation especially during random 4k writes and at large queue depths.

windows vista and 7 should both correctly align the during instal, but this can be undone if you clone your old system HDD to your new SSD.

software like "AS SSD Benchmark" or "ssdtool" will show if your alignment is out