[Calibans Dream]

On my next complete reinstall, I'm thinking of trying one of these SSD drives to speed up Windows 7 loading. So what size would I need for the OS and a few main programmes?

Also can other less used programmes be installed to a standard hard drive and accessible in windows as normal?

Windows 7 64bit

EDIT Oh and how much overhead should I leave on the SSD drive for any windows working space to keep it fast?

[whoever,hey]

Any size will fit the OS. You can install all your apps on a normal drive, but obviously they will take longer to load.

[Calibans Dream]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

Any size will fit the OS. You can install all your apps on a normal drive, but obviously they will take longer to load.

So Windows 7 64bit would fit on a 60gb one?

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by Calibans Dream

So Windows 7 64bit would fit on a 60gb one?

Easily

[Calibans Dream]

Great! Thanks!

It's off to ebay I go!

[soulboy77]

I have a 120 GB SSD drive with Windows 7 64-bit O/S and all my apps incl. Office 2010 and other standard stuff comfortably sitting on it with roughly 50 GB to spare. All my documents, photos & music are on a normal 500 GB drive (and backed up via a NAS device).

[Calibans Dream]

Originally Posted by soulboy77

I have a 120 GB SSD drive with Windows 7 64-bit O/S and all my apps incl. Office 2010 and other standard stuff comfortably sitting on it with roughly 50 GB to spare. All my documents, photos & music are on a normal 500 GB drive (and backed up via a NAS device).

Yes that's the kind of setup I'm aiming for. I'll have to look at the piggy bank.

[RobinOfLoxley]

Many who chose 60GB filled up quite quickly I believe, although W7 easily fits in that.

Save up for 128GB I would say.

I'm in the same boat. About £500 worth of gadgets and toys I really, really 'need' and can't afford them all.

[Calibans Dream]

Originally Posted by RobinOfLoxley

Many who chose 60GB filled up quite quickly I believe, although W7 easily fits in that.

Save up for 128GB I would say.

I'm in the same boat. About £500 worth of gadgets and toys I really, really 'need' and can't afford them all.

I can't imagine ever having enough money to do and get all the things want, and I doubt I will ever have the chance of finding out what that would be like.

Just have to get things piece by piece and hope that the last bit is still working and not massively out of date by the time I can afford the next bit.

A few hundred pound graphics card would be nice as I do a lot of HD video work and my PC runs my Satellite HTPC HD TV as well. The one I have does it OK but I want better than OK. (Something with a lot of CUBA cores as that speeds up processing times in Adobe Première.)

[jsmith99]

Originally Posted by Calibans Dream

On my next complete reinstall, I'm thinking of trying one of these SSD drives to speed up Windows 7 loading. ..............

Would it actually speed anything up to a measurable extent? I've got a low price Toshiba laptop, and Windows 7 loads in about 15 seconds. It then takes another 15-25 seconds or so to load the items in the start up menu, services etc.

Have you had a look at the things in your start up menu? Maybe that's the problem.

[Smudged]

Windows 7 and apps only uses about 25gb for me but I have a very streamlined system with many free, lightweight apps. Most people seem to need more than that so you're probably safer with a 128gb SSD.

[RobinOfLoxley]

My W7 Clean Install is 23GB'ish. But since we all have loads of apps without fully realising (some of them quite large eg MS Office), it soon fills up.

I have been looking at prices and technology and juggling figures in my head for a year.
I reckon 90GB would be a reasonable allocation for C: and W7 and common apps.

In fact, I have my C partition at 95GB with 22GB spare. But I have installed a lot to my 'G; Apps partition'. That's on a standard 250GB spinning HDD.

Since 90'odd GB is non-standard, I come to the conclusion that 128GB SSD is best (for now).

[Calibans Dream]

Originally Posted by jsmith99

Would it actually speed anything up to a measurable extent? I've got a low price Toshiba laptop, and Windows 7 loads in about 15 seconds. It then takes another 15-25 seconds or so to load the items in the start up menu, services etc.

Have you had a look at the things in your start up menu? Maybe that's the problem.

Well never having had one, I can't comment, but by many reports on here and elsewhere, Windows loading is speeded up. And seeing as it has no moving parts that have to move and read from the disc like in a normal hard drive, it's just a matter of data transfer. So that should be faster.

Yes I am always tidying up my start up system as it seems every programme I install thinks that it should load something or other at start up that really doesn't need to do that at all.

But there is nothing like a good spring clean once in a while.

[jsmith99]

Originally Posted by Calibans Dream

Well never having had one, I can't comment, but by many reports on here and elsewhere, Windows loading is speeded up. ...........

I don't doubt that it'll be faster, but to what extent? Is it worth the cost?

How long, roughly, does it take to load at the moment?

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by jsmith99

Would it actually speed anything up to a measurable extent? I've got a low price Toshiba laptop, and Windows 7 loads in about 15 seconds. It then takes another 15-25 seconds or so to load the items in the start up menu, services etc.

Have you had a look at the things in your start up menu? Maybe that's the problem.

After a RAM upgrade, upgrading your OS to an SSD is one of the best upgrades that can be done. I've had SSDs for two years now, and i'd never got back to slow HDDs again for the OS.

[s2k]

Originally Posted by whoever,hey

After a RAM upgrade, upgrading your OS to an SSD is one of the best upgrades that can be done. I've had SSDs for two years now, and i'd never got back to slow HDDs again for the OS.

Agree completely. SSD has made a big difference to overall performance in all the cases I have seen, and they are finally coming down to sensible prices so you would be mad not to include one in a new build.

If possible I would recommend going for 128GB+ though as Win7 eats up a fair chunk of a 64gb drive. Once you throw in a few large applications you wont have much left to play with. Although, its worth bearing in mind if you disable hibernation you gain several gigs back depending on the amount of RAM in your system.

[Esot-eric]

Considering the difference is only around £20 i, too, would say to go for a 128GB drive (i like Crucial's M4 drives myself).

Got a 256GB one in my Hackintosh desktop, and a 128GB one in my Linux Mint laptop and like "whoever,hey" i'd never go back to spinny disks for my systems. HDDs are purely for large quantities of data here.

[Paddy C]

I have a 256GB SSD with Windows 8 on it and practically all of my programmes, music and documents on it and still have around 200GB to play with. It's all backed up just in case but it's great having a much faster laptop now!

[Loobster]

64GB won't cut it after a few weeks.

You need a 128GB one for room to grow with updates etc, for a Windows 7 installation.

The sweet spot for price/capacity is 128GB now anyway, so just go for it.

[The_One]

I have 55GB free of 148GB (160GB), of that there's a lot of unused stuff i need to delete or move. My biggest things are just 2 games, Planetside 2 is 10GB in size, Battlefield 3 is 23GB.
Put videos and music onto another drive.

Currently thinking of getting 2x 128GB SSD's for my next PC, next year.
1x 128GB SSD for OS and all programs
1x 128GB SSD for games
1x 1TB HDD for videos/music

I will probably never/rarely fill over half of each of those drives.

[DeelyBopper]

I was pleasantly surprised that I'd not used more than 20gb after installing the OS and a few apps.

I have a 128gb on the main PC and would happily install a 60gb drive on a couple of my other boxes (as I only use them occasionally).

With prices as they are, I'd get at least a 128gb if you can.