Building a Desktop Computer

[johnlgalt]

I'll be my OS drive and the games I care about load times the most will be on that drive with everything else on one of the 1 TB spinning drives. I also plan on moving my user folder to a different drive using a registry edit.

On the data transfer kit question, since this is only a gaming machine I'll just reinstall Windows and all the games and apps, especially since I'm swapping the MB at the same time. The drive DOES come with an adapter kit to fit it in a 3.5" bay.

I got a much better option for you. I used this successfully and it worked, and it worked well.

Software by Joseph Cox

Since I've been down that road a few times with trying to optimize my profile relocation, I've found this to be the easiest method hands down.

NOTE: Read the instructions entirely and very carefully before just thinking this is a plug and play solution - it's not.

Since you've already installed (and, I assume, have already started gaming) have fun - but if you have any doubts, or want to start over, then do this.

Follow it up by getting this: http://www.abelssoft.net/ssdfresh.php - it will automatically walk you through fixing recommended settings on your SSD to make it smoother, plus allow you to have better life out of them.

Finally, if SSD Fresh does not fix it (cannot remember if it does or not) then make sure to move your swap file off the SSD unless you want pure speed - I have my pagefile split between my pair of 1 TB spinners, and my system is still screamingly fast.

BTW, FWIW - I did the profile relocation by hand the first 4 installs, and have yet to use SSD Fresh to set up the settings automatically - I just verified what the program does and what it looks for, but all of which I had already enabled (except for disabling System Restore, b/c I keep that handy for the JIC moments).

 

[mplevy]

I did move my profile manually. I deal with corrupt profiles at work several times a week and am comfortable with registry edits to build new ones or relocate them.

I completely disabled my swap file, I have 8 GB of system memory and saw zero issues in a full night of gaming last night. FWIW, MW3 and any Steam games only needed a verification of game files since I installed Steam into the same folder I used before (on my old system drive that was still intact). I moved MW3 to the SSD and set up a symbolic link in the original install directory to point to the SSD.

The thing seems to get faster every time I reboot, it used to get all the way through the boot animation then hit the login screen, now it doesn't make it all the way through the boot animation before it moves on.

One last thing, it came with a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter kit but my case (the original CoolerMaster Cosmos) has no provision for this mounting as the HDD mounts only have screws through the bottom (the kit doesn't allow this mount). For now it's just resting at the bottom of the optical bays.

 

[NYCHitman1]

One last thing, it came with a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter kit but my case (the original CoolerMaster Cosmos) has no provision for this mounting as the HDD mounts only have screws through the bottom (the kit doesn't allow this mount). For now it's just resting at the bottom of the optical bays.

Oh, that's poopies! Luckily for me, my case has 10 (5 removable - 1 cage) hot swap bays. I'm still contemplating what I should do.

 

[mplevy]

My case has 6 bays that could be used as hot-swap, the trays just happen to only have screw holes for the bottom of the drive and none on the side. Not that I'm terribly concerned about vibration issues, or stable mounting of a drive that doesn't have any moving parts.

 

[Slug]

A mate of mine has a 160GB Intel SSD mounted to the side of his drive cage in a Corsair 800D with Velcro because all his 3.5" bays are full. It's been running like that for something like nine months without problems.

 

[johnlgalt]

I did move my profile manually. I deal with corrupt profiles at work several times a week and am comfortable with registry edits to build new ones or relocate them.

I completely disabled my swap file, I have 8 GB of system memory and saw zero issues in a full night of gaming last night. FWIW, MW3 and any Steam games only needed a verification of game files since I installed Steam into the same folder I used before (on my old system drive that was still intact). I moved MW3 to the SSD and set up a symbolic link in the original install directory to point to the SSD.

The thing seems to get faster every time I reboot, it used to get all the way through the boot animation then hit the login screen, now it doesn't make it all the way through the boot animation before it moves on.

One last thing, it came with a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter kit but my case (the original CoolerMaster Cosmos) has no provision for this mounting as the HDD mounts only have screws through the bottom (the kit doesn't allow this mount). For now it's just resting at the bottom of the optical bays.

I've done it so many times now, starting from XP and building nLite versions of XP that installed with my configuration, that I've let it go second nature,. However, I found this method to be much much faster overall during install, as it moves all profiles to your drive choice using a dummy profile and then when you reboot, poof, it's all there, the system creates all the links and whatnot. I still remember perusing MSFN forums when Vista came out on how to build a Vista install that installed Program Files and Dir / Settings tree to separate partitions off the system drive....

Made it easy for system reinstalls. I also use a small utility called regpad for saving reg entries and editing them so that I can easily enter data in terms of the HEX and other methods (Quadword?) so it makes editing reg files a snap (so intalls were a breeze).

With 7, though, we lost the ability to natively move profiles via vLite, and had to rely on either building 7 from scratch using the SDK, or ....

My Hot swap bays come with the ability to use side screws or bottom mount screws, and accommodate both 3.5 and 2.5 drives. I do like that aspect of my hot swap bays, too....

But, yeah, Slug has a point - it's not mechanical, so as long as you have it grounded on the case, or else protected from static electricity, it really won't matter where you put it....

 

[NYCHitman1]

My Hot swap bays come with the ability to use side screws or bottom mount screws, and accommodate both 3.5 and 2.5 drives. I do like that aspect of my hot swap bays, too....

In this case, my PC case doesn't require screws for anything besides the mobo and PSU. Everything else is pop in and out (including the disk drives).