Should I save on the SSD or HDD?

[demwell]

 

Hello, Im an architect by profession. I use modeling and rendering softwares everyday and I am planning to upgrade to an SSD to help with the load times of most of my files and softwares (which are large)

 

My question is, if the softwares (cad,revit,sketchup, lumiom, etc.) are located in the SSD and my save files are located in the HDD (to save space in my SSD) will that defeat the purpose of putting my softwares in the SSD because the HDD has the save filess or not?

 

I hope my question make sense, thank you in advance.

[Anghammarad]

Loading Times for your projects then won't be affected. only the startup times of the plain applications. 

 

To make your projects open faster, they need to be on the ssd as well.

[mariushm]

The application will be cached in RAM by the operating system as soon as you run it once, if you have enough ram. 

 

So applications installed on SSD means just the application launches faster. Once it's launched, there's no benefit to application being on SSD, it doesn't matter.

 

Projects being on SSD or not ... it really depends on how large the projects are, and how various programs work with the projects. 

if the project is a few megabytes, then it really doesn't matter. 

If the project is a few hundred megabytes or gigabytes, then it depends on how application works with a project. 

Does the application load in ram the project as much as possible, or does it "stream" aka constantly read the project files as needed from disk? If the projects are large and the application "streams" then you'd benefit from keeping the project on SSD.

If the application streams, does the application have its own cache (it loads project files as needed and caches them and the modifications to a temporary folder, probably on the SSD) or in RAM ? If so, then it would only be slow to read the files from HDD once and the application will have the read files cached and the performance will increase. 

[demwell]

11 minutes ago, Anghammarad said:

Loading Times for your projects then won't be affected. only the startup times of the plain applications. 

 

To make your projects open faster, they need to be on the ssd as well.

Thank you!

[demwell]

9 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The application will be cached in RAM by the operating system as soon as you run it once, if you have enough ram. 

 

So applications installed on SSD means just the application launches faster. Once it's launched, there's no benefit to application being on SSD, it doesn't matter.

 

Projects being on SSD or not ... it really depends on how large the projects are, and how various programs work with the projects. 

if the project is a few megabytes, then it really doesn't matter. 

If the project is a few hundred megabytes or gigabytes, then it depends on how application works with a project. 

Does the application load in ram the project as much as possible, or does it "stream" aka constantly read the project files as needed from disk? If the projects are large and the application "streams" then you'd benefit from keeping the project on SSD.

If the application streams, does the application have its own cache (it loads project files as needed and caches them and the modifications to a temporary folder, probably on the SSD) or in RAM ? If so, then it would only be slow to read the files from HDD once and the application will have the read files cached and the performance will increase. 

Thank you for this comprehensive answer! I'll look more into this.

[Fraya]

If your needing extra space and have on old hard drive, its a no brainer to upgrade to a SSD, you can still buy the 2.5" SSD (SATA) in large capacity for dirt cheap, then you can Clone your drives (mirror image copy onto the new drive) and then after a successful Clone of the data (works also with main drive that has operating system on it) you simply swap the drive out and fit the new one (with larger storage and faster speeds)  keep in mind don't erase or format your old drive until your certain the new one works, all files are there and even when that is confirmed i would just keep a back up of your old data on your old drive and store it just in case / for future unless its a drive you no longer want or want to erase any old files / personal data etc. 

Now you can also if you want to save space and cables, if your motherboard has a M.2 drive, you can get large capacity M.2 drive in (SATA) or in Nvme formats. 

obviously if you can afford it then a Nvme M.2 drive is the best and faster option, but you don't have to get super high speed / top of the range drives if your not gaming etc. there is many many good solid drives that will do the job and still be way faster than a old HDD.  Team Group do some nice drives are good pricing.  check out Newegg.

 

hope this all helps.