How to use an SSD

[c.ruel]

Ok like a lot of people i have been thinking about getting an SSD to make my system a bit snappier.

I want my operating system and counter strike 1.6 to be saved on it. That means steam will have to be on the SSD which is 55gb so I would need an SSD around the 120GB mark to be big enough to fit an operating system plus my steam folder on it without it feeling constrained. Put simply ... I can't afford an SSD that big I can only afford a 64gb or maybe an 80gb one at a push.

So I was wondering if there was anyway I could have games i play often on the SSD and the ones I don't play that often backed up or just saved on a HDD. I want to keep saved game information and customisations so it is important i don't lose that information in any backups or transfers.

Any help/ideas on how to go about doing this would be much appreciated.

[GheeTsar]

To be honest, there's not that much advantage from having games on a SSD. If I were in your position I would simply install my OS and apps on the SSD and have another disk for your games. Counter Strike really won't see much difference. If you really did want to put games on the SSD, then yes you can use Steam's game backup tool to save the games you don't use to another disk and then delete their local content.

Saved games can be wherever you like, but make sure you actively back them up as Steam's backup tool doesn't include save games (unless the game is Cloud synced)

[c.ruel]

Right, think I have discovered the answer ... symlinks! The only problem is, is that i dropped out my comp science degree and did politics instead so even something as basic as this is going to be beyond me so I need help!

What I need (at least what i think i need!) is to have the steam folder saved on my HDD and then have a hard link that points directly to counter-strike 1.6 which is saved on my SSD, so the operating system believes 1.6 is on the HDD but actually it is on the SSD. Two problems I need to how come are simply how do I do that? and which folder exactly has to be saved on the SSD so files aren't being fetched constantly between the two storage devices?

Thanks for the advice GheeTsar ... there is one big advantage for me though in 1.6 from having an SSD over a HDD; I can connect to servers alot faster and for reasons that are a bit longwinded that will be very useful to me, even though it will only be slightly faster!

[GheeTsar]

While I'm not sure how much quicker you'll connect to the servers with a SSD (internet connection speed is usually the limiting factor) there is no reason why you can't simply install steam on the SSD and use it like a normal disk (other than space constraints which can be overcome by backing-up then deleting games you don't play).