Since more computers have plenty of RAM these days, using a RAM disk In Windows for temporary files and browser cache is a pretty good way to save your SSD from trouble. It is pretty easy to set up, as far as I remember. There are plenty of good RAM disks for Windows. In Linux it is of course supported in the OS. Love it. They save my SSDs from trouble. All 2 of them.

 

not that i've noticed it. havent been monitoring it though.
but is not like my computer or the room got super hot, it's winter here right now.

i did not know you could do that. cool

 

This is just not true. The worst SSD is still faster than an HDD. NVMEs are better, yes, but a SATA SSD is perfectly fine for most applications. Especially if you invest into one that has DRAM cache.

It is actually not that hard to find tests on YouTube that corroborate what I'm saying. Linus Tech Tips blind tested several people on multiple SSDs and you'd be surprised how many felt the SATA was faster. Same for next gen games that supposedly require 7000mb read NVMEs, only to load faster than a 500mb read SATA by a couple seconds.

 

do people just not backup shit here?

 

I dont know if this really helps, but:
-On this (daily use computer) I have a 232GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB SATA drive. It has been running now for about 10 years or so.
-On my Audio computer I have several intel ssdpeknw020t8 SSD drivers and they have worked perfectly for about 5 years now.

So far I have not managed to lose a single SSD drive - internal or external.
Maybe I'm just lucky - who knows?

 

Windows fucks it anyway, I noticed when installing most games or software, even if destination is secondary drive, all the installer data content is being temporarily unpacked on C drive, same goes with drag'n'drop files from archives, any web content etc...

 

..

 

It's not exactly Windows that causes the issues; it's always an Layer8 issue. To prevent the perception that "Windows messes everything up," you can modify the installation paths in the Windows registry.

Here's a simple solution:

1. Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion.
2. Locate the keys ProgramFilesDir and ProgramFilesDir (x86) (for 64-bit users).
3. Right-click on each key and select "Modify."
4. Change the desired install location by inputting the new destination path in the box under "Value data."

This adjustment can help manage installation paths and potentially reduce related issues.

 

There are many answers here, but none that specifically address your question: "Is there any chance I can recover any of the data from the past nine months?"

It depends. If the SSD is physically damaged, it will take more effort to access the data. However, if it's just a simple software error, I recommend using an IcyBox docking station.

Here's what you can do:

1. Connect the IcyBox to your computer.
2. Dock the SSD into the IcyBox.
3. Check if the SSD is recognized as an external hard drive.

If it is recognized, you should be able to browse the disk and extract your data.

 

yea that may help (but also some software may break), apart from that, there's system variable paths (temp, tmp, programdata, appdata, localappdata...) to be adjusted as well (again may break software)

 

...thats why I added "This adjustment can help manage installation paths and potentially reduce related issues"

...then again you could alwasy use junction Points or SymLinks Instead of modifying the registry. One can (again) consider using junction points or symbolic links to redirect i.e C:\*.* to D:\*.*. This method will atleast keep the system registry intact while redirecting file operations to the new location.

But there will always be a risk working in any OS doing things out of statndards I guess...

 

thanks for this info, it useful. I find it funny though that anything "simple" on windows involves editing the registry which if a newbie fucks up could corrupt the registry and make the computer unable to boot into windows.
Windows is a tar baby, Its the devil I live with. I've run it since ver 1, still only tolerate it, it has more bad than good in each iteration.

a special spot is reserved in hell for Bill Gates.....

 

how much ram do you typically allocate to the ram drive? I'm familiar with the concept, my Amiga's had ram drives by default.

 

"Feeling faster" doesn't match with real measurements. It's a fact! PCIe is faster than SATA. You should stop watch videos from the YouTube University, where everyone is telling what actually "feels". Rather check some benchmarks.

Btw. I never said a HDD is faster than a SSD. SATA is just outdated for SSDs.

 

I like EaseUS Todo Home backup.

It has a free version, but I bought it years ago to avail of the extra settings and faster backup speed, but after a couple of years or so I found the free version was faster than my old paid version. I paid for several copies for other machines, but recently i have used the versions available on Sister site, and they do a good job too.
I like it most because it was easy to figure out.

Once you set them up it is usually easy to just run them a couple of times a week when you go to bed, and have them shut down the computer when done. I find with 150 Gig on my OS drive it doesn't take very long, but I have not bothered to do one while using the computer in a long while, except for testing.

I used to back up to external 5400 drives because they were cheap.
Now I mirror drives using Free File Sync, so I have duplicate drives of important stuff, but my OS drive i still just do normal backups.

 

I don't think anyone is disputing one bus is faster than the other, rather just that ssd are faster than hdd regardless of interface or bus. Certainly a more modern bus or interface will provide faster data access and more throughput, however on legacy systems its not worthwhile to replace all the hardware to get a newer bus/interface to enjoy these higher speeds. I have several dell d510 laptops loaded up with spreadsheets etc. I use ssd in a msata format tied to a msata to ide adapter, it is faster than the ide hdd that was factory installed.

At some point I may convert the drives to virtual machines and run them in a VM under windows7, but for now its just easier to use the old machines when it comes to tallying up the bills or forecast project costs on an excel spreadsheet and I don't need no Office365 bullshit to do it..

 

Well [PowerShell is a better option Ψ(￣∀￣)Ψ] that's how Window$ rolls I guess, but you can always fire up the internal Window$-Sandbox and test run any edits before doing anything in production. But I'll bet my 2 cents that any skid will install SUDMHVM first.

Ah, yes, the infamous Hell Deluxe suite with panoramic lava views, personally customized for Bill Gates. It's got 24/7 tech support by Clippy, eternal Windows 95 updates, and every hour the blue screen of death serves as the light show. And don't forget, each morning starts with a mandatory three-hour lecture on why Internet Explorer is the best browser. But hey, at least he won't need to worry about his software crashing – the Devil's already taken care of that!

 

There isn't a strict "golden rule" for how much RAM to allocate to a RAM disk, as it depends on several factors, such as the total amount of RAM in your system, what you plan to use the RAM disk for, and how much RAM the system needs for other tasks.

...but the very basics go like this:

• 8GB of RAM: Allocate 1-2GB to the RAM disk.
• 16GB of RAM: Allocate 2-4GB to the RAM disk.
• 32GB of RAM or more: Allocate 4-8GB to the RAM disk.

For temporary files and browser cache, 1-2GB is usually sufficient. After allocating RAM to the RAM disk, monitor your system's performance. If your system starts using swap (on disk) too often, you should reduce the size of the RAM disk. If you tend to run many RAM-intensive applications simultaneously, be cautious about how much RAM you allocate to the RAM disk.

Overall, start with a conservative size and adjust based on how your system performs and your specific needs.

Ahh, Amiga's RAM drives. They were indeed ahead of their time in incorporating such features by default!

 

thank you for the information
I'll save this and use it as a starting point to test the concept with windows.

I used to have a utility a long long time ago that would let dos programs swap in out of memory by using funtion keys. Made it possible to use a database and a word processor at the same time, which before windows, on intel machines all software was single tasking. The program was written when the 80386 came out. such a powerful machine and only a grand or two, my how times have changed (it had a full Megabyte of ram - but dos could only use the lower 640k, so the upper memory was used as swap space for other programs)

 

Ok just a friendly reminder,
come to think about it, the drive was showing a little of a funky behavior before failing.
Nothing too crazy, but read speed was a little slower than usual sometimes.
The same projects sometimes would take different amount of time to open
Again, not HDD level of slower, just a little bit.