So I'm not really a new player, but I'm building a new PC and no other forum seems to fit my question.

The new PC will have a 256GB SSD and also a 1TB HDD and I'm told I should install my Windows 8.1 onto the SSD for a faster system. However people in these forums talk about installing SWTOR to the SSD as well. I only really play TOR so if I were to store any game on the SSD it would be this one. But if they are both on the same drive, will that slow me down overall than separating it onto the HDD? Or perhaps swap them round and put TOR on the SSD and W8.1 on the HDD.

Anyone with experience on this very specific issue would be greatly appreciated

So I'm not really a new player, but I'm building a new PC and no other forum seems to fit my question.

 

The new PC will have a 256GB SSD and also a 1TB HDD and I'm told I should install my Windows 8.1 onto the SSD for a faster system. However people in these forums talk about installing SWTOR to the SSD as well. I only really play TOR so if I were to store any game on the SSD it would be this one. But if they are both on the same drive, will that slow me down overall than separating it onto the HDD? Or perhaps swap them round and put TOR on the SSD and W8.1 on the HDD.

 

Anyone with experience on this very specific issue would be greatly appreciated

Yes this is a wise decision to do. Installing Windows + Games on an SSD will boost their loading speed greatly. Things like movies,unoften played games ( if you have a big game library ) , Game recording and any other stuff should go to HDD. And its perfectly fine to put Windows and TOR on the SSD but do be careful, the more used up it is the slower it gets, just like a HDD.

Yes this is a wise decision to do. Installing Windows + Games on an SSD will boost their loading speed greatly. Things like movies,unoften played games ( if you have a big game library ) , Game recording and any other stuff should go to HDD. And its perfectly fine to put Windows and TOR on the SSD but do be careful, the more used up it is the slower it gets, just like a HDD.

I literally will only put the OS and TOR on the SSD, and the computer will only be used for TOR, all my browsing and emails and youtube etc will stay on my laptop

I have a 120Gig SSD and a 500Gig HDD. I have Windows 7 and SWtOR installed on the SSD.

Since I only have a 120 Gig SSD, I moved the Windows libraries (Documents, etc) to the SSD, but with a 256Gig SSD you won't 'need' to do that. I have some apps, such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and Mumble, installed on the SSD as well. Pretty much everything else is on the hard drive - MS Office, Steam, music, pictures, etc.

The main advantage to putting SWTOR on the SSD is that it just about halves level loading times. If you do install SWTOR on the SSD with the OS, I recommend that you don't put it in Program Files, but instead, make a new folder called "Games" (or w/e) to put it in. This avoids most "permissions" issues.

Btw, if you already have SWTOR installed on your laptop, or on the HDD, you can simply copy/move the entire SWTOR folder to the SSD and then run "Launcher.exe" to set it up. Also copy/move the SWTOR stuff in Documents and App Data.

Bottom line - Installing Windows and SWTOR on the SSD will not slow things down. It will do the exact opposite.

I run TOR on an SSD and noticed a real speed improvement primarily in loading times as you go from one major place to another. THAT part is definitely faster. Normal in-game stuff is the same. There is no difference there as most of the action comes from the program in memory anyway.

I do NOT see an advantage of installing Windows also on the SSD. You are asking that SSD to do all the work. If you keep Windows on the HD it can do what it needs to do without tasking the SSD, thus leaving it exclusively to service TOR needs. And there's a matter of putting all your eggs in one basket. Arguably (and there is an argument about it) SSDs have a reliability problem. Their MTBF is a lot shorter than an HD, and the bigger the SSD, the worse the problem.

But IF it does fail, it's a relatively simple matter to replace it and re-download SWTOR. But if the OS is on the same failed drive, you've got a much bigger problem on your hands. It would be expedient to split your resources here just in case.

I do NOT see an advantage of installing Windows also on the SSD. .

This is just plain Wrong (with a capital W). THE main advantage of an SSD is that it makes your entire system substantially faster when you install your OS on it.

If you are concerned about MTBF, well, that's what backups are for. In any case, the MTBF on an SSD, while shorter than an HDD, is still beyond the average useful life of the entire computer. With a 256Gig SSD and a 1 TB HDD you could put an image of the entire SSD right on the hard drive.

It seems silly to me to spend the money on an SSD just so that your game load times are shorter.

This is just plain Wrong (with a capital W). THE main advantage of an SSD is that it makes your entire system substantially faster when you install your OS on it.

The advantages of an SSD have been GREATLY exaggerated by industry hype. For example, compare that stats in this article favorable to SSDs: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2492024/solid-state-drives/hard-disk-drives-vs-solid-state-drives-are-ssds-finally-worth-the-money.html?page=4 Here the guy goes on and on about how cool they are, but when you look at the benchmark statistics, the advantage really isn't there. Time to open a file on an SSD? 2 seconds. Time to open a file on a HDD? 2 seconds. Transfer a gig+ file? SSD=15 seconds. HDD = 34 seconds. How about maximum wrote speed? SSD = 241 MB/sec. HDD = 119 MB/sec. Are SSD's faster? Sure they are--a zillion times faster if you buy into the hype. But when you look at the benchmarks in a fair test, there more like twice as fast. Bear in mind that this guy is all over SSDs, and all he can show is that they are basically, kind of, twice as fast as an HDD. And the fact is, an SSD is a whole lot more expensive, so you are NOT going to be able to get an equivalent size to an HDD. You'll have to make some decisions there.

The problem here (and what you are missing) is that in the zeal to take advantage of this "stupendously fast SSD!" (in reality about twice as fast) is that you load all the work onto it at once. It's kind of like saying, "I've got this really fast Corvette that is 500 HP that is faster than any other; let's have it pull a trailer!"

Well, no, you really don't want to do that. You want to take advantage of its speed, and overwhelming it with work is probably not the best way. Because SWTOR is slow between major scenes, the idea is to let the SSD do that work faster than an HDD can. And putting SWTOR on an SSD, AS I CLEARLY STATED, is a really good idea. I do it. It works for me. There is a difference. But the more you make it do at once, the less the advantage there is.

But if you have the OS on a different drive, the disk I/O for the OS can be handled entirely separately from, and parallel to, the demands SWTOR is making on its own SSD. One does not have to wait for the other. It's the difference between a one lane road and a two lane road. Now, if you REALLY want to see some speed, install the OS on one SSD and SWTOR on another. This technique of "load balancing" is well known in the computer industry.

Bottom line here is that no one to my knowledge has EVER benchmarked the issue with SWTOR and an OS. Unless you have two identical machines set up both ways we are discussing here, complete with testing software, all you really have is an impression--not hard data. There are too many variables at work here for you to clai anything else. You have CPUs, graphic cards, internet speed, and a whole lot of other hardware issues that impact overall speed. Proving an advantage here is a lot more difficult than simply claiming one way is "Wrong" without any real proof at all.

Well, what you are missing is that running the OS and a game does not really "work" the SSD. While it's true that writing to an SSD does shorten it's life, as I said before, that "life" is beyond what any normal user will ever put on the drive, especially considering that most of the OS functions are "reads" with very few writes. Other than that, there are, of course, no moving parts in an SSD.

I've been running my OS (Win7) and SWTOR (and GW2 for a while) off the same 120Gig SSD for almost a year now with no problems. I have MS Office installed on the hard drive, but having the OS on the SSD even accelerates it, since most of the functions are done through the OS. And, it is a noticeable difference - everything is a lot 'snappier' with an SSD.

Another factor is that you seem to be basing your ideas on SSDs that were available 2 or 3 years ago. SSDs have been continually getting faster and more reliable. I used to be reluctant to get an SSD, but now that I have, I would never go back to putting my OS on a hard drive.

Disclaimer - my HTPC (not this main PC) does actually run Win 8.1 off of a hard drive at this time, but that's only until I get a new 256Gig SSD for this one, and then the 120Gig SSD goes into the HTPC. Trust me, there is a very noticeable difference between running off an SSD versus an HDD.

The real question here is when is the difference enough of a difference to make a difference? Claiming that an SSD is "faster" and therefore you should do it is a simplistic answer. It's far more complex than that and the fact is, you don't have the data to back it up. All you've got is company specs. And as you should gave surmised from my first post, company specs, often designed with one-upmanship of the competition in mind. is a far cry from independent benchmarks. In the article I referenced, written by a proponent of SSDs, all he can show is a doubling in terms of performance.

But what does "doubling" mean in the real world? Does it mean the app runs twice as fast? Nope. In his own examples opening a file took 2 seconds with either drive, ZERO improvement. His other benchmarks weren't much better. And NONE of them had anything to do with OUR application, SWTOR. I maintain that simply relying on specs to tell you how to maximize the speed of this application is naive, and throwing everything your computer needs to do on one drive violates so many "best practices" in the IT industry that it could lead to disaster, and maybe your job in the process.

And you're not going to be able to tell much difference anyway because the difference is marginal. I've done it both ways myself. The SSD approach results in somewhat faster loading times between scenes (like when you change planets), but little to no difference at all where you spend the vast majority of your time in-game, somewhere on a planet attacking mobs.

And that's because there's only a certain percentage of the game that is wholly dependent on Disk I/O. We've heard many times from many different sources the argument between whether SWTOR is CPU-intensive or GPU-intensive with a slight consensus towards CPU. When you're dealing with frames per second, THAT'S directly affecting you because that's what you see, and it has NOTHING to do with disk I/O. When you complain about "lag" on the fleet or a server, that has NOTHING to do with your disk I/O (though it might on the server end).

So when you hear these grandiose claims that sticking the game AND your OS on an SSD will result in these tremendous speed improvements, I say with a capital "W" WRONG! And if you claim otherwise, then you need to prove it. And the only way you can really prove it is configure equivalent systems side by side, one with an SSD and one without (and for good measure, one with only SWTOR on the SSD) and MEASURE the difference under controlled conditions. Without this real-world data you are simply making a subjective claim that has no basis in reality at all.

You're awfully long-winded for a troll. I suggest that everyone just ignores you from now on.

But, I'll make one last response. I have direct experience with SSD versus HDD - I upgraded to an SSD while I was playing SWTOR - and I can assure everyone that :

a) SWtOR levels load approximately twice as fast from an SSD. The level loading involves a certain amount of back-and-forth with the server, so network speed is a factor, and the load times don't reflect the true SSD speed.

b) Everything about your system is, and noticeably feels, much quicker with the OS on the SSD.

c) SSDs are relatively expensive (compared to HDDs), but much less expensive than they were. You can now get a high quality 250Gig SSD for what I paid for a cheap 120Gig.

d) Whether or not the speed increase is worth it is a personal thing. Just like whether or not to get a better video card is a personal thing. The main thing is that installing your OS and SWtOR on an SSD is both safe and speedy.

Blah blah blah to most of the 2 guys measuring epeens above.

OP do what I did, buy 2 ( or more, heck why not ) SSD's. 1 for OS, 1 for Game installs ( and well you could split these however you like for program installs also ). Then use any HDD you buy for mass storage, the sort of mass storage you aren't really needing speed to access and any read/writes isn't going to stall your system as you work with them ( as installing your O/S on the mass storage drive will do ).

Works sweet for me and isn't really that much more expensive ( you could always have the size of 1 SSd itno 2 SSd if you wanted ) for the nice QoL gains it gives.

O/S on an SSD gives about a 10 second boot time once initialised for windows, this is pretty cool.

Keeping your game installs and O/S on seperate SSDs means if any patching or updating or anything is going on that uses a lot of disk activity your system or your game won't slow down and can be used perfectly normally. In saying this you get this benefit from the game on SSD, windows on HDD too - whichever way you go I would recommend NOT installing games and operating system on the same physical drive if you can help it.

Example you want to install 3.0 update and if you had this on the same phyical drive you might as well walk off and do something else as your system will often hang during the read/write phase. Seperate physical drives = problem solved, do whatever you want whilst it installs.

Basically what you get from an SSD is faster load times of anything that needs to read/write to the disk a lot. SSD are superior to HDD in everything but affordability and longevity end of story. As for longevity as the pro SSD poster pointed out this is more often than not going to be well beyond the general life cycle of the PC you will put it in ( e.g. in however many years when there are new technology 1TB SSD for cheap you'll be upgrading and migrating to these long before your current SSD fails ). So load times are program's opening up, opening large files with programs and anything ing aming that requires the game to access data directly from the physical drive.

What you won' get from an SSD is FPS boosts etc.

In short the best to worst options ignoring affordability are:

#1: 2 SSD's ( or more ) - 1 for OS, 1 for Gaming.

#2: 1 SSD and 1 HDD - 1 for OS, 1 for Gaming. Which would get the most benefit on the SSD is probably going to be gaming if that's all the really disk intensive things you really use your PC for.

#3: 1 SSD and 1 HDD - O/S and games installed on the SSD. This will give you slow down at times when there is conflict on disk access. You do at least get the benefit of the SSD speed however.

#4: 1 SSD and 1 HDD - O/s and games installed on the HDD. This would be stupid, don't do this ... ever. lol.

As for the SSD ONLY giving x2 performance ... lol. You do realise anything in computer terms that ONLY gives you a 2 time performance increase is a BLOODY HUGE increase right?

If articles are the measure of ones Google prowess here's a good one from one of my favourite 2 reliable sites on hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-hdd-performance,3023.html

Of most interest aside from the usual benchmark type stuff is the time used in loading programs after bootup.

TL;DR It doesn't matter enough to justify the effort.

In my last post on this subject I talked about how much difference it takes to make a difference and did not follow through on it. I also pointed out how your opinions on the advantages of an SSD lacked any relevant evidence to prove your point. Real world results differ markedly from specification citations, where I provided proof from a proponent of SSDs that this is so. Some of the real world performance data shows no improvement at all. Other data shows a marginal improvement.

Without looking at the speedometer, when you are driving the freeway at 60mph, can you tell the difference between 60mph and 66mph? How much faster is it? I maintain that you can barely tell, if at all, because speed can creep up on you, and it’s the difference between ticket and no-ticket. In fact, if you have a slight downward slope, you’ll be at 70mph in no time at all if you don’t adjust.

Yet it’s a 10% difference between 60 and 66mph. Barely noticeable. And that’s the issue. Unless you can notice a significant difference, there isn’t difference enough to make a difference. From a statistical point of view, there has to be at least a 20% difference from one thing to another before you even are aware there is a difference at all. That’s why specifications in something like HD television resolution, for example, showing a difference between one set’s high resolution and another, are meaningless once the resolution reaches and surpasses the ability of your eyes’ acuity to see a difference at all. It doesn’t matter because you can’t see it anyway.

In our case the issue is: Is it “better” to run on an SSD versus a conventional hard drive? Some of you believe in no uncertain terms that it is, telling me I am “wrong with a capital “W”” But so far at least, you have been unable to cite any data that proves you know what you are talking about. “Specs” count for little because they are made up numbers. What you want is Real-World data, and that’s difficult to get because there are so many other variables that factor into the equation. You don’t even know what some of them are.

Well, here’s some. Let’s just see where the data take us. The test below was done comparing the latest build of SWTOR run from a conventional hard drive, and a typical SSD ON THE SAME COMPUTER. They are probably both different than YOUR hard drive and YOUR SSD. I know that already. The key point here is the RELATIVE difference where all other factors are controlled. Why and how are they controlled? They are all the same machine, the same ISP, the same GPU/CPU. The only difference is the HD vs the SSD and less than ten minutes of time this morning.

This is not an issue of WHETHER there is a difference between SSD and HD. There is, of course. That is acknowledged. The issue is: CAN you see the difference at all? And secondly, DOES it MAKE a difference at all? The second issue is important because MOST game play does not involve the SSD much at all. Battling mobs on a planet involves GPU/CPU, ISP time, FPS, server lag, etc., but not the drive you have the game stored on. Where you see the difference is between planets, basically, places where you must “travel” and load up some of the game from your drive. Some of you think the “long load times” exhibited by a game on an HD justifies placing the game on an SSD.

Let’s look at the evidence:

Time from clicking on “Play” and the character selection screen HD:

10:45:45 finish

10:45:00 start

Elapsed time: 45 seconds

Time from clicking on “Play” and the character selection screen SSD:

10:53:32 finish

10:53:00 start

Elapsed time: 32 seconds

Difference: 13 seconds. % Difference: SSD = 40% faster

Time from clicking “Play” on character to arrival on Fleet: HD

10:46:18 finish

10:46:00 start

Elapsed time: 18 seconds

Time from clicking “Play” on character to arrival on Fleet: SSD

10:59:24 finish

10:59:00 start

Elapsed time: 24 seconds

Difference: 6 seconds. % Difference: HD = 33% faster

Time from clicking “Travel” on Fleet to arrival at Dromund Kaas Stronghold: HD

10:49:13 finish

10:49:00 start

Elapsed Time: 13 seconds

Time from clicking “Travel” on Fleet to arrival at Dromund Kaas Stronghold: SSD

11:02:13 finish

11:02:00 start

Elapsed time: 13 seconds

Difference: 0 seconds. % Difference: 0

Based on this Real World Evidence we have the SSD being significantly faster on one test, significantly SLOWER on one test, and exactly the same on the third test. You want more tests? How about taking the trouble to do them?

So what does this tell us? There’s not much of a difference, is there? Indeed, having an SSD is no indication of a faster response time and may indicate a SLOWER response time, or no difference at all.

Now the first time our erstwhile brilliant critics will say is, “That’s not a fair test.” OK, Bright Guys: What IS a fair test? WHERE precisely will the performance of an SSD shine? Like the guy in “Jaws” says as the shark is about to eat them all, “You got any better ideas?” Of course you can always claim the data is fake or subject to error, etc. Dream on, folks. If you think that, do it yourself. You won’t, of course, because I suspect all you want to do is jaw about it, as usual, without any evidence, and not put forth the effort to test your opinions in the real world. But without the data to back them up, your opinions are worthless.

There may be other factors here. What the data tells me is that perhaps we have not eliminated all extraneous variables. That’s very possible, and I suppose a more rigorous test under more exacting conditions would be more valid than this one. I accept that possibility. But right now no one here has any better data. Indeed, you have no relevant data at all.

So in answer to “Where should I install the program?” the evidence would suggest that it doesn’t really matter, and that even if you experience a slight performance improvement in disk I/O, it’s measured in a few seconds, which surely does not justify going to the trouble of doing it because the vast majority of your game play doesn't involve the HD/SSD in the equation at all.

OK fair point, fair tests run them myself. I've done that though been a bit more precise than what it would seem you have been ( well as much as I can be as there is one more test I can't/don't want to do as outlined below ).

So I took my SSD install of SWTOR and copied it direct to the root directory one of my HDDs and again to another SSD - so two copied installs identical in every way one would assume except for location.

I then run each one once and go through my testing regime just incase there is any weird first start stuff as it detects a new location ( interesting times here too which I'll elude to in the bottom ).

I then fresh reboot and try each instance and run my testing as similar to yours:

* Play until I reach Character select

* Select Character until DK SH.

* DK SH until fleet via exit SH function.

Times:

HDD:

Start: 43.9

S/H: 32.4

Fleet: 25.6

SSD:

Start: 21.6 - 22.3 seconds faster - 103% increase

S/H: 9.3 - 23.1 seconds faster - 248% faster

Fleet: 10.4 - 15.2 seconds faster - 146% faster

I think I've been pretty fair in my testing and the conclusion is fairly obvious. SSD is much faster than HDD with SWToR load times, 2-3 times faster in fact, providing the rest of your system isn't bottlenecking your SSD ( and why should it? ).

Now one test I would have liked to do is with a system on HDD as opposed to SSD but I'm not going that far in my testing.

Lastly a strange result I did get when I first made both copies and gave them their first run the HDD times were actually higher than above and the SSD were about the same ... the strange bit was when I thought to right after quitting my SSD copy run the HDD copy again and at that point the HDD speed came out more or less the same as the SSD copy though I'm pretty sure caching may be at play here and could possibly explain the above posters results being so similar ( possibly didn't take enough time to thoroughly run his tests in a fair, impartial environment ). This was why I was curious what times I would see if I had the system on HDD. I imagine those HDD times may not improve ever ( unless it was still cached to ram which is possible I guess ... ).

Either way a fresh reboot run yields the above results and they speak for themselves and are inline with most SSD users gains they experience when using SSDs for most activities.

Also note my copy speed of moving SWToR was 90 M/s on the SSD vs 30 M/s on the HDD. 3 times faster again to the SSD.

TL;DR ... SSD > HDDin SWToR ( and life! ), ignore the above poster.

At least we're getting somewhere. You did real world testing and yes, you got different results than I did. That's no reason to ignore me, however, because I was just as fair as you were. As I suggested, my own results would indicate that all the variables are not being controlled, despite best efforts to do so.

If you are willing, I would suggest we pick a dozen of the same transitions and both test them. Our methods appear to be the same. One complete game on the HD, one on the SSD. This direct comparison may tell us something. We also need to compare systems to see if there is something radically different there. I'll let you pick the transitions.

This does beg the question, of course. How many transitions per session do you encounter? I would guess I encounter half a dozen or so. I tend to stay on the same planet most of a session. So how much are we spending to save how many seconds? Is that worth all this angst? We've spent way more time testing so far than time saved. Is there are a real benefit here at all? And how much are you willing to spend to save a few seconds a day?

Now you're just clutching at straws it would seem. My results have presented a clear and obvious benefit to SSD that yes I am willing to pay the cost for ( and have done so x2 in fact to keep both games and O/S on their own SSD ).

I have no need to now put in more time extending the testing. I did of course test another round whilst I was at it to ensure my times were correct and the second round came in slightly high by a couple of seconds for the HDD and 1 up and 2 down by about a second on the SSD, these weren't really anymore to confirm that my first round of testing was accurate ( i.e. no crazy 10 second variance ) rather than to record anything of substance.

So either you neglected to reboot between tests bringing caching into play or there may be another bottleneck in your system clouding your judgement on SSDs.

My system isn't overly flash, high range but not top of the range by any means:

CPU: i5 4690k @ 4.3 Ghz

Ram: 8gig running at 1666

GPU: r9 290 @ standard clocks

SSD: 2x adata sp900

HDD: Western Digital 1TB WD10EARX

M/B: Asrock Fatality Killer ( z97 )

I've got 2 separate SSDs, both of them 60GB.

One holds Win7Pro + a few small programs like Firefox, Thunderbird etc.

The second one holds SWTOR and nothing else.

The rest of my games are on a 500GB HDD, the more important games like SWTOR are monthly backed up to a 300GB partition on my 1TB HDD (the rest of it is VMs and a soon-to-be SteamOS).

I'm thinking about getting a 1TB SSD as I'm running out of space on my 500GB HDD which is only for games, but that's a different story.

The 2 SSD thing brings only a small advantage to 1 SSD as all of the 6GBit/s are used for SWTOR and I don't have the Windows traffic on there.

Are you guys trying to make me want a new gaming pc or what? Just for curiosity and funsies I'm off to check out SSD gaming pcs in the $1000 to $1500 range. Reckon I'll start with cyberpowerpc and browse out from there to other sites.

My advice in that regard to save yourself the most money possible ( or well ... get the best PC possible for your budget ) would be to build it yourself.

PCPartpicker.com is a good place to assemble bits n pieces and check prices and then also link the build you've got for people to critique back to you.

Of course building a pc isn't for everyone but it's not half as hard as some people think it would be.

You could also bustom design your pc and stores can assemble it for you also ... either way I guess I'm getting at don't buy Dell, HP, Alienware or anything that you don't get to explicity pick the bits yourself basically.

The 2 SSD thing brings only a small advantage to 1 SSD as all of the 6GBit/s are used for SWTOR and I don't have the Windows traffic on there.

Yeah it won't give any performance gain per se but it's more for those time when you are patching and if it resides on your operating system physical drive then the entire system slows down and stutters along. not an SSd problem either but a general computing issue in that you generally want your system on it's own physical drive to avoid these issues ( for me it's not just patching but other things too but I used patching as an example everyone could relate to ).

With the 6G/s I don't think that's actually obtainable anyway is it? I mean the drives themselves can't hit that speed and from what I've read even in RAID they won't get much beyond 1600 M/s. At least until you hit M.2 or Sata express though I've never actually used a drive that uses those technologies myself so can't comment from personal experience, more of what I read.

Riiiiighttt!!! No need for a more precise measurement. No need to explore potential differences. No need for cooperation. You're always right. So you will leave it as one person's word against another's. The fact is my measurements are as valid as yours and you speculating on "rebooting" and "caches" is grasping at straws. It's pure speculation on your part.

If someone is REALLY willing to go through a joint effort here I'd be happy to participate. Just PM me and we'll set it up between us.

To OP. Good luck saving yourself a few seconds a day. I'm sure it will all be worthwhile for you.

Stop acting so asinine, my results tend to backup the general knowledge and results you see on most reputable websites around technology as well as the general consensus I've had from other users in other threads on other topics that SSDs are the single greatest upgrade you can do to a current PC right now if you haven't done so already.

I kind of knew you may not entirely know what you're tlkaing about or were working off a poorly setup rig more or less from this comment:

Are SSD's faster? Sure they are--a zillion times faster if you buy into the hype. But when you look at the benchmarks in a fair test, there more like twice as fast.

As I said initially ... lol ... doubling your speed at anything in computer terms is a HUGE increase and if you can do it simply by running installs off an SSD that's a pretty good money for value upgrade. Go spend $1000 on a new CPU you generally won't see this sort of performance gain ( if any ), sure go spend $1000 on a new GPU and you might be able to double your performance in FPS terms. For the price of SSD's to double your performance in most disk access activities ( more like triple ) you will never look back and think it was a bad spend unless you've done something else wrong.

Also if you want to use a website article to debate the value of current technology do you really think using one from 2 years ago is even close to being a valid point of comparison?

Decent clocked CPU + SSD = win.

If you want to waste your time in testing with your system by all means go ahead but if you aren't able to get similar times to me with my mediocre high end rig then there is something wrong in your setup somewhere ( or it's quite old ).

The trolls are feeding themselves.

Should you listen to this one guy, or go with what 99% of the Gaming and Computer experts say? You decide.

in my opinion You can easily use swtor on either of them, even if SDD will be slightly faster. I must say swtor is really well written (the code) and stuff like loading time etc. is really really great. My PC is trash and i still can run it quite smoothly.

But remember this young acolyte - if you are willing to format your windows disk - you will lose your swtor. Unless you just make partitions out of SDD

So I'm not really a new player, but I'm building a new PC and no other forum seems to fit my question.

 

The new PC will have a 256GB SSD and also a 1TB HDD and I'm told I should install my Windows 8.1 onto the SSD for a faster system. However people in these forums talk about installing SWTOR to the SSD as well. I only really play TOR so if I were to store any game on the SSD it would be this one. But if they are both on the same drive, will that slow me down overall than separating it onto the HDD? Or perhaps swap them round and put TOR on the SSD and W8.1 on the HDD.

 

Anyone with experience on this very specific issue would be greatly appreciated

As long as you have a decent CPU and Motherboard supporting latest SATA version you will get a marked increase in Windows boot, and TOR load times. It means you get in the game faster and less time is wasted which is what you want.