HELP Installing 1 SSD and 2-3 Mechanical Drives

Discussion in 'New Build / Upgrade Advice' started by Redvirus, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. Redvirus

    Redvirus Geek Trainee

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    My Computer today Is:
    OCZ 1250W Gold
    Asus p9x79 PCI-EXP 3.0
    Intel i7 3820 x4 "+4Threads" 3,6Ghz 10MB
    16Gb Corsair Dominator running in Quad Chanel
    Asus HD 7950 DC2T 3GDDR5, PCI-EXP 3.0
    1, 7200Rpm 500Gb disks
    2, 7200Rpm 1TB disks
    I ordered today Corsair CSSD-F240 GB GT-BK

    I never had owned or installed an SSD disk before and I'm unclear about RAID and how to set this up.
    Of what I understand from my motherboard manual I can have in raid mode only 1SSD and 2 Mechanical, question is a bit confusing since I never have setup raid before.
    Basically I would like the 240GB SSD to be the boot drive and various installations and the remaining 2 or if possible all 3 mechanical drives to be used as usual, both to install on and as storage.
    I looked up several guides but really I can't make much out of them, If I connect the SSD alone and switch to raid will I be able to use all 240GB, and then after installation of windows is done how do I connect my mechanical drives?

    Also of what I understand the risk for unstable system is grater with raid, once an error on disk probably leads to reinstalling

    Or should I go for AHCI ?
    AHCI shouldnt be much problem my 2, 6GB sata ports have already AHCI enabled so I just install the SSD with OS first then shut down and attach mechanical drives.
     
  2. Jan Benedict

    Jan Benedict Geek

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    Better RAID the three HDDs and don't include the SSD..
    The speed of will be the lowest speed among the drives that you had RAID..
    Also, to RAID an SSD and HDD is not recommended, because of the statement above mentioned. :D
     
  3. Redvirus

    Redvirus Geek Trainee

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    I allready got to installing before getting any replays here, folowing corsair advice Ahci.
    I have read a little more indept of raid and it really dont sound like an option. 1st if one drive fail the rest will folow. I installed it on 1 sata 3 port then when it was finish i reconected my other sata 2 drives to theyr sata 2 connection. So far i only see to improvments the Os boots from power on to usable in 15sec, before was maybe 30 in to windows and another 8 sec for everything to load.
    The second is, before my windows index score for hd was 5.9 now 7.9
    The rest of the hardware is 7.9 exept cpu 7.7

    Have not tested games and so but really besides the boot starting programs feels almost the same as with my mechanical drive 7200rpm, i had smart defrag on and boot defrag every week on mechanical c and then the rest of the hardware is also extreme so it may be why i really dont feel it , it may be just half second faster then mechanical drive on lounch, it was almost on the fly there as well.

    Ill be extremley hupy if I can gain a little more power for my demanding simulator.
    But as I said so far personal oppinion with such power that i have under the hood i dont se why i upgraded, paied almost 200euro for 15less seconds of start time OS and better score in index for drive. Ill keep you posted after i test my simulator and some games.

    Good news is i left my mechanical OS drive intact and when the ssd fails ill be back in no time, that is if the drive still ok after 3years of doing nothing
    My rigg you can se in the first post
     
  4. Redvirus

    Redvirus Geek Trainee

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    I tested the simulator now, without the last addon which is not installed yet, my first impression was lagg and I wanted to stop computer and throw the shit of the window, I gave it a second lunch and everything bacame just a little more smoother than with mekanichal,I have yet to test landing at big crouded airports full of traffic and bad weather.
    What I noticed during the test flight with the mchanical drive you could se the led blink maybe 1time every 30sec, with his drive is 1 time every 2-3sec.
    Ill do some more testing.
    Life expetancy with 33GB read and 82GB write during 2 days, powered on 9 times work time 8h is about 8years 7months :)
    This data was during installs of OS, programs, simulator etc, this will not be done every day.
     
  5. Jan Benedict

    Jan Benedict Geek

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    I have 1 HDD and 1 SSD both were running on IDE, I don't know but it was set IDE after reinstalling OS, at it felt a little slower than the first time I used my computer. At first windows index scored my SSD at 7.3 then after reinstalling the OS, I got a 6.9, I was like WTF happened? Then I went to the bios and saw that my hdd and ssd were running on IDE mode. So I tweaked the registry and changed it to AHCI mode. Now I have a 7.8 on primary hard disk on windows index.
     

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