Hooking up SSD, and 2 HDDs

Computer Forum New Build / Upgrade Advice
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I’ve recently upgraded my motherboard, processor, OS and ram on my computer, and want to do my PSU, HDDs, and GPU in about a month, when I have the cash.

The motherboard I have currently is the MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128476R&cm_re=gigabyte_p67-_-13-128-476R-_-Product )

For my hard drives, I want to set up a 64 gig (ish, I don’t have the exact one picked out right now) with just my OS (windows 7, 64 bit), a few steam games (portal 2, l4d2, and tf2) and maybe a few other programs, such as firefox.

I currently have a 250 GB 7200 RPM sata 3Gb/s HDD, which has my OS and all my programs on it right now, but I want this to be used strictly for all the other programs I have, for example, iTunes or Visual C++.

The third hard drive, which I’m picking up soon, Is going to be either a 1 or 2 Tb HDD (probably 7200 RPM sata 3 Gb/s 32/64 Mb cache) and this one, I want to use strictly for movies, musics, pictures, backups and any other large files that I don’t use on a day to day basis.

I’m just really looking for a good tutorial or something to get me started, and help me along the way. I’ve been searching, and find it very hard to find something similar to this, as people always start talking about RAID configurations and partitions, and stuff that just goes right over my head.

There’s a few main questions I have

  1. Will it be as easy as just hooking up the SSD, then installing windows 7, rebooting and all that stuff, then connecting the other 2 HDDs

  2. What files should I leave on the SSD?

  3. Is there any good tutorial or post out there where someone’s trying to do something similar to me? If so, link please!

  4. Would it be easier to just scrap the 250 Gb HDD and just use the 1 Tb one? (I’d rather not do this, because I may end up going with only a 1 Tb HDD)

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WELCOME TO HWF!

What you want here is a system that can access system files, boot up, and perform calculations at supreme speeds, while having enough storage for media files and other applications. Installing Windows on an SSD will definitely give you an advantage in speed over HDD’s, however there still a few stability issues with SSD’s that have operating systems installed. But still, faster.
Also, SSD’s have a limited life. It’s life depends on the number of writes per day. Sources (i think Intel) states that if you were to write 20GB/day, the SSD would end up failing after 5 years. So for example, if you were to “get” a blu ray movie, which can range from 4-10GB in size depending on the movie time, you’d effectively be writing this data onto the SSD and then would transfer the file to the larger 1/2TB drive.
Unless you are prudent in selecting the location in which the data you “get” should be written or saved to, i wouldn’t get an SSD. But if you are cautious, I would recommend you scrap the 64GB hard drive and get a 64GB SSD or 128GB SSD and use it as your primary drive. The 1TB should be used for movies, media files, and a tiny backup for any important documents you may keep in your SSD. You could install your programs onto the 250GB hard drive if you want, it’s really up to you.

To question number 1, YES, i would install Windows on the SSD before installing the two other hard drives. This is because when two or more physical hard drives are detected by Windows, Windows will install itself to the hard drive of your choice and add its boot files to the remaining empty drives. So if you were to remove one of these secondary drives in the future, your primary drive will not be able to boot because it is “missing” boot files which are on the secondary drive you have just removed.

Check out this video comparing boot up speeds between a SSD and a HDD. As for tutorials on how to install all drives, check this out. And remember, you’ll want to set your BIOS to load your primary drive (Windows hard drive) after all drives are installed. Otherwise, it will choose one for you based on the ports you installed the drives in.

I personally wouldn’t bother setting up RAID. Setting it up can be confusing, but i will increase your drives performance. I found a very cool video on youtube that explains how RAID works.

Cheers buddy!