SSD AS BOOT DRIVE REGULAR HARD DRIVE FOR STORAGE

[Mr Big]

Simple question.. I was wondering is it possible to use an SSD drive as the operating system boot up drive and then use regular hard drives for storage.

I remember reading this scenario isn't possible or is it?
Also I understand that this mother board Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-GEN3 comes with on board graphics capabilities as I'm wanting to stream blu ray content to my media av amplifier.

 

[stulid]

Yes you can, thats what most people do (get the OS and a whatever else they can fit onto the SSD)

 

[keithfa26]

yup as stulid say most people will put there os,games and so on the programs they use the most onto the ssd

 

[Mr Big]

Ah thank you so very much for your replies, puts my mind at rest does that. Thank you all for your input..

 

[digyerownhole]

Be careful about the size of the drive if you are still running Vista. My previous install was running on an 80GB SSD on Vista64 Ult and over three years the WinSxS folder (on its own) grew to about 20GB.

 

[SouthEastBlue]

I have my SSD as boot drive with apps and a couple of games on it, and my old 320GB HDD for movies and a couple other games and my system runs fine.

Make sure when you install your SSD though, that you remove your hard drive and set the BIOS to AHCI before hand.

 

[PCBuilderBG]

Or you can get a few normal HDD drives in to Raid 0 like me for a lot less than SSD and even get better performance and more space !
I have 3 x 160GB 7200rpm SATA 2 in Raid 0 that I use for my boot OS and Apps and another HDD for storage Definitely better choice ! and you will have 10x more space

 

[stoofa]

My set up is:

SSD - Boot/OS/Applications
SSD - Games
Mechanical - Storage

 

[rpstewart]

RAID0 HDDs (and certainly not 3 old 160Gb ones) will not give you anything like the performance of a modern SSD, either in sustained transfer or random access.

 

[Phemo]

Or you can get a few normal HDD drives in to Raid 0 like me for a lot less than SSD and even get better performance and more space !
I have 3 x 160GB 7200rpm SATA 2 in Raid 0 that I use for my boot OS and Apps and another HDD for storage Definitely better choice ! and you will have 10x more space

That's still nowhere near as fast as an SSD so it's in no way a better choice. It may be as fast or faster than some older SSDs in terms of read/write throughput but you'll still have 12ms+ of access time compared to an SSD's 0.1ms and also significantly lower IOPs. An SSD is still a significantly better choice and will result in a faster and more responsive system.

 

[nick.lidgett]

My set up is:

SSD - Boot/OS/Applications
SSD - Games
Mechanical - Storage

+1

 

[nick.lidgett]

Or you can get a few normal HDD drives in to Raid 0 like me for a lot less than SSD and even get better performance and more space !
I have 3 x 160GB 7200rpm SATA 2 in Raid 0 that I use for my boot OS and Apps and another HDD for storage Definitely better choice ! and you will have 10x more space

Where do you get this information my friend? everybody knows HDDs are for girls

 

[wazza300]

im running a tiny 60gb ssd for my os,and a huge 2tb hdd for storage/games/music/videos/non essential programs ect

works a treat,much faster than a single hdd,remember you can use intel caching if you have a z68/z77

then you get hdd storage space with ssd performance,like a giant hybrid momentus type drive only faster

 

[Mr Big]

I have my SSD as boot drive with apps and a couple of games on it, and my old 320GB HDD for movies and a couple other games and my system runs fine.

Make sure when you install your SSD though, that you remove your hard drive and set the BIOS to AHCI before hand.

Ahh thanks for that we snippet of info, every little piece of info helps..

 

[Mr Big]

Or you can get a few normal HDD drives in to Raid 0 like me for a lot less than SSD and even get better performance and more space !
I have 3 x 160GB 7200rpm SATA 2 in Raid 0 that I use for my boot OS and Apps and another HDD for storage Definitely better choice ! and you will have 10x more space

I dunno I have seen the specs and an actual computer booting from an ssd and it is phenomenal at the start up times compared to mechanical standard hard disc..

 

[Mr Big]

RAID0 HDDs (and certainly not 3 old 160Gb ones) will not give you anything like the performance of a modern SSD, either in sustained transfer or random access.

I think you hit it fair and square on the head.. Respect..

 

[Mr Big]

Where do you get this information my friend? everybody knows HDDs are for girls

LOL.. I did laugh out loud with that one he he he... But hey each to their own.

 

[moogle]

Yes you can, just keep your personal files on the hard drive.

If you store large files on your desktop or documents folder then you could use junction links to redirect them to your HDD.


I have my C:\Users\ folder redirected off the SSD to my HDD that way I can copy across large files anywhere in my libraries without worry of it filling the SSD.

 

[Mr Big]

Ok folks thank you every one with your replies so that's a big thumbs up on the SSD side of things and keep the mechanical hard disc for storing media files..

 

[Orcvader]

Make sure you have only the SSD connected first during install, so all the boot files goes on the boot drive. Then plug in the HDDs after everything is done.