Boot Drive Question

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storagequestion

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Jun 25, 2014
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I'm just getting back into computers, and I know this is a stupid question.
I understand the purpose of boot drives, they are small drives mainly used to store the OS and/or large programs so that they can receive fast boot times.

But, I also know that people pair these boot drives with larger drives to store most of their other data.

My question is, how are you supposed to access most of your data stored on the main drive when you're booting from the boot drive?

 
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i7Baby

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Sorta. I use a 120gb SSD boot drive plus a 2TB HDD data drive.

On Windows Explorer you can see all the info on both drives.

But if you want to see it such that say all My Documents shows in one place then you have to do a 'Move Users' (Google it) so that a My Documents folder that you set up on the HDD shows up in My Documents on Windows Explorer.
 
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USAFRet

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Windows does not care what physical drive your data or programs live on.
In Windows, the boot drive is generally the "C". Other drives can be whatever drive letter you designate.

I have a 128GB SSD. C drive. OS and almost all applications
There is also another 128GB SSD that holds working docs. The G drive
Also, a 2tb and 3TB HDD, that holds other stuff.

The OS does not care, as long as you tell it and the applications that may use those drives what to do.
 
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storagequestion

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So, you're saying after I boot from the boot drive (obviously, because that's the one with the OS on it), Windows will still allow me to access the data on the larger drive?
And yeah, I forgot to mention about the SSD vs. HDD, but I knew that.

 
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storagequestion

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And I can still access all data across both drives from the boot drive?

 
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USAFRet

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Yes.
And you don't even have to do that 'Move Users' stuff. The Libraries folders has built in functionality to allow those folders to be elsewhere.
 
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storagequestion

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Well, when I'm specifying it as the boot drive in the BIOS, is there a place where I have to actually set it as a boot drive, or do you mean just dragging it to the front in the boot priority section. I'm talking about UEFI type BIOS, not the old school keyboard controlled interface.
 
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