Which SSD should I use for the OS

I got myself a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB awhile ago to replace my 5yr old mechanical drive of the same size.
I also have Samsung 850 EVO 500gb and Samsung 840 EVO 250 gb which I currently use for games with the OS and Photoshop/Lightroom and most other software installed on the 1tb HDD.

I plan to do a fresh install of everything and may keep the HDD for storing photos.

My question is which of the SSDs should I use to install the OS and Photoshop/Lightroom?
and of course which of them should I use for games?

Thanks!
 
Solution


Given that, just replace the 1TB HDD with the 1TB SSD.
OS, Lightroom, etc.
Leave the other drives as they are.
hard choice.
i'd just use a single 1TB SSD for everything. well, that's what i'm doing.
if for some reason a 1TB is not enough, check out how much you use for os+games+programs and everything else like photos, music, video and than decide which one to use for what...
 
From a performance point of view, it does not matter where windows goes.

Managing a single 1tb space is much easier than manipulating storage among the other drives.
If the space needs are reasonable, I might separate folders that stand alone on a drive separate from windows C drive.
If you need to replace or reformat the C crive, the stand alone folders can still be accessed.

One caveat...
When you do a clean install of windows, have all other drives disconnected.
Otherwise, windows will put hidden recovery partitions on them, making them essential to operation and difficult to ever remove.

A Hard drive is an excellent place to store large sequential files such as video files and backups.
Photos take very little space and a ssd is still good for them.
 
I'd use the 500GB for the OS and the 1TB for gaming.

I have this exact setup and even with some programs installed directly on the C (not games) still have over 200GB free space on my OS disk.

Stick with Samsungs also. They have very nice warranties with their products.

Doing it this way is also nice because with a backup software (I personally use Veeam). You can only select your C: 500GB disk for backups. This way you are only backing up important data and not your game drive. (since all that can be reinstalled easy enough) Makes for disk and backup management all that much easier.
 
Thanks for the replies and suggestions!

hmm maybe I wasn't clear enough.

I already have:
Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB (have Steam and games installed on it)
Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB (with games installed)
a 5yr old mechanical HDD currently with Windows 7 installed and Photoshop plus Lightroom plus all my photos and a bunch of other software (mainly for photo processing and editing)
Samsung 850 EVO 1TB (new and clean)




Thanks for the advice! I didn't know Windows would do that. will try to remember!
So, I should just install Windows on the 1TB SSD? and basically replace the 1TB HDD with the SSD?

Well photos do take a lot of space since I only shoot RAW with my older 21 mpixel Canon EOS 5D and will upgrade to cameras with even more resolution. Currently I have about 120 GB of photos on my HDD and will probably double or triple that in a year or two and that is if I don't get into shooting videos :D
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


Given that, just replace the 1TB HDD with the 1TB SSD.
OS, Lightroom, etc.
Leave the other drives as they are.
 
Solution


Sounds like a very good idea!
I believe my current motherboard, Asus z87K has 6x SATA 6gb ports.
Is it ok to keep my 1TB HDD and use it for storing photos and other large files?