Ssd as boot drive with two different speed hdd in non raid config

metalmancer

Distinguished
Sep 26, 2010
6
0
18,510
id like to use a 32gb ocz onyx as a windows 7 64 boot drive and a 150gb velociraptor for applications and games and then a 1tb caviar black 64mb cache for all my files (music, pictures, etc) in a simple non-raid configuration. might also move the windows page file to one of the disk drives and/or put a couple of my most used apps on the ssd or even my largest or most used files on the vr. seems like this would be the fastest available without paying a small fortune. (i only paid 55 for the onyx, 100 for the vr and 80 for the caviar [i love newegg lol]) seems simple enough, the problem is ive never heard of such a config. seems like everyone who uses a ssd as boot only drive is torn between 10000rpm and 7200rpm hdd as their primary when cost is a factor. would i be able to do such a thing? would windows read and incorporate all three drives appropriately? if so would i have to use raid, or anything else for that matter? any suggestions at all (in line with this price-point of course) would be greatly appreciated! including where i should store the page file and others. oh and i dont plan on using xp mode AND im WAY anal about keeping my drives clean and at top performance, if that helps. i just hate waiting for things to load lol.

ps. my mobo is a gigabyte 890fxa-ud5/usb3

sorry this is new stuff for me. please be patient!
/me bows down to drive gurus.
lol

thanks all!
 

MRFS

Distinguished
Dec 13, 2008
1,333
0
19,360
short-stroke the VR e.g. with a 32GB primary partition
i.e. same size as your SSD

just after formatting the VR, run the CONTIG freeware:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897428.aspx

like this, from Command Prompt:

Usage: contig [-v] [-n filename length]

e.g.

contig -v -n D:\pagefile.sys 3072000000

Where,
D = drive letter of first partition on VR


The large number -- 3072000000 -- is 1.5 x 2GB or 3,072 Megabytes
(assuming 2GB of RAM here).

Then, change the attributes:

attrib pagefile.sys +A +S +H

Finally, move the OS paging file to the filename "pagefile.sys"
in the first partition on your VR i.e. drive letter "D" in the example above.


You can try the same thing with your 1TB Caviar Black,
which uses perpendicular magnetic recording,
whereas your VR does not.

So, choose the HDD that's fastest.


MRFS
 

metalmancer

Distinguished
Sep 26, 2010
6
0
18,510
im sorry, i appreciate the response, but that sounds complicated. would it really be worth learning all that? is it necessary and/or would it be a very noticable performance boost? and how much space do i stand to forfiet in doing so? both on my disk and my brain : dizzy lol

i dont mean to be unappreciative, but that stuff was all jibberish to me lol