Overall Help

[mattyboyywonder]

So I am a relative amateur, I have one system build under my belt about 2 years ago when SSD were starting to hit the market. Most SSD are small like 64gb or 128gb, I don't get it how can you run a system with that little space Do you have a regular hard drive too? If so how do you decide which programs to install on the SSD or which on the HD. As you can see i could use someone to explain this and more or point me to post that will help me out.

 

[tecmo34]

The ideal size for a SSD is 120GB, which gives you enough room to store the OS, Apps and a few games. It is best to store the most frequent used applications on the SSD, to gain the benefit of the SSD drive.

I would recommend using a HDD (Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB is my recommendation), as the storage drive for your USER files, lease used games and applications. You can setup the USER folder on the hard drive by following these steps: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

Here is an article I wrote on "tweaking" a SSD that has some other useful information: http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html

 

[mattyboyywonder]

What about the connections? Does my motherboard need to be SSD able?

 

[tecmo34]

As long as your motherboard has a SATA slot for a hard drive (ideally SATA II with AHCI support in the BIOS), your SSD will work. You just plug in one SATA cable to the SSD and one into the HDD. You'll want the SSD on SATA_0 or the first SATA slot (unless running SATA III, which could be SATAG3_4 or something like that).

 

[mattyboyywonder]

Best answer selected by mattyboyywonder.