Questions on setting up my SSD

You've got the steps right.

I'm still on Visual Studio 2008 and I have that, the MS-Office suite, Adobe Web Design CS4, Thunderbird, Firefox, and all my other software installed on the SSD. I also have my login profile on the SSD so that all of the Mozilla profiles and temporary internet files are on the SSD for speed. Right now about 75GB of my SSD is in use (it's capacity is 160GB).

That's just about right.

First check for any BIOS updates for your motherboard. If there is one, you'll wind up using the flash drive to flash the BIOS. I did one this morning. Very easy to do. Just follow the motherboard manufacturer's instructions.

After you connect the ssd boot up and go straight into BIOS. Change the disk configuration from IDE to ACHI. While still in BIOS check the start-up configuration and make sure the ssd is listed as the boot drive. The ssd should already be listed as the BIOS should recognize it immediately. Finally, check the power management section

As soon as you have Windows and a web browser installed check to see if there are any motherboard chipset or SATA controller updates. I wound up downloading and installing both this morning.

Things have changed a bit since tecmo wrote that article a while back. There is a lot of new information available so he wrote a brand new article that Tom's Hardware published last week. You might want to take a look at it:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-twe...

If you have enough room there is nothing wrong with installing software programs on your ssd. All of the software you mentioned should do well on the ssd. No problem.

Good Luck!

Ah, gotcha. Another question, though: with things like the temporary files of Firefox and all the e-mails in Thunderbird, won't the write cycles of the SSD get torn through fairly quickly? Or does it not work that way?

personally, i wouldn't worry too much about the # of write cycles unless you are super heavy on it,, the newer SSDs with Trim are protected alot better than the older ones just because trim makes less info write to the drive..and as JohnnyLucky said,, make sure your BIOS is up to date and ACHI is enabled. It is a huge pain in the butt to change it back over after windows is installed.

Also I don't know if you have Intel or AMD, but I suggest heavily not to use Windows ACHI drivers, go to respective website and get Intel Storage Matrix manager or AMD ACHI drivers (may be listed as RAID Driver, the ACHI driver will be in there as well) - i found issues with sleep, etc,, not readily noticeable, however it does end up showing its head. my drive speeds appear to be better now, too

PS when you install Windows, disconnect all other drives as windows has a habit of putting the Boot loader on a random hard drive, usually not the one you want. After install, add your other drives.

^5 +1 what monkeysweat said!

On the system I described in my post above I'm averaging about 5GB of writes per day. Since my 160GB Intel X-25M G2 is supposed to be able to last "at least" 5 years at a write rate of 20GB/day, this means my drive should have a life expectancy of around 20 years. I expect it to be obsolete long before that.

And that's with temporary Internet files, etc. on the drive.

Haha sminlal, I have all those same programs except visual studio 2010 (express edition though) and no adobe web design.  . Oh yeah and Im at 16.8GB out of 80GB on my x25-m. All my big apps go on my hdd, like sims/games. and all my saves, downloads, caches, temps are on my HDD.

I don't know how VS2010 Express fares, but I've found several operations such as searching the help system or bringing up project properties way, way faster in VS2008 when it's installed on the SSD.

Don't fill your drive too full - if you make your drive too full, it will wear out the spare space too quickly. I haven't seen a good rule of thumb, but I reckon it's wise to keep it under 80% full, maybe even less.

If you are not going to care too much about how fast it loads, put it on hard disk.

Well I never had it installed on an HDD so I have nothing to compare, but I know that its fast. It compiles extremely quick, but I'm not sure if thats the SSD or CPU. Either way, SSD makes everything faster/snappier from my experience, it just makes your computer feel more powerful. Best purchase I've ever made for PC.