SSD & HDD

[Tigerbite]

Alright guys, just bought myself a 120GB SSD Drive. Got it in yesterday and planning on doing a clean install of Win7 on it.

I also have a 500GB 7200RPM HDD and a 1TB 5400RPM HDD.

Before the SSD I had everything on my 500GB HDD except for movies and music. What would be the best setup for me now.

Of course, the OS will be on the SSD as well as my graphic programs. Flash, Photoshop, etc.

Are my music and movies best left alone on the 5400RPM. I don't think the RPM makes much difference to them. What about my games? The 5400, 7200 or SSD? Does it really improve anything game related besides the load/boot time?

Also, when I put my computer together at the beginning it asked me if I wanted to change to ACHI from IDE? I said yes and then I couldn't boot because bootmgr was missing. Assuming I do that now, then do the clean install on the SSD. Will my other 2 HDDs be fine and still have all my music/movies/games on them?

 

[silvermink]

Once you install the OS, Photoshop and other applications there won't be alot of space left on the SSD. Make sure you disable hibernation if you don't use it. Where you install games depends on the game. Installing them on the SSD would help reduce load times and minimize caching lag, but many of today's games take up 5GB of space and games like SWTOR and WOW are over 20GB. You definitely don't want them on your SSD. I would keep data files on the 1TB (unless you are making heavy changes to them) and install large programs on the 500GB.

The bootmgr error comes from the bios not finding the file on the primary hard drive. Turning on ACHI would also cause Windows 7 to fail to boot if you didn't activate the drivers first. If you are doing a clean install on the new hard drive it will solve both of those issues (have ACHI before you install). The files on the 2 HDD should not be affected by the install of windows on the SSD and should appear as the D and E drives.

 

[Tigerbite]

Alright sounds good. But just want to clarify before I start blowing stuff up.
Right now, I moved all my files that I don't feel like reinstalling to my 1TB drive.

I'm going to go in and change everything to ACHI. Then I'm going to install Win7 on my SSD. Then I'm going to wipe my 500GB clean. Then I should be set?! Hope this works! *waits 6 hours to get off work*

 

[techguy911]

What is the motherboard chipset and cpu? if its z68+ chipset you could use Intel Smart Response Technology all data would be on hard drive but anything used more than once would be read from ssd cached.
SSD's can be filled up quickly also user directories such a documents,pictures,downloads,music can be set to any other drive.
Windows 7 - Change Location of My Documents
All other directories can be changed same way in windows 7.

 

[silvermink]

Intel Smart Response only recognizes drives up to 64GB. When using larger drives it's easier just to put the OS on the SSD.