What SATA Ports do I use?

[Techguy1]

I am plugging in my Hard Drive right now using the Serial ATA cables that came with my motherboard. What SATA ports on the motherboard do I use? There are 4 black ones and 2 white ones. What ones are 6gbs and 3gbs?

Motherboard- Gigabyte z77x-ud3h

 

[cball1311]

Plug it into the port that says SATA3_0. The while ports are Marvell SATA3 ports. Don't use those. If this is a fresh HDD for new build, make sure the SATA controller is set to AHCI in the BIOS.

 

[Techguy1]

Plug it into the port that says SATA3_0. The while ports are Marvell SATA3 ports. Don't use those. If this is a fresh HDD for new build, make sure the SATA controller is set to AHCI in the BIOS.

They are numbered on the motherboard and 0 is on the white colored SATA Port. I am also waiting for a SSD to come in so once I get it were would I plug that one in?
In the BIOS its already set to AHCI mode it looks like.

 

[cball1311]

Ok. Its different than my AMD GIGABYTE board. The white SATA ports are the SATA3, the black ports are SATA2. Marvell is only for eSATA on the I/O Ports. If you are waiting for your SSD (for OS is presume), you should wait until it comes to install the OS. Plug the SSD into SATA3_0 alone and install Windows. Then, once windows installation is done, plug your HDD into SATA3_1. This is recommended because if you have both plugged in and install Windows, it will put the system partition on the HDD while installing the OS on the SSD. This would require that you have the HDD in to boot.

 

[Techguy1]

Ok. Its different than my AMD GIGABYTE board. The white SATA ports are the SATA3, the black ports are SATA2. Marvell is only for eSATA on the I/O Ports. If you are waiting for your SSD (for OS is presume), you should wait until it comes to install the OS. Plug the SSD into SATA3_0 alone and install Windows. Then, once windows installation is done, plug your HDD into SATA3_1. This is recommended because if you have both plugged in and install Windows, it will put the system partition on the HDD while installing the OS on the SSD. This would require that you have the HDD in to boot.

So basically just plug the ssd into the top sata 3 port install windows then plug in the hard drive to the bottom sata 3 port?

I have one more question, When I install the OS on the SSD do I install all updates, drivers, etc on the Hard Drive or SSD?

Also when I go on my bios what are some things that I should change right away, or should I just leave most things to their default settings?


Thanks for helping me !

 

[cball1311]

All updates are done by Windows so there isn't much you can do. They will be installed on the SSD. After all updates and such, you're looking at about 35GB of space so there is still plenty of room left for some apps/games. You might want to google around for how to change your Users directory to the HDD once you have Windows installed. This will save space on the SSD for the ever-growing AppsData hidden folder. I would do this before you install anything other than the basics because you might have to make new shortcuts that point to the HDD. It depends on what you install though and how you do it.

 

[Techguy1]

All updates are done by Windows so there isn't much you can do. They will be installed on the SSD. After all updates and such, you're looking at about 35GB of space so there is still plenty of room left for some apps/games. You might want to google around for how to change your Users directory to the HDD once you have Windows installed. This will save space on the SSD for the ever-growing AppsData hidden folder. I would do this before you install anything other than the basics because you might have to make new shortcuts that point to the HDD. It depends on what you install though and how you do it.

Ok I decided that I am going to be putting all my mobo drivers on a USB and then installing them on my new pc. Just wondering if I should download all of the ones on the gigabyte website or only download certain ones.
http://ca.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4441#dl