Opinion on HHD and SSD raid configuration, also how to move programs from one storage unit to another correctly.

[ChemicallyNerd]

I have two 1T HDD's and 1/2T SSD(With a copy of windows 8 on it) for a total of 2.5T of storage, not sure on speeds.

What I would like from this set up is to have the ability to have all the drives to work as one storage unit, but any games and large programs (Namely something like photoshop) to be stored on the SSD to cut loading times.
Also is it possible to have a program decide or alest a quicker way of moving small programs to the HDD's from the SSD (Because currently everything is on the SSD)?
I also don't know if moving the any of the programs to the HDD's will even work because they will be in a different directory so if you could help me with this as well that would be great.

I am new this custom computer building world and all this configuration stuff so sorry if this is outright impossible. and excuse any grammar or spelling mistakes, word check can only go so far.

Thank you for your time

 

[hang-the-9]

You can't do what you want since Windows will decide where to place the files when you set up the drives as a JBOD array to get one letter for all your drives. I'm not even sure if you can install Windows on a JBOD array. JOBD stands for Just A Bunch Of Disks which is a way for the computer to use different size drives and just mush them together into one drive letter.

You should keep the SSD as the main drive for Windows and programs and then you can setup the two hard drives as either JBOD or a RAID 0 setup (and keep backups of it all on another hard drive). Both JBOD and RAID 0 have no failure protection and RAID 0 is especially risky since a failure in either of the drives means data from both is gone. If you want 2 TB of space on a single drive, I'd just get a new 2 TB drive and then use your current drives as backups.

 

[ChemicallyNerd]

You can't do what you want since Windows will decide where to place the files when you set up the drives as a JBOD array to get one letter for all your drives. I'm not even sure if you can install Windows on a JBOD array. JOBD stands for Just A Bunch Of Disks which is a way for the computer to use different size drives and just mush them together into one drive letter.

You should keep the SSD as the main drive for Windows and programs and then you can setup the two hard drives as either JBOD or a RAID 0 setup (and keep backups of it all on another hard drive). Both JBOD and RAID 0 have no failure protection and RAID 0 is especially risky since a failure in either of the drives means data from both is gone. If you want 2 TB of space on a single drive, I'd just get a new 2 TB drive and then use your current drives as backups.

Thank you for your reply, and sorry I did not get back to you sooner I was having surgery.

So is there in any way I can put any programs from the SSD into one of the HDD's to free up space? Also I was doing some research into the matter and RAID 5 looked promising but if I am keeping the SSD separate I wont be able to use a RAID 5 configuration because it requires 3 drives (I think any way).

P.S. The reason I did not purchase one 2TB HDD is because they were salvaged from some old pc's my school was throwing away from the media department. And if I were to buy anything I would rather just get another SSD and run it in RAID 0 with my current. Using the HDD's as a backup in case of any corruption

 

[Xibyth]

I would highly recommend a good old fashioned uninstall reinstall for any programs on the SSD to move them to the HDD. This will clear and allocate any registry entries and dependencies of the applications on the new drive and reduce errors.

 

[hang-the-9]

You can't do what you want since Windows will decide where to place the files when you set up the drives as a JBOD array to get one letter for all your drives. I'm not even sure if you can install Windows on a JBOD array. JOBD stands for Just A Bunch Of Disks which is a way for the computer to use different size drives and just mush them together into one drive letter.

You should keep the SSD as the main drive for Windows and programs and then you can setup the two hard drives as either JBOD or a RAID 0 setup (and keep backups of it all on another hard drive). Both JBOD and RAID 0 have no failure protection and RAID 0 is especially risky since a failure in either of the drives means data from both is gone. If you want 2 TB of space on a single drive, I'd just get a new 2 TB drive and then use your current drives as backups.

Thank you for your reply, and sorry I did not get back to you sooner I was having surgery.

So is there in any way I can put any programs from the SSD into one of the HDD's to free up space? Also I was doing some research into the matter and RAID 5 looked promising but if I am keeping the SSD separate I wont be able to use a RAID 5 configuration because it requires 3 drives (I think any way).

P.S. The reason I did not purchase one 2TB HDD is because they were salvaged from some old pc's my school was throwing away from the media department. And if I were to buy anything I would rather just get another SSD and run it in RAID 0 with my current. Using the HDD's as a backup in case of any corruption

A 512 gig SSD should have enough space for any programs I can think of anyone wanting to use, even plenty of games.

Where are you storing your Documents and Downloads? That is what you would want to move, and you can do that right from Windows, just re-map where your documents, downloads and even things like music and movies are. Set a new location for them on the regular hard drives, Windows will move them there for you.