SSD + regular hard drive

[Buffy]

I want to buy a SSD to put my operating system and some games on, and use my regular hard drive that is in there now as storage for music/books/etc.

Is this called a RAID configuration? I've never had dual hard drives like that before.

Any common mistakes?

Should I format both at the same time?

[Sonomaa]

if you want to reload fresh, pull your old drive, install the SSD and windows to it with no other drives attached, once you have the SSD configured and setup and the primary book attach your old drive, get the data you want from it, format it, then use it as storage or overflow for games that just wont fit the SSD

[Yugl]

That's not raid; just dual drives. I would mimic the common folders such as Program Files and Program Files (86x). There shouldn't be any tricks needed unless you plan to make your Personal Folder part of the HDD instead of SSD.

[Dantrag]

Not a raid. Raid is when you have 2+ of the exact size and speed to create basically 1 disk. You'll just see a C: D: E: disk on your computer. Do you have anything on your non-SSD drive that you want to keep? If not just format them both and start over.

[LinktheDeme]

Something I'd like to add is never defrag your SSD. EVER you dont gain benefits and you trim it's life unnecessarily. You can defrag your HDDs while your SSD is plugged in no problem though.

[Buffy]

Ok. I've installed the SSD and windows and have put certain programs on the SSD. I'm running out of room quickly, which I expected and don't want to add anything after FFXIV finishes updating.

Can I just plug the HDD in and Windows 7 will read it and I can access it?

[Buffy]

Ok. I've installed the SSD and windows and have put certain programs on the SSD. I'm running out of room quickly, which I expected and don't want to add anything after FFXIV finishes updating.

Can I just plug the HDD in and Windows 7 will read it and I can access it?

The answer is yes, I can just plug it in and access it.

Do I need to reformat? Or can I run my previous installations of office and so forth from here?

[Gredival]

The answer is yes, I can just plug it in and access it.

Do I need to reformat? Or can I run my previous installations of office and so forth from here?

Anything you have previously installed with the HDD as the main drive will not run with your new SSD as the boot drive. The installation was done with your HDD as the main drive. You need to reinstall every program; you can install them onto the HDD, but they need to be reinstalled for the registry to recognize where the program is.

That is why the suggestion was just to pull what you need from the HDD and then reformat it, since you have to reinstall anyway it might as well be on a clean slate.

[Buffy]

Anything you have previously installed with the HDD as the main drive will not run with your new SSD as the boot drive. The installation was done with your HDD as the main drive. You need to reinstall every program; you can install them onto the HDD, but they need to be reinstalled for the registry to recognize where the program is.

That is why the suggestion was just to pull what you need from the HDD and then reformat it, since you have to reinstall anyway it might as well be on a clean slate.

Yah, I sorta reached that point from this thread and Google-fu and what I was experiencing. I was particularly unaware of two things headed into this process though. Microsoft Office 2013 gets REALLY bitchy when you try to put it on the non-main drive. It requires registry hacks and it does not enjoy it, and the size of the Windows updates for Windows 7 is larger than I expected. I'm going to be at 75% capacity on a 128 GB SSD just from Windows 7, Office 2013, FFXIV, and one random other game I put on there. I wish I had realized how big the Windows 7 updates would be, I've downloaded like 20 GB in updates so far.

[Gredival]

You can free up some room by getting rid of the installation files after you are all patched (it's a Disk Cleanup option iirc), but yeah 120GB usually pushes after 1-2 games. I have constantly monitor my usage with a 120GB. I think 240GB is usually more than enough though and those are getting into the low $100 range.

[Waraji]

I sit here with a 30GB OS SSD.

I've done all sorts of shit to not get this thing overloaded. Turned off Hibernation Caching, junction points for all program files and user files. I've managed to keep my drive at about 85% capacity. Soon I'll be getting a 500GB :3 and won't bother doing most of this (except for Hibernation Caching, fuck that noise).

Everything is junctioned off to a RAID0 with two 500GB HDD's. It's pretty sweet, except for that one time my shit went haywire and my MB turned off RAID. Messed up my user files, had to create new users, transfer all files, ugh what a fucking nightmare. Learned a lot though.

[Yugl]

If you haven't set BIOS to ACHI, but have installed windows, use this registry trick:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...r-Installation

Remember to activate TRIM

Here's a link with several stuff you can do optionally:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/s...-for-ssds-hdds

[Obiron]

To expand on Waraji's post, unless you use hibernation you want to turn it off. This will free up space equal to the size of your RAM.
Open a command prompt (run as admin) and type "powercfg -h off" without the quotes.

[bungiefan]

Isn't there a way to install Windows so it puts the Program Files directories on a secondary drive from install, by defining custom system variables? Or a way to make a Symbolic Link or Junction that takes their place? I know trying to do it after the fact breaks things.

[Waraji]

Yes, that's how I got it done. You do it via Audit Mode by clicking Ctrl+Shift+F3 during initialization of new user. You can then either do the junctions manually or via a batch file. I have my own batch file I tailored to the folders I wanted to move out, it also makes it so every New User that gets created is created on the HD.

I have the steps and the original batch file template with steps saved on word files, although they are meant for Vista, it works the same for W7.

[Buffy]

Thank You Waraji

To expand on Waraji's post, unless you use hibernation you want to turn it off. This will free up space equal to the size of your RAM.
Open a command prompt (run as admin) and type "powercfg -h off" without the quotes.

And Thank You Obiron

I have 32GB of RAM, this was, um....more than a little helpful. Back up over 50GB free space now.