Regarding shadowplay and recording:
"Q: What is ShadowPlay?
A: NVIDIA GeForce ShadowPlay is a feature in GeForce Experience that lets you capture or stream high-quality in-game footage with minimal performance impact. ShadowPlay has four modes: Shadow Mode, Manual Mode, Shadow + Manual combined mode and and Twitch mode. Shadow Mode records up to the last 20 minutes of your game play. Manual mode lets you toggle recording on and off like a video recorder. Combined mode (default) lets you use both features at the same time. Twitch mode lets you stream to Twitch so others can watch your game."
"Q: How long can I record for?
A: On Windows 8, ShadowPlay can record up to 20 minutes of video in Shadow Mode. There is no recording limit in Manual Mode."
http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/faq
You turn on manual and it records all the time right? You can toggle it anytime you want. I don't understand your comment "so you can't save a normally unrecorded moment". Turn it on in manual and it records every moment, so I'm confused (at least until your drive is full...LOL).