Boot drive and Storage Drive questions

[AcidElement]

I will be having a 90GB Corsair Force Series 3 SSD as my boot drive (and only my boot drive), a 120GB Corsair Force Series 3 SSD for all of my favorite programs and games, and a 1TB Western Digital Black 6 Gb/s HDD for my main storage drive...

Questions:

1) How would I be able to make it where the OS doesn't put anything on the boot drive, but on the drive of my choosing? (Windows 7 64-bit)

2) What would be the best set up for a back up drive? (Like slave, raid, etc.)

3) Would that 90GB SSD be more than enough for my boot drive?

That's all the questions I can think of, thanks for any comments and advice!

 

[l0ckd0wn]

1.) What are you referring to, Program Files, documents, etc. ?

2.) Depends on how secure you want your backup drive. I use a RAID 5 array on a separate server to handle all of my data storage, including backups of my other PCs. You could backup to an external HDD if you are not overly concerned about your backup, assuming that your backup drive and main drive don't fail at once. It also depends on what you want to backup; are you saving everything to a single spot, are you just saving the backups which may include a set of the data on your computer already, or are you just dumping media there?

3.) For myself I need at least 500GB of a boot drive just to make sure Steam/Origin have enough space for game installs. Some of the newer games coming out are upwards of 10-20GB, so for me I would need significantly more. 90GB might very well be fine for you.

Idea: SSD Caching) It's been thrown around that some newer motherboards have SSD caching meaning that the SSD drive is used like an active memory (in place of a standard HDD) where the files you are currently working on (OS included) are loaded to the SSD for speedy access and caching of high requested files. This would mean loading your OS/files onto a standard HDD and then dedicating one of your SSD drives to the purpose. It would use up 2 drives in place of a single boot drive, but I believe the end result for your setup would be the same, and actually utilize the minimal amount of SSD space (90 + 120) you have. Then you could also repurpose the other drive for something else.

 

[AcidElement]

I'm referring to any other file that is not a part of the OS or not a program I want to put on the 120GB SSD, pretty much how will I make it so that I can choose where to save almost every file that isn't a part of the OS? Or is it done like that automatically? Idk I've never had a multiple drive computer before.

For the back up drive, I was probably gonna go on the external HDD route, I just want a place to put all of my files (excluding the OS) so incase the drive fails, I will have the back up.

And I know about Intel Smart Response which should be the caching you are talking about, it does seem something to look into, but I am going with an ASUS Sabertooth P67 B3 motherboard though, which only Z68 motherboards have that ablility to do the caching at this time (P67 may never get the ability to do it).

 

[l0ckd0wn]

Be careful with the P67, I've heard a bunch of stories about putting the computer to sleep to have it never wake again. That Sabertooth board does look awesome though, great Mil-spec materials.

Well, I'm going to assume you are running windows, and I'm also going to assume you use your "My Documents" folder (because I have to pee and I want to leave work). A lot of people don't know you can change the location of WHERE you My Documents stores your files. To change the location, click Start > Your Libraries (your name generally). After you are there, Right Click on My Documents and click on the LOCATION Tab. Here you can specify a location on a different HDD, network location, etc. This will also change the default location you save all your files to (including in Office and the Win7 default location) to wherever you have specified the new location to be.

It will ask you if you want to "Move the contents of your My Docs to the new location" and that is up to you if you have stuff already in the folder. If not, then yes or no will have no bearing, obviously.

 

[AcidElement]

Lol thanks alot! This has helped me a bunch!

 

[AcidElement]

Best answer selected by AcidElement.