One Big SSD or SSD and HHD combo

[extremewinters]

That is the question boys and girls. Should I buy a 320 gig SSD and install OS and other applications on the drive, while using an external drive for photos, videos, and music. Or should I get an SSD and HHD internal combo set up?

I understand that SSD's are very fast but I also heard they were plug and pray.

my setup:

i5 2500k
(2) GTX 570 TI Sli
Asus p67Z68 extreme IV
Psu 850 plus Corsair
Corsair 470
8 gig memory Dominator

 

[ScrewySqrl]

I'd suggest a large (1 TB-2 tb) drive for storage and most programs, and a 128 GB SSD for OS and your most used programs

 

[WyomingKnott]

To me, it's a budget question. I would have an SSD and at least one slower storage drive, but the bigger the SSD, the more you can do with it. If you edit video, having enough SSD space for your entire projects would give a noticeable performance improvement.

So how much money have you got to throw at this?

 

[outlw6669]

+1 ScrewySqrl

The best cost/performance setup would be a modestly sized SSD boot + commonly used program drive and a large conventional hard drive for storage.

 

[extremewinters]

+1 ScrewySqrl

The best cost/performance setup would be a modestly sized SSD boot + commonly used program drive and a large conventional hard drive for storage.

Your comment makes sense to me. Whats the best way to set up the SSD and the common hardrive used for programs. I'm assuming SSD and a mechanical drive. Then the 3rd 1.5t mechanical hard drive for storage. I I set the first 2 drives in a raid or what?

 

[extremewinters]

To me, it's a budget question. I would have an SSD and at least one slower storage drive, but the bigger the SSD, the more you can do with it. If you edit video, having enough SSD space for your entire projects would give a noticeable performance improvement.

So how much money have you got to throw at this?

I'm ok with a 200+ gig SSD and one mechanical drive for example a 1.5t drive. I'm ok with spending $300 to $350.00 on an SSD. Whats the best way to set up the 2 drives on a new build.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I'm ok with a 200+ gig SSD and one mechanical drive for example a 1.5t drive. I'm ok with spending $300 to $350.00 on an SSD. Whats the best way to set up the 2 drives on a new build.

Lessee. The traditional method is to attach only the SSD and install the OS (to ensure that no part of it gets left on the other drive). Then re-attach the HDD and repoint all your file storage to it, My Documents and My Music and the storage directories for whatever space-hog apps you may run, like iTunes or video editing or...
Finish installing all the apps that you are going to run. With an SSD of 200 GB, all of your programs will likely fit and you don't have to worry about how to install some apps on the HDD.

That's the traditional setup, because most people don't want to spend more on the SSD than is needed to accelerate app loading. With 200 GB, you can think about what part of your data would benefit most from really snappy read/write times. Dowloaded music doesn't need it. You download at Web speeds, and play at 1x CD speeds, and any old drive is fast enough. If you are editing, transcoding, or capturing HD video, the rest of your SSD will make a lovely place for you to work. For those few of us who run databases, it's a great location. For most of my stuff, having it on an SSD would be a waste - it just doesn't need to go that fast. 100 GB is more than I am going to put on the SSD for the next few years.

(Actually, I'm quite concerned with noise, so I put my Email and frequently used docs on the SSD so that my HDDs don't spin up when I access them. But nothing large.)

And just in time, here's Tom's on the best that you can get for your money: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html

 

[extremewinters]

Best answer selected by extremewinters.

 

[extremewinters]

Lessee. The traditional method is to attach only the SSD and install the OS (to ensure that no part of it gets left on the other drive). Then re-attach the HDD and repoint all your file storage to it, My Documents and My Music and the storage directories for whatever space-hog apps you may run, like iTunes or video editing or...
Finish installing all the apps that you are going to run. With an SSD of 200 GB, all of your programs will likely fit and you don't have to worry about how to install some apps on the HDD.

That's the traditional setup, because most people don't want to spend more on the SSD than is needed to accelerate app loading. With 200 GB, you can think about what part of your data would benefit most from really snappy read/write times. Dowloaded music doesn't need it. You download at Web speeds, and play at 1x CD speeds, and any old drive is fast enough. If you are editing, transcoding, or capturing HD video, the rest of your SSD will make a lovely place for you to work. For those few of us who run databases, it's a great location. For most of my stuff, having it on an SSD would be a waste - it just doesn't need to go that fast. 100 GB is more than I am going to put on the SSD for the next few years.

(Actually, I'm quite concerned with noise, so I put my Email and frequently used docs on the SSD so that my HDDs don't spin up when I access them. But nothing large.)

And just in time, here's Tom's on the best that you can get for your money: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html

OK, if I go with a 200+ gig SSD. Your saying to just put basically OS, and heavy used applications on there. Itunes, winrar, games, video files, photos, and ETC on the HDD. I understand. Important question: If I use the 200+ gigs SSD for everything and occasionally back up photos, music, and videos on an external HDD would the 200 gig SSD be able to handle the load and still see a noticeable increase in speed. I'm also concerned about the SSD crashing and having to reload windows 7 and losing my precise stuff. I heard about the rumors.

 

[dish_moose]

The Patriot Wildfire and Mushkin Chronos Deluxe are two of the fastest 120 GB SSDs that we've ever tested. Both demonstrate what SandForce's newest controller can do when matched up to Toggle Mode flash. This is from Tom's best SSD for the month of Aug. You do have SATA 6G/s - the 120 GB Patriot looks pretty good to me. This and a spinpoint F3 1T would be a great combo.
-Bruce

 

[extremewinters]

The Patriot Wildfire and Mushkin Chronos Deluxe are two of the fastest 120 GB SSDs that we've ever tested. Both demonstrate what SandForce's newest controller can do when matched up to Toggle Mode flash. This is from Tom's best SSD for the month of Aug. You do have SATA 6G/s - the 120 GB Patriot looks pretty good to me. This and a spinpoint F3 1T would be a great combo.
-Bruce

Thank you. I just did some research on the Spinpoint f3 and recently the Western digital cavier black has moved in front of the spinpoint. The spinpoint I heard is kinda noisey. The Patriot wildfire 120 gig sounds good. Install OS and really thats it on the patriot SSD and then use the Western digital for storage and heavy applications.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Important question: If I use the 200+ gigs SSD for everything and occasionally back up photos, music, and videos on an external HDD would the 200 gig SSD be able to handle the load and still see a noticeable increase in speed. I'm also concerned about the SSD crashing and having to reload windows 7 and losing my precise stuff. I heard about the rumors.

If you mean that your entire environment, data and OS, will fit in 200 GB, then go for it and use the SSD only. For one thing, your machine will be quieter. But the mention of music and videos makes me think that you will have data to put on the HDD too. Which is the case?

You should back up both your OS and your data. But you use different methods. The OS is backed up as an "image". If your system drive fails, just restore the image to a new drive and it will run again! The image backup really only needs to be made after software installs; after all, all that changes after that is updates that can be re-run.

For the data, you want to do a rotation of full backup, a number of incremental backups, and repeat. Always have at least two full cycles on hand; you don't want to be overwriting your only full backup when the system crashes, and then have no usable backups.

A slightly vague answer because I'm not sure what you meant by "use the 200+ gigs SSD for everything."