Pairing SSD with HDD

[ThomasMagnus]

Hi,

I am currently running out of space on my Intel 120gb SSD, so I am looking into buying a 1TB mechanical drive. When I get the mechanical drive, can I just plug it in and transfer files to it, or do I need to make some master slave relationship between the two? Everything is currently on my SSD, and I want to put documents and photos etc on the HDD to free up space. Also, does it matter if the motherboard is set to AHCI when using a SATA drive?

Thanks!

 

[Emerald]

the HDD does not care if the BIOS is set to AHCI but the SSD does.

I would get a WD Blue or Black.

no master/slave setting required.

 

[ThomasMagnus]

So it's essentially just plug and play then? Here is the one I am looking at (I have a gift card here)

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/wd-wd-1tb-3-5-sata-internal-desktop-hard-drive-wdbh2d0010hnc-nrsn-wdbh2d0010hnc-nrsn/10256801.aspx?path=e12bf0c4ea8b5919e59cb6efa53a3934en02

Would this work with an ASUS P5QL PRO, and core 2 duo e8400?

 

[Emerald]

that is a WD Blue which should work just fine

 

[ThomasMagnus]

So even though it's SATA 3, and my board is SATA2 it should be OK? In the next few months I will be upgrading.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Emerald]

Yes it will auto-detect the SATA speed and run at SATA2.

 

[ThomasMagnus]

Thank you Emerald

 

[ThomasMagnus]

OK, so I bought the WD blue 1TB. At first it was recognized in the bios, but not in windows, so we used these settings {in the image}. I read in another form to go into disk manager and activate it as a master boot drive. So, from this image, does everything look OK? Note: The OS and programs are on the SSD.

Thanks!

 

[Jethro52]

If your OS is on the SSD (C: drive) then you do not want to activate the WD HDD as a master boot drive. Looks like you have everything set up correctly now and should be good to go. You only need to relocate your data (and possibly some program) files.

 

[ThomasMagnus]

Double post