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New SSD Drive -- Software Installation
I'm about to build a new PC with a 250gb SSD drive and a 500gb Sata 3
Hard disk. I will be installing Windows 7 on the SSD drive, but wanted to know should I install Office and other programs on the Sata drive or should these also be installed on the SSD drive? Should I just use the Sata drive to hold data files like music, pictures and videos? Rig will be: Cooler Master Elite 120 Case Asus H87I Motherboard Mini-ITX Intel i5-4670 Haswell 3.4ghz 16gb 1600 DDR3 RAM Corsair Force LS Series CSSD-F240GBLS 2.5" 240GB Western Digital 500gb Sata 3 Drive - Blue Lable PNY VCGGTX650XPB GeForce GTX 650 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Once Windows 7 is installed I may want to dual boot with Linux Ubuntu. Not sure if I should reserve some space on the SSD drive for this purpose or just use the Sata drive for Linux. |
#2
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New SSD Drive -- Software Installation
Jack wrote:
I'm about to build a new PC with a 250gb SSD drive and a 500gb Sata 3 Hard disk. I will be installing Windows 7 on the SSD drive, but wanted to know should I install Office and other programs on the Sata drive or should these also be installed on the SSD drive? Should I just use the Sata drive to hold data files like music, pictures and videos? Rig will be: Cooler Master Elite 120 Case Asus H87I Motherboard Mini-ITX Intel i5-4670 Haswell 3.4ghz 16gb 1600 DDR3 RAM Corsair Force LS Series CSSD-F240GBLS 2.5" 240GB Western Digital 500gb Sata 3 Drive - Blue Lable PNY VCGGTX650XPB GeForce GTX 650 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Once Windows 7 is installed I may want to dual boot with Linux Ubuntu. Not sure if I should reserve some space on the SSD drive for this purpose or just use the Sata drive for Linux. Here's what I would do. 1) Install all programs on the SSD. It's 250GB after all. Plenty of room. No need to skimp any more. 2) You could attempt to place a movie folder on the hard drive partition, and make that part of your Movie library. Make that folder the Default folder. Things dropped in Movie, will end up on the hard drive. On my current machine, I keep my downloads on C:. When I acquire relatively large files, I have a second partition, and I move the files manually over there. That allows me to keep C: relatively small and easy to do AV scans or backups. My Win7 might have 30GB of files, and the WinXP one around 20GB. 3) Placing Linux on the hard drive, does the following for you. Now you have just one boot manager and OS per hard drive. Using the popup boot menu in the motherboard BIOS, you can select Windows 7 or Linux from there. If you ever need to unplug either device, they're independent. If the SSD dies with Windows 7 on it, just unplug it, and you have a Linux machine. So in fact, your ideas are pretty close to what I'd do with those two drives. I like an OS per disk, as a rule. I actually keep my Linux on a pen drive (Mint with Mate interface). If Linux was my every-day OS, then it would end up on a hard drive. On my first PC, I had three OSes on one hard drive, and I used Boot Magic to manage them. I had no problems with that. For no particular reason, I run one OS per disk now. Maybe it's the complexity of dealing with BCDEDIT or GRUB that scares me :-) ******* Don't forget to make backups of your C: on SSD. There have been enough instances in the past, where the SSD just "disappears" from one day to the next, that you should make more frequent backups for your own peace of mind. You can use Macrium Reflect Free. And set it so that after the backup is complete, it shuts off the computer. I think I saw that option in there, but haven't used it myself. My C: contents are small enough, it only takes about ten minutes to back up, so I just do mine during the day (while making lunch etc). http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx You can also use the System Image function in Windows 7. That works great, and I've used that on my laptop. I stage the backup on the laptop drive, and then transfer the monolithic backup file after that (to another PC over the network). That avoids the nuisance of dragging a slow USB2 hard drive to the laptop. With the GbE network, I can get 100MB/sec. With the USB2 drive, only 30MB/sec. Sot it's not that bad to just transfer it over later, over the network. I've still got no USB3 computers here. And only one USB3 pen drive. On Windows 8, the System Image went missing (it's hard to find). In digging around, you can also do System Image backups with wbadmin, like this. I think the wbadmin might be on Windows 7 as well. wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:N: -include:,F: -allCritical That transfers D:, F:, C:, SYSTEM RESERVED (four partitions) to N:. When you look in N:, you'll find four VHD files, and each one holds a partition. VHD files also happen to be the storage format of choice for virtual machines. Meaning those images are also accessible with other tools, if need be. ******* Windows 7 can be installed in one or two partitions. If you were running Ultimate, and using Bitlocker encryption, the C: partition is fully encrypted, while SYSTEM RESERVED is used for booting. For people with no interest in BitLocker, and not likely to own something like Ultimate, you can dispense with the second partition. During your Windows 7 install, you can install both OS and boot files, in a single partition. That is, if you make a partition on the SSD first. You can boot to the Recovery Console, using the Windows 7 DVD, use "diskpart" and make a single C: partition. This is reminiscent of working in Linux, using a Linux LiveCD to make empty EXT3 partitions for your new install, and "leading Linux by the nose". It's the same idea. If the Windows 7 DVD sees a partition structure, it may offer you the option to install in the new C: you made. If you don't want the hassle, it's also possible to just let Windows 7 "have its way" with the SSD, and install two partitions. Then, you can use this recipe to convert to a single partition. I did this one to my laptop, and it worked out OK. "How to Remove the Windows "System Reserved" Partition" http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 Have fun, Paul |
#3
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New SSD Drive -- Software Installation
In the last episode of ,
Jack said: I'm about to build a new PC with a 250gb SSD drive and a 500gb Sata 3 Hard disk. I will be installing Windows 7 on the SSD drive, but wanted to know should I install Office and other programs on the Sata drive or should these also be installed on the SSD drive? If you want the benefits of an SSD, install the OS, any/all applications and as much data on the SSD as possible. Should I just use the Sata drive to hold data files like music, pictures and videos? Music and videos can probably live on the rotational drive, but pictures are worthwhile putting on the SSD since photo software will often scan/index large chunks of the database, possibly doing it more than once (Windows Live Photo Gallery, for example, periodically re-scans to update it's facial recognition database), and frankly, most people don't have a large enough photo library to be a problem on a 250GB SSD. Video and music (for playback) don't need any sort of speed, so they're good candidates to put on the rotational drive, assuming you just video them. If you're editing or doing anything of the sort, use the SSD. -- Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion. -- Superintendent Chalmers |
#4
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New SSD Drive -- Software Installation
On 12/29/2013 8:26 PM, Paul wrote:
Jack wrote: I'm about to build a new PC with a 250gb SSD drive and a 500gb Sata 3 Hard disk. I will be installing Windows 7 on the SSD drive, but wanted to know should I install Office and other programs on the Sata drive or should these also be installed on the SSD drive? Should I just use the Sata drive to hold data files like music, pictures and videos? Rig will be: Cooler Master Elite 120 Case Asus H87I Motherboard Mini-ITX Intel i5-4670 Haswell 3.4ghz 16gb 1600 DDR3 RAM Corsair Force LS Series CSSD-F240GBLS 2.5" 240GB Western Digital 500gb Sata 3 Drive - Blue Lable PNY VCGGTX650XPB GeForce GTX 650 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Once Windows 7 is installed I may want to dual boot with Linux Ubuntu. Not sure if I should reserve some space on the SSD drive for this purpose or just use the Sata drive for Linux. Here's what I would do. 1) Install all programs on the SSD. It's 250GB after all. Plenty of room. No need to skimp any more. 2) You could attempt to place a movie folder on the hard drive partition, and make that part of your Movie library. Make that folder the Default folder. Things dropped in Movie, will end up on the hard drive. On my current machine, I keep my downloads on C:. When I acquire relatively large files, I have a second partition, and I move the files manually over there. That allows me to keep C: relatively small and easy to do AV scans or backups. My Win7 might have 30GB of files, and the WinXP one around 20GB. 3) Placing Linux on the hard drive, does the following for you. Now you have just one boot manager and OS per hard drive. Using the popup boot menu in the motherboard BIOS, you can select Windows 7 or Linux from there. If you ever need to unplug either device, they're independent. If the SSD dies with Windows 7 on it, just unplug it, and you have a Linux machine. So in fact, your ideas are pretty close to what I'd do with those two drives. I like an OS per disk, as a rule. I actually keep my Linux on a pen drive (Mint with Mate interface). If Linux was my every-day OS, then it would end up on a hard drive. On my first PC, I had three OSes on one hard drive, and I used Boot Magic to manage them. I had no problems with that. For no particular reason, I run one OS per disk now. Maybe it's the complexity of dealing with BCDEDIT or GRUB that scares me :-) ******* Don't forget to make backups of your C: on SSD. There have been enough instances in the past, where the SSD just "disappears" from one day to the next, that you should make more frequent backups for your own peace of mind. You can use Macrium Reflect Free. And set it so that after the backup is complete, it shuts off the computer. I think I saw that option in there, but haven't used it myself. My C: contents are small enough, it only takes about ten minutes to back up, so I just do mine during the day (while making lunch etc). http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx You can also use the System Image function in Windows 7. That works great, and I've used that on my laptop. I stage the backup on the laptop drive, and then transfer the monolithic backup file after that (to another PC over the network). That avoids the nuisance of dragging a slow USB2 hard drive to the laptop. With the GbE network, I can get 100MB/sec. With the USB2 drive, only 30MB/sec. Sot it's not that bad to just transfer it over later, over the network. I've still got no USB3 computers here. And only one USB3 pen drive. On Windows 8, the System Image went missing (it's hard to find). In digging around, you can also do System Image backups with wbadmin, like this. I think the wbadmin might be on Windows 7 as well. wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:N: -include:,F: -allCritical That transfers D:, F:, C:, SYSTEM RESERVED (four partitions) to N:. When you look in N:, you'll find four VHD files, and each one holds a partition. VHD files also happen to be the storage format of choice for virtual machines. Meaning those images are also accessible with other tools, if need be. ******* Windows 7 can be installed in one or two partitions. If you were running Ultimate, and using Bitlocker encryption, the C: partition is fully encrypted, while SYSTEM RESERVED is used for booting. For people with no interest in BitLocker, and not likely to own something like Ultimate, you can dispense with the second partition. During your Windows 7 install, you can install both OS and boot files, in a single partition. That is, if you make a partition on the SSD first. You can boot to the Recovery Console, using the Windows 7 DVD, use "diskpart" and make a single C: partition. This is reminiscent of working in Linux, using a Linux LiveCD to make empty EXT3 partitions for your new install, and "leading Linux by the nose". It's the same idea. If the Windows 7 DVD sees a partition structure, it may offer you the option to install in the new C: you made. If you don't want the hassle, it's also possible to just let Windows 7 "have its way" with the SSD, and install two partitions. Then, you can use this recipe to convert to a single partition. I did this one to my laptop, and it worked out OK. "How to Remove the Windows "System Reserved" Partition" http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 Have fun, Paul Thanks for the detailed message Paul. I have tried the free version of Reflect and will probably upgrade to the Personal version as I would probably need Incremental backups after a Full Backup. I should be building this system later this week as components arrive. I was planning on formatting the sata drive as NTFS, but follow your logic with the two OS option scenario. I will probably get a 1TB drive and use that as my data drive for Windows and use the 500gb drive for my Linux OS and format that as EXT4 for / and /home with multiple distros on this 500gb drive. |
#5
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New SSD Drive -- Software Installation
On 12/30/2013 6:11 PM, Jack wrote:
On 12/29/2013 8:26 PM, Paul wrote: Jack wrote: I'm about to build a new PC with a 250gb SSD drive and a 500gb Sata 3 Hard disk. I will be installing Windows 7 on the SSD drive, but wanted to know should I install Office and other programs on the Sata drive or should these also be installed on the SSD drive? Should I just use the Sata drive to hold data files like music, pictures and videos? Rig will be: Cooler Master Elite 120 Case Asus H87I Motherboard Mini-ITX Intel i5-4670 Haswell 3.4ghz 16gb 1600 DDR3 RAM Corsair Force LS Series CSSD-F240GBLS 2.5" 240GB Western Digital 500gb Sata 3 Drive - Blue Lable PNY VCGGTX650XPB GeForce GTX 650 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Once Windows 7 is installed I may want to dual boot with Linux Ubuntu. Not sure if I should reserve some space on the SSD drive for this purpose or just use the Sata drive for Linux. Here's what I would do. 1) Install all programs on the SSD. It's 250GB after all. Plenty of room. No need to skimp any more. 2) You could attempt to place a movie folder on the hard drive partition, and make that part of your Movie library. Make that folder the Default folder. Things dropped in Movie, will end up on the hard drive. On my current machine, I keep my downloads on C:. When I acquire relatively large files, I have a second partition, and I move the files manually over there. That allows me to keep C: relatively small and easy to do AV scans or backups. My Win7 might have 30GB of files, and the WinXP one around 20GB. 3) Placing Linux on the hard drive, does the following for you. Now you have just one boot manager and OS per hard drive. Using the popup boot menu in the motherboard BIOS, you can select Windows 7 or Linux from there. If you ever need to unplug either device, they're independent. If the SSD dies with Windows 7 on it, just unplug it, and you have a Linux machine. So in fact, your ideas are pretty close to what I'd do with those two drives. I like an OS per disk, as a rule. I actually keep my Linux on a pen drive (Mint with Mate interface). If Linux was my every-day OS, then it would end up on a hard drive. On my first PC, I had three OSes on one hard drive, and I used Boot Magic to manage them. I had no problems with that. For no particular reason, I run one OS per disk now. Maybe it's the complexity of dealing with BCDEDIT or GRUB that scares me :-) ******* Don't forget to make backups of your C: on SSD. There have been enough instances in the past, where the SSD just "disappears" from one day to the next, that you should make more frequent backups for your own peace of mind. You can use Macrium Reflect Free. And set it so that after the backup is complete, it shuts off the computer. I think I saw that option in there, but haven't used it myself. My C: contents are small enough, it only takes about ten minutes to back up, so I just do mine during the day (while making lunch etc). http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx You can also use the System Image function in Windows 7. That works great, and I've used that on my laptop. I stage the backup on the laptop drive, and then transfer the monolithic backup file after that (to another PC over the network). That avoids the nuisance of dragging a slow USB2 hard drive to the laptop. With the GbE network, I can get 100MB/sec. With the USB2 drive, only 30MB/sec. Sot it's not that bad to just transfer it over later, over the network. I've still got no USB3 computers here. And only one USB3 pen drive. On Windows 8, the System Image went missing (it's hard to find). In digging around, you can also do System Image backups with wbadmin, like this. I think the wbadmin might be on Windows 7 as well. wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:N: -include:,F: -allCritical That transfers D:, F:, C:, SYSTEM RESERVED (four partitions) to N:. When you look in N:, you'll find four VHD files, and each one holds a partition. VHD files also happen to be the storage format of choice for virtual machines. Meaning those images are also accessible with other tools, if need be. ******* Windows 7 can be installed in one or two partitions. If you were running Ultimate, and using Bitlocker encryption, the C: partition is fully encrypted, while SYSTEM RESERVED is used for booting. For people with no interest in BitLocker, and not likely to own something like Ultimate, you can dispense with the second partition. During your Windows 7 install, you can install both OS and boot files, in a single partition. That is, if you make a partition on the SSD first. You can boot to the Recovery Console, using the Windows 7 DVD, use "diskpart" and make a single C: partition. This is reminiscent of working in Linux, using a Linux LiveCD to make empty EXT3 partitions for your new install, and "leading Linux by the nose". It's the same idea. If the Windows 7 DVD sees a partition structure, it may offer you the option to install in the new C: you made. If you don't want the hassle, it's also possible to just let Windows 7 "have its way" with the SSD, and install two partitions. Then, you can use this recipe to convert to a single partition. I did this one to my laptop, and it worked out OK. "How to Remove the Windows "System Reserved" Partition" http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 Have fun, Paul Thanks for the detailed message Paul. I have tried the free version of Reflect and will probably upgrade to the Personal version as I would probably need Incremental backups after a Full Backup. I should be building this system later this week as components arrive. I was planning on formatting the sata drive as NTFS, but follow your logic with the two OS option scenario. I will probably get a 1TB drive and use that as my data drive for Windows and use the 500gb drive for my Linux OS and format that as EXT4 for / and /home with multiple distros on this 500gb drive. NTFS can be mounted in Linux. You probably knew about that one. But there's also another tool, for Windows users. To give you some idea how old this is, I have this installed in my Win2K OS. I used to have an EXT2 partition, and could share with Windows via that partition. I don't know if I'd bother with it now though. NTFS works just as well for the interchange thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2IFS One thing about the NTFS on Linux is, it uses a bit of CPU. I think that's a general trend, is when a foreign file system is supported on an OS, it's not generally quite as efficient. As for transfer efficiency, sustained speeds and the like, it's an "extremely complicated surface". Different generations of drives, like different transfer sizes. Even your OS can present a limitation - Windows seems to "saturate" on small files, and if you have lots of tiny files headed for your SSD, you may wonder where your performance went. On occasion I set up a RAMDisk drive here, which should be fast as blazes, and when searching a folder with 60,000 text files in it, it's not actually that fast. It's annoying, when a benchmark program will report the RAMDisk is capable of 4GB/sec performance. So while your SSD has "zero" seek time, several hundred megabytes per second transfer rate on a 4GB movie file, if you transfer 10,000 4KB files, it'll still take a while. My RAMDisk doesn't have any "block size issues", so it really should scream, all the time. And it just doesn't. Paul |
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