Dual SSD Selection?

[MrBaker89]

Hi Guys, 

 

Me and the Mrs are building or beast computer at xmas

 

We are wondering if its possible to have 2 separate SSD's hooked up to the motherboard and be able to choose which one to boot from?

 

Many thanks in advance.. 

[Dredgy]

Yep, certainly possible.

[Interfectorem]

You should be able to enter the BIOS and choose what SSD to boot from. What motherboard are you planning to get?

[WhatComesAround]

Yeas it is possible (Still new but I'm sure you can)

[toggleguy]

Yes it is

[MrBaker89]

You should be able to enter the BIOS and choose what SSD to boot from. What motherboard are you planning to get?

 

 

We are getting the Maximus VII Hero, Is it possible to have it go to a selection screen like when you choose boot options? 

[MrBaker89]

Thankyou people I'm trying to work out how to do it so the MB asks us which SSD to boot from because IF i tell my mrs to go into the bios every time things will get messy....

[Interfectorem]

We are getting the Maximus VII Hero, Is it possible to have it go to a selection screen like when you choose boot options? 

Yes, definitely. I have a M5A99FX PRO R2.0 and I can select what to boot from in the BIOS. I'm 99.99% certain you can do so aswell.

[MrBaker89]

Need to avoid going into Bios everytime o change boot seq just incase my mrs screws anything up lol, 

 

I've just read about EasyBootBCD which gives you the choice of which operation system to boot on 2 separate SSD's.

[Arty]

dual boot windows on 2 drives.

On Start it will ask which to choose from.

However if the drive your installed windows first on is removed, the other drive won't work anymore.

[MrBaker89]

If I install EasyBCD on both SSD's and set it to show the bootloader will they conflict or would it work?  I suppose ill just have to try and see 

[EmeraldFlame]

If I install EasyBCD on both SSD's and set it to show the bootloader will they conflict or would it work?  I suppose ill just have to try and see 

It wouldn't conflict but it wouldn't do anything for you either. EasyBCD would load from whatever SSD was first in your boot priority list, and it would only show the boot options of that disk, not on the other disk.

The only way you would be able to do what you want is to either enter the BIOS and switch the boot order, or most MoBo's have a 'Boot Selection' menu, where if you hit F12 during startup, it gives you a list of drives and you can pick which one to boot up from.

[MrBaker89]

It wouldn't conflict but it wouldn't do anything for you either. EasyBCD would load from whatever SSD was first in your boot priority list, and it would only show the boot options of that disk, not on the other disk.

The only way you would be able to do what you want is to either enter the BIOS and switch the boot order, or most MoBo's have a 'Boot Selection' menu, where if you hit F12 during startup, it gives you a list of drives and you can pick which one to boot up from.

 

 

I think that will be the best way to go, as one will be have windows 8.1 and one will have windows 7 so will be easy to distinguish both SSD's unless they both show up as Kingston HyperX 3K drives then how will I know which one to select....  :huh:

[EmeraldFlame]

I think that will be the best way to go, as one will be have windows 8.1 and one will have windows 7 so will be easy to distinguish both SSD's unless they both show up as Kingston HyperX 3K drives then how will I know which one to select....  :huh:

 

Now, I am sure there is some motherboard somewhere that doesn't work like this, but in my general experience in the F12 boot menus of the boards I have seen, the drives are listed by model number, in the order of the SATA ports they are plugged into.

So, if you have two identical model drives, they would most likely read as the same name in this menu, but whichever one was in SATA port 1 would show up first, and whichever was in SATA port 2 would show up second. Like I said I am sure this probably varies by board, and I haven't used the exact board you are going to be, but generally thats how most seem to handle the boot menu.

[Cheddle]

Hi Guys, 

 

Me and the Mrs are building or beast computer at xmas

 

We are wondering if its possible to have 2 separate SSD's hooked up to the motherboard and be able to choose which one to boot from?

 

Many thanks in advance.. 

 

step1: raid0

step2: create two partitions of equal size

step3: install an os on each partition

 

result:   double the speed on both partitions. 

 

warning: this means if one drive dies, you loose both partitions.

 

use the BCDboot command from a Windows PE bootable should let you do just about anything? http://superuser.com/questions/511582/how-to-use-bcdedit-to-dual-boot-windows-installations

[MrBaker89]

I love the idea of Raid 0 but like all other performance setups i've heard horror stories....

 

does raid alter drive longevity? or is it basically having them work in sync?

[Cheddle]

I love the idea of Raid 0 but like all other performance setups i've heard horror stories....

 

does raid alter drive longevity? or is it basically having them work in sync?

 

it does not affect drive lifespan.  A raid0 setup splits the file in half and puts one half on each drive.  (the more drives you have the more pieces the file is split into and the faster it can be read/written)

 

The real issue is that if one of the drives fails you lose the data from both drives, where as without raid0 you would only lose what is on the drive that failed. given that they are SSD's and as such relatively small you could back them up regularly to a regular spinning disk and avoid the pitfalls of either ssd failing.

 

raid0 will effectively double the speed of the drives see here - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-9.html

 

From what I understand SSD's are much more reliable than spinning disks now.