How do I setup my SSD and my HDD?

[chris nguyuen]

Hi guys. I am a little confused on how SSDs and HDDs work.

From what I understand an SSD runs faster. What should I typically load onto it? I am considering loading my operating system on it.

Second, if I want to use SSD to load things such as games, how will I know things are being loaded on my SSD and not my HDD?

If I build my pc with my SSD and my HDD as normally, will that suffice? or do I need to setup things in my BIOS?

Thanks

[Jade]

Going down the list:

• SSDs read/write significantly faster than a traditional HDD.
• You should load anything you use often or want to have open quickly onto the SSD. Less frequently accessed stuff--or stuff that doesn't need to be opened/saved quickly can be saved to the HDD.
• Whatever application you're using to install the games or application will almost always have a setting for the "installation directory". If you install your OS on the SSD, it'll be on the C:\ drive. Your HDD can be any drive letter you want - you'll set that in the "Disk Management" application in Windows.
• To avoid mistakes, personally, I'd only plug in the SSD, install Windows, then turn off the machine and plug in the HDD. If you'd rather just plug both in, make sure you choose the right drive during the Windows installation; generally the sizes will be different and therefore easy to determine which is which.
• If you don't plug in the hard drive while installing Windows, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS/UEFI to have the Windows bootloader as the first boot option instead of the HDD.

 

To set a drive letter for your HDD/SSD so you can access it within Windows, you'll use Disk Management. Press Ctrl+R and type "diskmgmt.msc". You'll get a window like this:

 

Then it should prompt you to choose GPT or MBR. The default is fine, but you can search for more on the differences if you so choose. Then right click on space with the black (where blue is for me) & says "Unallocated". Click "New Simple Volume" > next > next > choose a drive letter > format as NTFS, choose a name if you want > finish. Wait a few seconds to a minute, then you should have a new drive with that latter in "My Computer".

[BryceAC]

Hi,

Basically, you need to install your OS onto the SSD and whichever applications you want to load faster, when installing, point the installation to install onto the SSD rather than the HDD.
You don't need to change any BIOS settings

[Nashiwa]

4 minutes ago, Ahridesus said:

Hi guys. I am a little confused on how SSDs and HDDs work.

From what I understand an SSD runs faster. What should I typically load onto it? I am considering loading my operating system on it.

Second, if I want to use SSD to load things such as games, how will I know things are being loaded on my SSD and not my HDD?

If I build my pc with my SSD and my HDD as normally, will that suffice? or do I need to setup things in my BIOS?

Thanks

1) You should put your OS and programs on the SSD. If your programs don't all fit there, you can install some of them on the HDD that's fine.

2) Normally your SSD and HDD will not have the same size, so you can see which is which. Otherwise, you can rename them just to make sure.

3) Something I did which helped me not screw up was to install only my SSD at first, install the OS then rename the SSD to "SSD drive", then I put the HDD in and renamed it too.

[chris nguyuen]

Thats clears up a lot. Thanks