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.

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

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

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.

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