Questions regarding SSD's and HDD's

[velazkid]

Okay, so I want to by an SSD very soon, but there are a few things that I feel I need clarification on. I'll start right away and ask, if I get an SSD and install Win 7 on it, will the information on my older HDD's (2 500Gb) have all there data erased? This is partly stopping me from buying an SSD at the moment because I have a lot of movies on my second drive (not the boot drive) and I'd prefer not to lose them. I have heard however that it is a good idea to disconnect any other drives while installing Windows on a new SSD because what it does is install a recovery file on the HDD which it searches for every time the PC is booted up. Making it a slower start up. Is this a recommended action? What happens if Win 7 is installed on both my SSD and HDD?

Also I plan to RAID 0 those 2 HDD's eventually, which raises more questions. I have 4 SATA ports for hard drives on my MOBO. 2 6GB/s ports and 2 3Gb/s ports. If I put the SSD in the 6GB/s port then I'd have to put one HDD in a 6 port, and the other in a 3 port. Is this allowed, will they still work for raid? or do I have to put them both in a 3 GB/s port? Which leads me to another question. Do current HDD's even saturate the full capacity of 3Gb/s ports, and if so how much of a performance loss is there in using 3Gb/s compared to 6Gb/s? Well I think that's all I've got for now. If anybody could enlighten me I would be very thankful. I'll update this if I have anymore questions.

[AkG]

Originally Posted by velazkid

Okay, so I want to by an SSD very soon, but there are a few things that I feel I need clarification on. I'll start right away and ask, if I get an SSD and install Win 7 on it, will the information on my older HDD's (2 500Gb) have all there data erased? This is partly stopping me from buying an SSD at the moment because I have a lot of movies on my second drive (not the boot drive) and I'd prefer not to lose them.

Your data on the other drives will be fine.

Originally Posted by velazkid

I have heard however that it is a good idea to disconnect any other drives while installing Windows on a new SSD because what it does is install a recovery file on the HDD which it searches for every time the PC is booted up. Making it a slower start up. Is this a recommended action? What happens if Win 7 is installed on both my SSD and HDD?

I would unplug all HDDs while doing a fresh install to the SSD. As you noted Win 7 puts a small partition onto port 0's storage device (even if this is NOT the "OS" drive). IF that drive dies your OS no longer is bootable.

Simply plug them in after you install your os.

Originally Posted by velazkid

Also I plan to RAID 0 those 2 HDD's eventually, which raises more questions. I have 4 SATA ports for hard drives on my MOBO. 2 6GB/s ports and 2 3Gb/s ports. If I put the SSD in the 6GB/s port then I'd have to put one HDD in a 6 port, and the other in a 3 port. Is this allowed, will they still work for raid? or do I have to put them both in a 3 GB/s port? Which leads me to another question.

Usually you cant raid them across the different ports. Ie 6Gb + 6Gb/s ports on SAME controller == fine. 6Gb/s + 3Gb/s ports on DIFFERENT controllers == NOT fine.

Originally Posted by velazkid

Do current HDD's even saturate the full capacity of 3Gb/s ports, and if so how much of a performance loss is there in using 3Gb/s compared to 6Gb/s? Well I think that's all I've got for now. If anybody could enlighten me I would be very thankful. I'll update this if I have anymore questions.

Hard drives cant saturate the SATA 3Gb/s bandwidth. "Burst Speed" is mainly for e-peen synthetic tests. Your drives will not perform slower on 3Gb/s ports.


Hope that helps

[velazkid]

Originally Posted by AkG

Your data on the other drives will be fine.



I would unplug all HDDs while doing a fresh install to the SSD. As you noted Win 7 puts a small partition onto port 0's storage device (even if this is NOT the "OS" drive). IF that drive dies your OS no longer is bootable.

Simply plug them in after you install your os.



Usually you cant raid them across the different ports. Ie 6Gb + 6Gb/s ports on SAME controller == fine. 6Gb/s + 3Gb/s ports on DIFFERENT controllers == NOT fine.



Hard drives cant saturate the SATA 3Gb/s bandwidth. "Burst Speed" is mainly for e-peen synthetic tests. Your drives will not perform slower on 3Gb/s ports.


Hope that helps

Thank you, it did, a lot! Buying my SSD shortly.

[Chillin]

Originally Posted by AkG

Your data on the other drives will be fine.



I would unplug all HDDs while doing a fresh install to the SSD. As you noted Win 7 puts a small partition onto port 0's storage device (even if this is NOT the "OS" drive). IF that drive dies your OS no longer is bootable.

Simply plug them in after you install your os.



Usually you cant raid them across the different ports. Ie 6Gb + 6Gb/s ports on SAME controller == fine. 6Gb/s + 3Gb/s ports on DIFFERENT controllers == NOT fine.



Hard drives cant saturate the SATA 3Gb/s bandwidth. "Burst Speed" is mainly for e-peen synthetic tests. Your drives will not perform slower on 3Gb/s ports.


Hope that helps

Excellent first post, welcome to the forums.

[AkG]

Originally Posted by Chillin

Excellent first post, welcome to the forums.

Thanks, I usually hang out over on hardwarecanucks (same username), but thought Id stop on by and catch up with an old acquaintance who has made his "home" here. Think I may stay for awhile.

My main area of expertise is in storage (and peripherals...monitors...networking...cooling...wi th a dabbling in cases, cpus, and mobos). Always willing to lend a hand when/where I see that I can actually help.

[automaticman]

I'd like to clarify a few points. As I understand it you currently have 2 500GB drives, 1 with windows on it and the other with media (which you want to keep).

We're going to make your Media drive your backup drive

What you want to do is go through your windows drive and collect everything you want to keep and move it over to your media drive. Movies, music, pictures, documents, etc. Also don't forget about things like game saves (programs like GameSave Manager can help with this if you have a lot or especially if you have windows live games), browser bookmarks (you can usually export them), email if you use Outlook (also exportable).

There are probably also ways to do this using backup programs, but I've always just done it manually. Just be thorough because you are going to be erasing everything left over on your windows drive.

What we are trying to avoid here is having a bunch of files left over from your old windows installation (or worse the whole installation living on a second drive).

Once you get everyhting backed up onto your media drive shutdown and remove both drives (or just unplug them, but make sure you note which one is which).

Now go ahead and install windows on your new SSD with only it installed, and get your basic drivers loaded. Also run the windows experience benchmark so that the system will recognize that you have an SSD and turn on TRIM.

Next you want to shut down and plug back in only the hard drive with the old windows installation on it. Be careful when you reboot because the computer will likely try to use that old installation to boot with. Go into bios and adjust the HDD boot order to avoid this, or use the boot menu on startup.

Once it's up and running make sure you're using your fresh SSD installation, you'll be able to tell becuase you won't have any of your old games/programs/desktop wallpapers installed. If you see your old familiar wallpaper etc, reboot and change the boot order again.

Once you get it right you should be able to see your new SSD as the C drive and the old windows HDD as the D drive (most liekly). I would open it up to make sure it's the right HDD, then go ahead and reformat it to completely erase the old windows install.

No you can hook up your media drive and not have to worry about multiple installations. Get all your old programs reinstalled (www.ninite.com is wonderful for the necessities), and restore your backed up items from the media drive. With an SSD I usually go to C:/Users/Username/ and move the location of Pictures, Documents, Music, etc folders to a HDD by using the Location tab in properties.


If you want to Raid the two 500GB HDDs together you are going to need to back up the entire media drive to a third drive, as far as I know there is no way to create a new Raid 0 array without erasing everything on both disks in the process. Once you get the array set up you can move everything back, but I really wouldn't recommend this.

A media/storage drive is not something that you want to use Raid 0 with as it doubles the likelihood that you will lose everything on both drives, and won't see much performance benefit from anyway. I would put both drives in a 3Gb/s port either way, though.

[velazkid]

Cool man thanks a lot, I was actually thinking of the best ways I could do things to make the transition easier. This helps.