[Skaterninja25]

Hey guys i recently got a solid state drive from a friend its
a Corsair P3-128GB Sata III drive, and i would really like to give it a shot
but i am kinda confused as to how im going to set it up.
i currently have a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD in my system that has all my files on it.
to take advantage of the SSD do i need to have it as the primary drive?
like install windows on it and then wipe my drive and use it for storage?
what exactly do i run off the solid state drive. ive noticed they arnt very big...
i will fill it up with games alone

anyone know how to manage these things im kinda confused.

[compnovo]

Skaterninja25, on 30 July 2011 - 06:08 PM, said:

Hey guys i recently got a solid state drive from a friend its
a Corsair P3-128GB Sata III drive, and i would really like to give it a shot
but i am kinda confused as to how im going to set it up.
i currently have a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD in my system that has all my files on it.
to take advantage of the SSD do i need to have it as the primary drive?
like install windows on it and then wipe my drive and use it for storage?
what exactly do i run off the solid state drive. ive noticed they arnt very big...
i will fill it up with games alone

anyone know how to manage these things im kinda confused.

I have a 120GB Intel SSD in my primary rig with the OS on it, and a 1TB HDD that I store music, videos, etc., on. I have a Steam folder on the storage drive where I keep games that I'm not currently playing but don't want to erase --- cutting and pasting them to storage (and back) is much faster than downloading them.

Initially I did erase some games so that the HDD was small enough to clone to the SDD (I used the free EASEUS software), then I moved things around so that the games I'm currently playing were on the SSD so they could benefit from the faster load times.

Win7 has the TRIM function that optimizes the SSD by cleaning up garbage, and automatically disables defragmentation, and the Intel software disables prefetch and superfetch by default (although the benefits of the latter two are debated in the online forums I've read). I've also read that there is a benefit in disabling hibernation and system restore because it reduces writes to the SSD, but again that's not universally accepted.

Finally, check the Corsair site to make sure you're running the latest firmware on the drive.

This post has been edited by compnovo: 31 July 2011 - 07:51 AM

[LincolnSpector]

I strongly recommend making the SSD your system drive, and the HDD your data drive.
Once you've booted Windows from the SSD, you can tell it to move the libraries to new locations on D: (or whatever letter your HDD gets). For details on how to do this, see Move Your Data toa Safer, Separate Partition in Windows 7. You can skip everything before the paragraph that begins "Once you've got the two partitions set up, create a restore point--just to be safe."


Lincoln

[smax013]

compnovo, on 31 July 2011 - 07:49 AM, said:

Initially I did erase some games so that the HDD was small enough to clone to the SDD (I used the free EASEUS software), then I moved things around so that the games I'm currently playing were on the SSD so they could benefit from the faster load times.

As others have pretty much recommended, you will want to have the SSD drive be your boot drive to really take advantage of it. This means getting Windows onto it somehow.

The obvious way to get Windows on it is just to reinstall Windows and then all your applications that you want. If your current Windows setup is running rather well, this could be a pain in the rear. So, that takes us to the second option.

The second options is pretty much want compnovo mentioned above. The problem is likely to be that since you are using a 1 TB drive right now, you likely have WAY more content on the drive than what can fit on that SSD. So, as a result, it will not be possible to use cloning until you clean stuff of the 1 TB drive. So, your first step would be to copy all data files (Word files, movies, music, etc) to another drive (i.e. back them up) and then delete them. That should remove quite a quite a bit and may even get it down in size to the point where you can clone it (Windows itself tends to take up less than 20 GB and even with a lot of programs, they are not likely to take up more than about 40 to 60 GB...the only way that you might still be over 128 GB is if you have a quite a few games installed). If you are not down below the 128 GB point (most likely due to a lot of games being installed, but it could be due to other apps too), then you will need to start removing games and potentially other unused applications. You might also want to turn off System Restore in Windows as it also controls Shadow Copy and it can suck up a lot of space. You might also want to remove some programs so that you can then reinstall them so that most of their files are stored on the 1 TB in the new setup (most programs can be installed on any drive, but they still typically put some stuff on the boot drive). Once you get it a decent amount (you will want room to be able to install other stuff to use such a new games, etc) below the size of the SSD, then you can clone the 1 TB drive to the SSD (you can use the Easeus software that compnovo mentions...I use TrueImage, which is not free BTW).

At this point with either option, you will have the SSD setup as the boot drive with your applications installed. You then wipe the 1 TB drive and set it up as a data drive. You will then need to change Windows settings so that all your data files get saved by default to the 1 TB drive (i.e. point the "My Documents" location to the 1 TB drive)...see the link that Lincoln provided.

That should largely do it.