Best setup for a boot- SSD and HDD everything else setup

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samm

[H]ard|Gawd
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im in the process of helping a friend build a new workstation.

His setup revolves around a
1) 250 GB SSD
2) 5 TB HDD

He wants to make 1) the primary boot drive, however program files, and libraries should be on 2).

The only way I know way to do this "setup" he wants is the regedit, where you change the Program Dir and x86 to reflect the 2) drive location. However its not fool proof, as many programs like Chrome love to always look for C regardless and theres no custom install options for that either.

Is there any other option I should suggest?
 
Let them figure it out, it's 2015, computers are ubiquitous they should start knowing this stuff it isn't going away. Just leave everything on the ssd, if you aren't using it you are getting no benefits from it. Just like saying you want 32gb of ram, but only feel comfortable using 8gb of it.
 
What you want are symbolic links, but as staticlag points out just use the ssd.
 
I have a similar setup and I just install the OS and drivers on my C drive (SSD) and install all of my applications on the D drive (HDD). I don't see why you need to make it any more complicated than that. There are no need for pointers that would just use up more space (albeit a tiny amount). My SSD is tiny (120GB) and is from 2011 and I plan on replacing it with a Samsung 950 Pro in the next few months as I just got a new CPU, mobo and ram on a Z170 chipset but didn't have the cash to upgrade the SSD.

I actually have the SSD split into 2 partitions so I can install a few games on that but still keep it separate from the OS install so I can wipe the OS install at any time and not loose my games.
 
I was clamoring for him to spend his storage budget on a bigger SSD and smaller HD, but that went out the window. He doesnt want the manual custom install method where he would have to direct each app to the HDD, as the workstation would be used with those who are not familar with the manuial setup option.

I tried my regedit, and an hour later he texted me to come erase that as his past installs are installing fine in the HDD, but their desktop shortcuts keeping getting broken.

ARGHHHHHH
 
you want your programs on the SSD, otherwise what is the point.
If you just have the OS on the SSD, all you get is a fast boot and no other benefit.

OS and Apps on SSD and data on the HDD.

My main machine is 512GB SSD and 4TB HDD. OS, apps, and some games on the SSD, everything else goes on the 4TB. I also have a 2TB in there as well but that is just a backup of some of the data on the 4TB.
 
samm said:
I was clamoring for him to spend his storage budget on a bigger SSD and smaller HD, but that went out the window. He doesnt want the manual custom install method where he would have to direct each app to the HDD, as the workstation would be used with those who are not familar with the manuial setup option.

I tried my regedit, and an hour later he texted me to come erase that as his past installs are installing fine in the HDD, but their desktop shortcuts keeping getting broken.

ARGHHHHHH
Click to expand...

Right. So symlink the data directories out to the harddrive
ex.
mklink 'C:\Program files(x86)\steam' D:\steam
Bam steam works as normal and lives on D instead of C.
 
when you install a program just have the program install on D: Thats what I used to do back in the day but thats really stupid to put programs on a HDD.....Now if you have 2 SSDs and you wanted OS on one and programs on the other that's a solid point and will show benefits especially in mixed work loads.

Either get a 1TB HDD or get 2 500GB and call it a day. They really are not that expensive. (assuming you only need 1-2 drives...if you need like 5 like me...well your fucked)
 
I would install the applications onto the SSD and then instead set downloads/my documents/etc to the other drive. Leave desktop on SSD. Put your steam/origin games onto the larger storage drive. Your "most played" games, put onto the SSD.

I'd avoid symlinks, to me that's just shoddy and hackish. If you must install apps to the other drive, change the location during install.
 
scobar said:
I'd avoid symlinks, to me that's just shoddy and hackish. If you must install apps to the other drive, change the location during install.
Click to expand...

Hackish yes, shoddy no. Symlinks are a great technology.
 
why not let all standard OS app run on the windows drives and then use a large HDD for games, downloads etc…

250 GBs will be plenty for the above setup.
 
Darakian said:
What you want are symbolic links, but as staticlag points out just use the ssd.
Click to expand...

Not all Windows functions will accept Symlinks. There are certain things you can't move. There are also programs that are not compatible with symlinks. Even in Linux there could be situations where hardlinks would work...but you can't cross two physical drives with hardlinks.

On an off topic, Apple's Fusion drive has so far been the absolute best solution I have seen to this problem. It combines the SSD and HDD into one total harddrive (so 256GB SSD + 512GB HDD becomes 768GB partition). The OS then writes all new data to the SSD and slowly moves old data to the HDD. It is seamless and works beautifully.

I don't know why no one has emulated this. Even the "cache" technologies from Intel and SanDisk just aren't that great. They are better then nothing and do offer some safety, but the experience is only mildly better.
 
There might be another way to do this that I haven't seen mentioned, yet. Install OS and programs on SSD. Keep \Users directory on C: SSD. Lots of programs store temp/cache/config files in %AppData% and will benefit from SSD storage.

A 5TB HDD is really big. Consider partitioning it into smaller partitions. Up to 4 primary partitions are supported, unlimited extended partitions. Instead of making those partitions drive letters, D: E:, etc, you can mount them at different locations under the C: drive. See: Computer managment->Change drive letter and Paths. You could make a HDD partition mounted, for example at C:\Users\username\media for your movies, etc. If he really wants, It might be possible to make C:\Program Files a mount to a HDD partition, although I have never tried it with C:\Program Files. Not sure if windows will allow it.

This is how things are done on a Unix system, just one root and several mounted partitions under that root. How well that system will translate to the windows world for your friend, I don't know. But it might be nicer to have the appearance of one unified filesystem with one root.
 
appreciate all the suggestions. However as much advice there might be, keeping it simple for him i think is the right importance. So he broke down and bought a bigger SSD for his purposes (my advice for him all along but who listens to this guy lol)

So its now a 1tb SSD boot drive and a 240+5gb secondary drives
 
westrock2000 said:
On an off topic, Apple's Fusion drive has so far been the absolute best solution I have seen to this problem. It combines the SSD and HDD into one total harddrive (so 256GB SSD + 512GB HDD becomes 768GB partition). The OS then writes all new data to the SSD and slowly moves old data to the HDD. It is seamless and works beautifully.

I don't know why no one has emulated this. Even the "cache" technologies from Intel and SanDisk just aren't that great. They are better then nothing and do offer some safety, but the experience is only mildly better.
Click to expand...

You mean no one uses any hybrid technologies except Apple? I find that far-fetched:)
SSHDs use hybrid caching technology, as does ZFS, and I'm sure many others.


Broccoli said:
There might be another way to do this that I haven't seen mentioned, yet. Install OS and programs on SSD. Keep \Users directory on C: SSD. Lots of programs store temp/cache/config files in %AppData% and will benefit from SSD storage.

A 5TB HDD is really big. Consider partitioning it into smaller partitions. Up to 4 primary partitions are supported, unlimited extended partitions. Instead of making those partitions drive letters, D: E:, etc, you can mount them at different locations under the C: drive. See: Computer managment->Change drive letter and Paths. You could make a HDD partition mounted, for example at C:\Users\username\media for your movies, etc. If he really wants, It might be possible to make C:\Program Files a mount to a HDD partition, although I have never tried it with C:\Program Files. Not sure if windows will allow it.

This is how things are done on a Unix system, just one root and several mounted partitions under that root. How well that system will translate to the windows world for your friend, I don't know. But it might be nicer to have the appearance of one unified filesystem with one root.
Click to expand...

This seems like a complex solution for a simple problem. I don't think more partitions are the answer when the OP is looking for simple. With Windows, each sub folder within a user's profile can be re-pointed, so for example, Downloads, My Pictures, My Documents, these can be re-pointed, and it is supported to do so.

So many for get about KISS.
 
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