Which SSD/HDD setup?

[nanobeast]

I have the following SSD and HDD with me right now.

1 X Samsung 830 128GB
2 X Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
1 X Samsung 840 500GB
1 X WD Black 2TB

I am building a system which will be used for gaming and photo-editing (Lightroom and some photoshop) and some video editing.

Couple of setup options....

Samsung 830 128 GB - OS
Samsung 840 pro 256 GB - Photoediting and video editing (keep current recent and current files on the SSD and move them out when done)
Samsung 840 500GB - Steam games
HDD - Storage

OR

Samsung 840 pro 256 GB - OS and Lightroom and video editing programs
Samsung 840 pro 256 GB - Current and recent photo and video files for editing
Samsung 840 500GB - Steam games
HDD - Storage

OR

Samsung 840 pro 256 GB - OS OS and Lightroom and video editing programs
Samsung 840 500GB - Steam games
HDD - Storage


If I go with OS and applications in a 256Gb SSD, should I partition the SSD for the OOS? Or not really necessary?

 

[Dangman]

The middle one. No need to partition the OS and apps.

 

[nanobeast]

Danny, thx for response. May I know why you prefer the middle setup over the other two?

 

[PTNL]

Assuming you have a SATA-3 chipset, I'd also go for #2 due to the extra performance for the OS drive and scratch disk.

#1 could work, but gives less performance with a zero-change in financial cost (i.e. you already have the faster drives). #3 could also work, but you lose the scratch disk where writes could be important -- not to mention the earlier point on #1.

There's also no useful gain from partitioning the SSD, and the idea of partitioning drives seems less appealing given you already have the drives for offloading other I/O tasks.

 

[Dangman]

As PTNL said, option #2 gets you slightly higher performance since applications are located separate from the actual working files and that the Samsung 840 Pro is faster than the Samsung 830.