Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Please help me allocate and optimize SSDs and HDDs!

Dec 26, 2014 8:41AM PST

So I have inherited a few storage options for use in my pc...
and I could use a little help in understanding how to optimize said options.

I have the following:
120 GB Samsung EVO SSD,
1 TB WD Caviar Blue
2 TB WD Passport Ultra (external)
WD Black2 Dual Drive (120GB SSD + 1TB HDD)

I want to keep my operating system on a fast SSD.
And it is a pc for gaming, and as i understand it only certain load-intensive games benefit from being installed on a SSD as opposed to a HDD.
And I intend to be recording/saving a lot of video/audio data as well.
I also do alot of torrenting, upload and download.

My initial idea was to keep the EVO as my OS drive.. use the 2TB external as a place to store my recordings and footage for editting... and use the 1TB for personal storage of everything else.

But now i just recieved the Black 2 Dual Drive and don't know what to do with it. I'm no expert, and only know what i do from google research. I know <i>of</i> raiding together SSDs, but i've read in a few sources that the Dual Drive's SSD can't be raided.

Would anyone be willing and able to best suggest a setup for me?
Where and how do i use each drive?
Would recording with a capture card to an external (USB 3.0) be problematic?
Would torrenting constantly on one of the drives be labor intensive to my computer?
Am I asking the right questions?

Please and thank you!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
The thing is
Dec 28, 2014 2:41AM PST

It won't matter as torrents tend to be the leading edge or malware or worse. I've watched torrent users crash and burn so many times that I think whatever setup you go with, will get wiped out eventually and you'll pick up the pieces and try again and again.

As to your dual drive comment, that's news to me.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Re: external
Dec 28, 2014 2:53AM PST

Don't STORE things on an external drive. It's much more error prone than an internal drive, so without 2 backups it's not unlikely you'll lose a lot of recordings and footage.

Kees