Questions re hybrid drive choice and usage

Hey guys,

My current HDD is starting to sound a bit untrustworthy, so i want to get a hybrid drive instead (since i have only one SATA III port, and replacing the MOBO seems too much). Before i do though, i've got two questions:

1: Apparently, when using an SSD, you're supposed to turn off the windows indexing feature to prolong the lifespan of the drive (3 Things You Shouldn't Do with Solid-State Drives - Make Tech Easier). Would such a thing also be neccesary for hybrid drives, or does the software that manages the data distribution prevent this problem?

2: Which hybrid drive should i get? Budget isn't much of an issue, as long as it doesn't get too crazy. 8GB of flash memory seems to come recommended with these things, but i use my pc a lot, so a bigger one would be preferred. The HDD part doesn't need to be any larger than 1TB, but take that as a minimum size. My files have never occupied more than 600GB, but you never know i guess.

I do know what to expect of a hybrid drive in terms of performance, by the way. Pretty much made my choice in that regard.

Never seen a desktop MoBo that has only one SATA port. Are you sure your MoBo has only one SATA port?

As Lady said, the ideal is to install a small (128G) SSD for OS and programs and a HDD to Data.

My data files have been backed up quite recently, so that's no issue. I just want to have a disk spare for when this one craps out.

I do have several SATA II ports, i just didn't think they'd be worth considering. Good to hear that a HDD wouldn't be bottlenecked by it. One of the reasons i didn't want to use an SSD with a HDD though is that it seems quite complicated to properly allocate your files, since a lot of programs install to C by default. They often require registry edits to properly move around, which i cannot do myself and seems quite risky. It just seems like a lot of hassle compared to a hybrid drive, which takes care of that on it's own. A dedicated SSD sounds great in theory, but i do wonder how easy it's going to be to use.

System specs have been updated. Also added some other stuff.

Use the SATA 3 to the SSD, and the SATA 2 to the HDD.
I have a small SSD (120G) for Win OS and programs and on another partition, I have Lubuntu.
I've relocated the \ Users folder to D:, a large HDD, using Kari tutorial. User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

It works very well and it work as an unique drive.

That tutorial looks interesting, and easy to understand. I've saved it to a stick. That actually solves a big part of the problems i had with using an SSD.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I just dragged my Documents, Music, and Pictures folders from my C: drive to my E: drive, rather than relocate the entire user folder. There is no need to install your programs on any other drive than C:. In fact, for imaging purposes (imaging and cloning are the only ways to back up the OS and programs with imaging being the best), it's best to have your OS and programs on the C: drive. It's only data that you want to keep on a separate drive (or in the case of a one drive machine, such as a notebook or small laptop, a separate partition).

I understand what you're saying, but my programs folder is far too large for an SSD. I intend to use it only for my OS, and don't do anything like rendering either. With that in mind, which size SSD would you recommend using?