How to use your SSD for Windows and HDD for files.

[matthewbonner13]

Because the SSD is small we want to put the operating system on it. we want to keep files and programs on a HDD disk so it all runs fast. Can you help us please?

 

[bradscoolio]

When installing windows it will ask you to choose a boot drive. At that screen select your ssd, format & it should install windows to only your ssd

 

[Wordsworth]

Because the SSD is small we want to put the operating system on it. we want to keep files and programs on a HDD disk so it all runs fast. Can you help us please?

If I understand you correctly, the following tutorial is what you want; you can print it as a PDF. It is how I setup my system since I wanted the SSD to have plenty of free space.

How to Create User Accounts on another Partition or Disk During Windows 7 Installation

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Because the SSD is small we want to put the operating system on it. we want to keep files and programs on a HDD disk so it all runs fast. Can you help us please?

If at all possible, put BOTH programs and OS on the SSD. Otherwise, you can't take advantage of the SSD's speed in opening applications.

Windows alone takes under 20 GB. I have Windows and 55 applications installed on an SSD and it all takes up only 30 GB.

You should be able to get most or all programs on the SSD along with the OS unless your SSD is VERY small--30 GB or less.

If necessary, you can put your very largest applications or games on the HDD.

 

[Mark Phelps]

To expand on what ignatzatsonic said already ... everything you run has to be read from somewhere and initially loaded into memory. IF you WERE to segregate your components so the OS ones were on the SDD and the application ones were on the HDD, you would probably see little, if any, improvement in speed once the OS got loaded. Why? Because every time you launched an app, the OS would have to read it from the HDD -- which would be no faster than it is right now.

As to space needed, everyone's experience is likely to be different. I'm running 32-bit Win7 Pro, have only about a dozen programs installed and have a "data" partition for all my large files -- and Win7 takes up a little over 40GB of my 60GB partition on my SSD.

So, if your SSD is 64GB, you should have plenty of space to install and run Win7 from it.