Hardrive arrangement PCIe + HDD + 2X SSD USB 3.0

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
April 1, 2018
3 replies
536 views

Hi all thanks for your help, I'm trying to understand and learn.

I just purchased a new laptop for editing and AE (not able to consider a desktop) and it came with a lightning fast PCIe SSD with 512gb that hold the OS. It also came with a D:\ drive 1TB HDD (5200rpm). I'll replace to HDD with an MX500 SSD and I think I can move the OS to the D:\ drive and tell the BIOS to boot always from D- yes? Is that right?

Then I would run the OS, PP and AE from the slower SSD and hold the media files on the faster SSD. Where should previews, cache, scratch files and pagefile be? I have another SSD that I can run via USB 3.0 I understand that USB 3.0 can handle all the throughput of a SSD up to 500mbps, so I would like to take advantage of that third SSD. Should I use it as a cache or should I output my renders to it? I can render outputs to the HDD via USB 3.0 (I have 3 USB 3.0 ports). Is this optimal? I want to be sure before I arrange it because it will be faster than my previous machine and I can see the possibility of thinking it's optimal when in reality it's not.

The little knowledge I have is about how to setup disks for PP, if there's further needs to AE please also let me know!

Thanks for the help, guys!

Other specs to know:

Intel i7 7700HQ 3.8Ghz

32GB DDR4

GTX 1060 3GB

WIN 10

hardware support

This topic has been closed for replies.

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ShamanicYogiAuthor

Inspiring

I understood that optiamally the scratch location would go onto a second drive ... If not then great! .... the interal HDD will be replaced with an SSD. But the USB 3.0 ports allow me to connect sdd's that will be far faster than even 7200 HDDs- so those will be my auxiliary drives

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RjL190365

Legend

The best drive configuration, if this were a desktop, would have been this:

MX500 SATA SSD: OS, Programs, Pagefile, Cache

PCIe SSD: Projects and Media

1TB HDD: Backups

The HDD is a poor choice for the OS because its random read and write speeds are far slower than any SSD. But the PCIe SSD is also wasted when used as an OS/Programs drive because OS and program operations rely much more on the random speeds than on the sequential speeds.

However, since the configuration listed above is a laptop, your best solution would be this: Replace the HDD internally with the SATA SSD (MX500), and then put the HDD into a USB 3.0 external enclosure for backups. This is because some laptops that are equipped with both a PCIe SSD and a SATA HDD cannot boot from a SATA device at all.

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ShamanicYogiAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Rj,

Yeah, I'd never put the OS on the HDD ... And we have the same opinion about disk arrangement. but what about scratch files? Should that be on another drive? I still have two drives to use and wonder if outputting the render to a 5200rmp HDD is fine because of processing speed.

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RjL190365

Legend

Scratch (cache) files go onto the default drive (C:).

I forgot to mention that most laptops that are equipped with both an m.2 SSD and a SATA HDD have only one internal 2.5" drive bay (which holds the included HDD), which would completely defeat your original drive plans.