A question for the techies

[Tiger Feet]

As you can tell, I am a bit of a novice when it comes to technical stuff regarding computers. This question may sound dumb, but it's a question that always puzzled me. It's a basic "how does it work" question.

If you have two drives and the primary one is a SSD, the operating system will be put on here normally I assume.

The question is, on the second drive or HDD secondary drive, is there some sort of operating system on this? Or does it load applications and files in a different manner? I'd be intrigued for someone to explain how the second drive loads up its applications or files. I'm sure there's a perfectly easy answer but I'm just intrigued to know how and I apologise in advance for being so dumb.

Cheers

 

[Wozza63]

There is no operating system on the second drive, you can install programs on this, and they will be registered on the registry on that computer (the first drive) this is why they wont work it you switched the drive to another computer, its just seen as another place for storage on My Computer like a DVD Drive or flash drive

 

[steaky360]

In addition to what wozza has already said, a secondary hard drive will load ordinary files in the same way as an external drive. Ie it can be used essentially as a storage drive, all music and movies etc will be accessed as normal. Any installed program's will only be available to the original drive (typically c) it was installed on.c

 

[Tiger Feet]

So are you only meant to put stuff on the second drive such as video and music? Can you not put any applications on the secondary drive and if you can, how do these work and load up?

Cheers

 

[keynes]

So are you only meant to put stuff on the second drive such as video and music? Can you not put any applications on the secondary drive and if you can, how do these work and load up?

Cheers

You can store video,music, etc or install applications in your secondary drive.

 

[steaky360]

So are you only meant to put stuff on the second drive such as video and music? Can you not put any applications on the secondary drive and if you can, how do these work and load up?

Cheers

Sorry for the confusion, as Ruben has said you can essentially put anything you like on a secondary drive.

They would work in exactly the same way as an application installed on your main drive, the application itself would simply be stored on the other drive. For instance I have my steam games stored on a secondary drive and I just open them as I would any other application.

 

[Dexterous]

So are you only meant to put stuff on the second drive such as video and music? Can you not put any applications on the secondary drive and if you can, how do these work and load up?

Cheers

Normally during an install of a program it will ask where you wish to install to.

By default it will install to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86).

You will instead manual choose were you want to install it and navigate to there so for e.g your secondary drive.

D:\Program Files\"name of program installing"

 

[Tiger Feet]

Thank you for your enlightening replies.

So with two drives and one of them the SSD, am I right in saying you would choose your most used applications to be put on here to load up faster? On the second drive, you would put such stuff such as video, pictures, documents and less used applications on here?

It's all a question of what applications you would want to load up faster and use more often to be put on the SSD?

Cheers

 

[keynes]

So with two drives and one of them the SSD, am I right in saying you would choose your most used applications to be put on here to load up faster? On the second drive, you would put such stuff such as video, pictures, documents and less used applications on here?

Yes

 

[steaky360]

Thank you for your enlightening replies.

So with two drives and one of them the SSD, am I right in saying you would choose your most used applications to be put on here to load up faster? On the second drive, you would put such stuff such as video, pictures, documents and less used applications on here?

It's all a question of what applications you would want to load up faster and use more often to be put on the SSD?

Cheers

Pretty much yeah, if you know you're going to use an application a lot and you want it to load faster put it on the SSD.

Edit: As Ruben said

 

[Wozza63]

tbh what ive found is that 120gb was enough for all my applications and Origin (3-4 games) and still had about 10gb left

 

[tom_gr7]

On my ssd I have

- OS
- anti virus
- Origin + bf3
- Other small programs, firefox etc etc

On my 1tb cav black I have

- Itunes - but music is stored on a different drive.
- Steam
- Other origin games I don't want on my ssd.
- Non steam/origin games
- Ms office professional - cause its massive
- I also have my downloads folder here too.

 

[Tiger Feet]

Very interesting to see what different applications and files everybody has put on what drive.

In reading, I must remember to put the antivirus and spyware/malware programs on the SSD operating system. I use a speech recognition software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking every time I load up my laptop. This will definitely go down as one of the applications I use very frequently and so this will go on the SSD. This application on its own is a bit of a resource hog.

I use Microsoft Word quite a lot too. Should I put this on the SSD or would it be a waste and I should put it on the secondary drive? What about Adobe?

God, it's going to be a nightmare to decide where to put what where when I get this new laptop

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers

 

[tom_gr7]

I use Microsoft Word quite a lot too. Should I put this on the SSD or would it be a waste and I should put it on the secondary drive? What about Adobe?

which version of office have you got? I know my version is pretty big, so straight on the hard drive.

 

[Wozza63]

Thats one of the benefits of libreoffice, it doesnt have all those features 99% of people dont use so its only about 800mb

 

[Tiger Feet]

which version of office have you got? I know my version is pretty big, so straight on the hard drive.

I'm not sure but it's the one with Microsoft Outlook in it and its size is 36.1 KB and 56.0 KB on disk.

Its Microsoft Office 2007. I didn't bother upgrading to 2010. Where will I find its full name? i.e. MS Office Professional etc.

So straight on the hard drive for this then even if it's one of those programs you use quite often?

Cheers

 

[Buzz]

Personally I put all my progs on my 120 GB SSD along with the op system and one game I play most at the time.

I then partitioned my 2GB HDD in 3 (WD cav black) and have one partition for music, one for pictures and one for games. I like to do it this way to have everything in its place. Even with all the anti V and progs inc word and photoshop etc etc I still have 77.7GB free on the SSD