Hi peep, looking for a bit of advice. Am about to build a new machine for my best friend. The parts have been ordered, and are as follows...
1 x Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard
1 x Intel Core i7 2600 3.4Ghz CPU
1 x Corsair CMX16GX3M2B1333C9 Dominator 16GB (4 X 4GB) XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz CL9 RAM
1 x Gigabyte GV-N56GOC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 830MHz 1GB DDR5 PCI-Express HDMI
1 x LG BH10LS30.AUAR10 Electronics 10x BD-RW SATA Lightscribe Internal Drive
1 x Corsair CSSD-F120GBGT-BK 120GB Force GT SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive - Boot drive and installed programs
2 x Seagate ST31000524AS 1TB Barracuda SATA-600 7200RPM 32MB - Set up in RAID 1 Mirrored Set for document storage.
Now I'm not new to building computers, but this will be my first time setting up an SSD, as well as my first RAID configuration. I am also new to the Lucid Virtu technology so I have a few questions.
The operating system to be installed is Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
I have read a few articles on installing Win 7 with SSD, and all seem to say thatI should install the OS with only the SSD installed to begin with.
Now I don't know if its possible, when setting up Win7, to set the documents path during the install, but obviously if I have only the SSD plugged in I couldn't do that. So question 1
Can I plug it all together, and install Windows on to the SSD whilst specifying the RAID array for My Documents?
Question 2
If I can't specify My Documents path during install, or I absolutely must install with the RAID array unplugged, can I then permanently change the My Documents path in the registry so that any program automatically opens My Documents to the RAID array?
Question 3
On the board mentioned above, which ports would you install the drives to?
there are a total of 4 SATA III 6GB/s ports (2 are on a Marvel controller) obviously the RAID drives would have to be on paired ports, but do I put the SSD on Marvell, or RAID. Also would you put the BD drive on the spare SATA III port?
Question 4
There is mention of an mSATA port on the board, used in conjunction with Intel Smart Response, mostly I know these are used with small capacity SSD, would there be any point installing the 120GB SSD here or on the SATA III ports?
Question 5
Lucid Virtu sounds interesting, but is it easy to set up, does it required switching your monitor between onboard/PCIE graphics cards or is it done internally.
I did try downloading the manual for the board off of the website but it was a dissapointingly small 3 pages with no info that helped.