# Where to plug in sata drives?



## techguy31 (May 30, 2010)

So I have a kingston ssd which is going be my os and a 1 tb that is going to be storage.  How should I plug in the sata cables to the motherboard?  I also have a optical blu ray.  Does it matter where I plug it into the mobo.  I have 8 sata plugs.   I also have a e sata from the computer case do I also plug it into the sata mobo plus?   My question is should i plug it in order like ssd for sata 0, 1tb for sata 1, optical for sata2, and e sata from case for sata 4?


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## DrPepper (May 30, 2010)

Just plug it any spare connector.


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## sneekypeet (May 30, 2010)

to make thins simple for you...

SSD in SATA0
Backup drive in SATA1
CD/DVD/BR in SATA2

This way when you go to install the SSD should be first in the boot priority and simplify the instal and lettering of the drives out of the gate.


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## hat (May 30, 2010)

The bios recgonizes drives in order, starting with sata 0. My setup goes like this:
system drive
storage drive
dvd-rom
dvd-rw


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## techguy31 (May 30, 2010)

Thx. but when it comes time to config the boot drive I should boot it from optical drive always first right?


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## AsRock (May 30, 2010)

techguy31 said:


> Thx. but when it comes time to config the boot drive I should boot it from optical drive always first right?



Only for OS install.  After that your boot drive as it will skip checking the player then.


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## techguy31 (May 30, 2010)

Do you mean after I install the OS on the ssd I go back into the bios and configure the boot order?


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## hat (May 30, 2010)

I always set the first boot deivce to the hard drive and disable anything else under the "boot device" category after that. If I need to boot from something that's not my hard drive, I press F9 to get into the boot menu (it's probably different on your pc, but it should say what the boot menu key is on POST)


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## techguy31 (May 30, 2010)

So that means you have a partition in your hdd or ssd that has your OS inside.  My case is that I won't have a partition for my OS in my ssd.  I just want a lot more free space therefore I want to boot from the optical drive.  If that's the case I should put the optical drive at first boot right and then others so forth right.  But it really doesn't matter if I put the hdd second because I won't have a partition of the OS.  
I'm just asking a lot of questions because I'm kind of new to this stuff and want to make sure I don't screw anything up.  
Thx again..


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## sneekypeet (May 30, 2010)

for loading the OS boot priority should go DVD then HDD.

After the OS is loaded and windows works, you can go into bios and tell it to boot the HDD first and speed up boot times by 5-10 seconds. This way it isnt trying to load the disc all the time ( IE I leave a dos boot disc of memtest in my drive. When I need to test the ram I change the boot priority back).

Just worry about the first part for now until the OS is in, then we can show you the differences.


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## francis511 (May 30, 2010)

It`s not VERY important. You can notice a difference if your board has two different raid controllers. You can usually spot this if there are different coloured sata plugs.


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## techguy31 (May 30, 2010)

Thx...


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## Mussels (May 30, 2010)

sneekypeet said:


> to make thins simple for you...
> 
> SSD in SATA0
> Backup drive in SATA1
> ...



i agree with this.


Quite often i've seen people plug them in any old order, and windows installations throw the boot.ini file (or its vista/7 counterpart) on disk 0... so that in a few months time when they removed disk 0 or changed the boot order, windows couldnt find its boot files even tho the windows drive was still connected.


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