This is from djMot_______________I think a lot of people focus on the time it takes to boot a computer, and so they conclude that an SSD would be the best solution to get their computer to boot as fast as possible. In my opinion, there are two flaws in that logic.
1) The time it takes to boot a computer is experienced far less than, say, restarting a crashed game for instance. Windows 8.1 includes significant performance enhancements to its hibernate mode. On my computer, also a Windows 8.1 computer, when I press my power button, the computer hibernates. When I move my mouse, the computer wakes up from hibernation. When a Windows 8.1 computer wakes from hibernation, the computer goes through its POST just as it would when powering up during a cold boot, and then Windows is restored by a) re-initializing all drivers, and restoring the state of all running programs from a memory image file stored on the hard disk. This happens in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take the computer to boot cold. And, unlike starting from cold, the computer is restored to the state in which you left it when you entered hibernation. Because coming out of hibernation is so fast, I rarely take my computer to full shutdown, thereby avoiding the long start time from a cold boot. It's not as fast as a boot from an SSD, but it's way faster than a cold boot. And – again, this is the key point – I feel it is a misguided concern to place emphasis on speedy boot time, when a more important consideration is how fast programs start that you use frequently throughout the day. Windows boots maybe once a day, but you go in and out of other programs all day long.
2) people who install an SSD as the boot device immediately find that it is very problematic to get Windows to alter its normal behavior to accommodate better space management. In particular, to tell it to use another device to store certain files. Windows wants to use certain locations for certain files. Worse, certain programs won't even give you the option. A good example of the latter is Call of Duty 5 – World at War which can only use the user's AppData folder to store map files. These map files are quite large, and with as many maps as are available for COD5, many gigabytes of data are quickly consumed. What I hear from people who have set up an SSD boot drive is that they quite quickly end up in a space crisis. As I recall, your configuration calls for a 250GB SSD, or in other words .25TB and I think it will be a challenge for you to manage space on a boot SSD that small. I'm not saying it's impossible to relocate the AppData folder, or tell Windows were to store your user files, but Windows was not written in such a way as to make that an easy process, and I've heard more horror stories from people who have attempted it than success stories. Just be aware that you may end up frustrated that your space is being unexpectedly consumed by files whose placement you have no control over. Microsoft needs to work on optimizing these kinds of things specifically for for SSD installations. Until then, or until they start making 2TB SSD drives at the same price point as a mechanical drive, I personally would not install Windows on an SSD drive. On the other hand, installing Windows on a regular hard drive, and installing just the programs and data you need fast access to on the SSD, seems to be a far easier, and less problematic strategy.
I do not own an SSD, so you may ultimately decide that I'm just blowing smoke up your butt here. That said, I do hope one day to purchase an SSD for my computer. But I will not install it as a boot device, but rather as a place to store programs and games that I want fast access to. I don't mind waiting for my computer to come out of hibernation because that happens so fast, nor do I mind waiting for the occasional cold boot since that's more the exception than the rule for me.
Good luck with the new computer! Great motherboard; great processor. I think you're going to get a lot of awesome performance out of that machine.
