Computers with two or more hard drives. Question about how they interact.

I am considering an MSI GT80, which often comes with two or even three hard drives. I am really a novice at these things, but I am curious to read an explanation for the layman as to how the computer knows which hard drive to go to for a given task, or which one to store new information on when required.

 

Not sure what you mean by interact. You can choose which drive to install your OS on and different programs on, and the system will generally read and write data for the program from the drive it's installed on. The exception is that programs (especially games) usually store some data in one or more of the User folders (My Documents/Music/Pictures/Videos/Downloads), which reside on the same drive as the OS by default (although this can be changed), as well as storing data and temporary files in the AppData folders, again located on the same drive as the OS by default (but can be relocated using junctions or symlinks).

 

I think you've to choose Which drives the app gets installed and OS can take care of it by launching the app where its installed w/o any issues.

 

First off, I'm assuming you're looking at this through a Windows point of view. Linux (or Mac for that matter) file systems are similar, but do have some differences.

With that said, I apologize if this is too basic, but start with these 2 videos to understand file system basics. [ Just click the spoiler button below ]

Spoiler: Simple FileSystem Videos

Afterwards, once you grasp that, you can think of each disk drive as its drawer within the filing cabinet of your MSI laptop. Then all you have to do is pay attention to what folder in the drive / file system where things are stored. This could be in some of the 'special' folders too, like your User Temp directory, System Temp directory, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, etc. Those special folders are all defined within your Windows login account, which lets Windows know where it should put files generated by any applications you use.

HTH

 

Thanks for the replies. I suppose I should have been more clear in why I was asking the question. I am thinking that I could get a mirror image of the hard drive of my existing computer, and install it into one of those empty GT80 HD slots so I could access my data and programs on the new(er) and much faster computer, but then I'm wondering (a) how the computer knows which drive to boot from, and (b) how easy or difficult it is to run those programs.

 

The best way to handle this would be to connect your current hard drive externally, copy all the data you need to your new system, and then format the old drive to use as a backup.

 

I second @saturnotaku's method of manually copying the files. However, if you purchase something like a new SSD, you would need to check with what you buy, but sometimes those drives come with a program which you can use to copy stuff over to the new drive.

For example, a Samsung SSD will come with Samsung Migration tools. I've never used it, and I'm sure others may opine with different options, but my understanding is that it basically copies data to be used on the new drive. Since this option may grab some extra cruft/garbage that may have accumulated on your old drive over its use is why I think @saturnotaku's method is the way to go.

 

O.k. thanks.