XoticPC Custom Sager NP9380-S, Need help with HDD config please!

I am new to this forum so forgive me if I accidentally post anything improperly!

I just ordered myself a custom Sager NP9380-S from XoticPC and I am trying to figure out the best possible configuration. I made the build with a single Samsung 256gb 840 pro SSD and chose to buy the new WD BLACK SERIES WD5000BPKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5 Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive as my secondary storage drive (from Newegg). Tho I have not yet received my laptop (I am hoping it will be here by Friday 10/4/13), I went ahead and ordered the other hard drive which I received today. The primary purpose of this laptop will be for gaming/streaming. I play mostly LoL, WoW, and I am a huge Battlefield fan, but I have dozens of other games(ex. Crysis 3, CoD, etc..). My question is, what would be the best way to configure everything for the best performance for gaming? I have not only games, but pictures and thousands of songs that I will probably partition the 500gb drive and store all of those files on the back of the drive. Also, if it is best to keep my games on the SSD, would installing Origin and Steam on the HDD affect the game performance for any installed games if I were to make the install folder on the SSD for their game libraries? I'm trying to minimize the amount of non-essential programs that go onto the SSD. Last question I think, I am using the new Bitdefender Total Defense 2014 as my antivirus, would it be better to install that on the secondary drive, or put it on the SSD with my OS? I don't keep any important files on my laptops and I generally backup my music/pictures/save files every two weeks onto an external network drive, that and both the SSD and HDD have very high rated life spans(Both also have a 5 year warranty) so I'm not really worried about losing anything to possible failures. My interest is solely in maximum performance. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Here is the setup I ordered (I copy and pasted just part of the build info):

1x Sager NP9380-S (Clevo P370SM3)

- Operating System: ~Windows 8 - 64-Bit (64-Bit CD Included) + MS Office 2013 Trial
- Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Wireless Network: Sager - Intel® Dual Band AC 7260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth™ 4.0 (SKU - WIFI94)
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth Included *With select wireless cards only* (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
- Optical Drive Bay: 6x Blu-Ray Reader + 8x DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (SKU - ODD084)
- Primary Hard Drive: 256GB Samsung 840 Pro Series SSD [SSD2 - SATA III] (SKU - SSD097)
- Ram: 16GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS) (SKU - S4S822AP)
- Graphics Video Card: SLI (2x) - NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 780M (8.0GB total) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU011)
- Processor: Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4800MQ (2.7GHz - 3.7GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) (SKU – SPU202)
- Monitor Calibration: XOTIC PC Professional Monitor Color Calibration (Operating System is required) (XPC Service - requires shipment to XOTIC PC: will add to build time)
- Display: 17.3" FHD 16:9 120Hz "MatteType" 72% NTSC Color Gamut Sager Screen (1920x1080) + 1 x NVIDIA® 3D Glasses (*NVIDIA® GTX 780M required) (SKU - S1R555)

My secondary HDD that I ordered from Newegg.com:

-WD BLACK SERIES WD5000BPKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

 

Hey there, congrats on the new system. I pulled up your order on our side and saw Roland was assisting you on it.

My advice would be to essentially those games you want to have fast load times onto the SSD. Those that you don't care if they load fast (initial load, maps, etc...) put those on the mechanical HDD. Games like BF3/4, Skyrim, Crysis, and so on that have lots of maps to load and different areas that load while in game, you'll notice a lot less downtime letting those things load from the SSD. Smaller games that already have a fast load time due to them being less intensive, you'll still see a difference, but in my opinion not worth installing on the SSD since they're already decently fast.

I personally always install my AV software onto the primary drive, not sure if there is any benefit to doing so, but I've never tried anything else. Relatively small footprint though so I don't see why not.

Definitely keep your music, video, pictures, and the like on the mechanical drive as you don't need a fast load time for those. If you're backing them up anyway, might as well keep it trimmed down as much as possible and only keep the stuff you use regularly. You should be pretty well set with 256gb of SSD though. Probably won't need to worry about filling it up completely as long as you keep an eye as to what goes on it.

I also asked Roland to get a hold of you via email in case you had any other questions.

 

Wow awesome thank you! You guys have been extremely helpful through this entire process, and I just read Roland's email. Both of you offered great advice! I've built myself desktops in the past, but this go around I decided to get someone to build me a laptop. So far I am very impressed with how you guys handle your business. I am looking forward to getting my hands on my new laptop and shred through the Battlefield 4 beta when it goes live. My build is still in phase 3, so more than likely I won't have it by Tuesday haha. Thanks again for you help!

 

You're very welcome! It's what we're here for and always glad to lend a hand.