Complicating Matters

I've been experimenting with solid state drives (SSD) as boot drives on Debian systems and things have gone well there. Of course I have a lot more control in mounting different devices at different points in these Unix-like file system than I have had in the past with Windows, so I can put the heavy-write file systems like /var onto a hard disk drive (HDD) and keep the mostly read-only points of the file system on SSD. Boot times are great and hopefully the lifetime is extended by limiting writes.

I have ordered two drives to use when installing Windows 8. I am complicating matters, but what I want is to have SSD system drive with the more static Windows and Program Files contents and a HDD for the more dynamic User and ProgramData.

For the SSD I was torn between the much higher price and lower performance of the Intel chipset SSD, like the 320 series, and the higher performing but purportedly more fail prone sandforce based controllers. After reading a lot of reviews of people having problems and satisfaction across all manufactures and product lines, I went with the Crucial 128 GB SATA III M4. Hopefully that's enough space and it doesn't die anytime soon.

For the HDD I knew I wanted speed more than terabytes of storage. The Western Digital VelociRaptor 250 GB 10,000 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 32 MB cache drive seemed to fit the bill.

Now I was faced with the challenge of splitting Windows across two drives. The last time I tried this on an XP system it was such a pain that I never wanted to revisit it because "relocating My Documents" is not what I am after. I want all of the Users data on the other drive. Perhaps I should have used a hybrid drive or something fancy like the Apple Fusion Drive to avoid the issue. On the other hand, the way I chose allows me to control what data is where.

After some research I found two possible solutions to my dilemma. The first and most linked solution uses an answer file with the System Preparation Tool. The second option uses directory junctions to create a very Unix-like state. This seems much simpler but the first solution appears to be vetted.