So, should I load/run the OS (Win7) on the 1T HD & apps on the other (250G) SSD drive, or vice versa?  Also is RAIDing the 2 drives worthwhile, & are there any associated stability issues going this way?  I've done a little research & noticed that ALL files tend to be unrecoverable when a RAID setup goes down.

Obviously, if you have a better setup recommendations than what I've stated, I'd like to hear it.

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So I disconnected the HD (left the DVD plugged in) but I'm not getting a BIOS screen on boot up.  What'd I do wrong?
 Solved.

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Think I have the GPU issue figured, but 2 more new problems are now afoot:

1) Plugged in the router (Verizon 7500) to the mobo (ASUS Z87 Pro), but there's no network detection.  I'm not really that up on this aspect of the setup, but with drivers installed, what could prevent the OS from finding the network?  Do I need to get the specific router drivers?

2) Of particular annoyance, the Win7 system builder kit I bought doesn't have a CD key ZOMGWTFBBQ?!  What's up with that?  Is there a way to get one via MSFT CS or something? Found it.

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It's up & running.  Thanks to everyone for you assistance.  Really worth it, & a decent learning experience to boot (no pun).  No surprise, the thing is light yrs FAST.  Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the my 14 yo old Dell box after I scrub the 8G HDD.  I guess I could save it as a backup in case the 1T HDD ever dies.

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Okay, here's something I didn't notice before: how do I access/use the 2nd SATA drive (HDD)?  It's listed in the device mgr menu, but I can't access it.  Is there a system setup option or physical connection that I missed?  Resolved.

OS & apps on the SSD, bulk data on the spinner.

The simple answer is OS and Often used programs on the SSD, bulk files and rarely used programs on the disk drive.  As to your question about RAID, I'm not an expert, nor is there enough room here to really explain it.  This is where Google is your friend.  One option is to use the SSD as a cache for the disk drive.  Once again Google is your friend.

Sounds like exactly this, forget the RAID if it's just the 1TB spinner and the one SSD.

In simplest terms, RAID takes several drives, combines them into one logical drive volume that shows up. You'd only want to do this when you have drives of similar size/type.

Different RAID configs are just different ways to combine the drives for different reasons. Like mirrored, striped, etc.

I know what RAID does, just never implemented it on a home PC.  A friend RAIDed his setup & claims it seems to run faster.

Also forgot to ask: are the OS drive designations (eg. A/B/C/D/etc. drive) default designated based on which physical mobo port the drives are plugged into, or will I have the option to assign them during the OS install/setup?

Plugin only the SSD during install, then it will default as "C", once install is done, shut down and plug the rest of the drives in.



 

Update in OP.

Are you getting anything on the monitor?
are you getting any beeps while the computer is starting up?
are the fans running?
does the power light built into the case go turn on?
do you have the ram installed properly
do you have the cpu installed properly,

We really need more details on your set up
which mother board
which ram
which cpu

After some work I determined that the GPU (GTX780) is the problem.  Fixed the VGA LED problem, but then the system boot LED lit up.  I reset the CMOS, but no joy, so then unplugged the GPU & the boot screen now comes up.  Disappointing for a rather high-end item, but I RMA'ed it & a new replacement is en route.

I actually realized I don't have a mobo speaker, so I need to get one ASAP.

Hoping with a sound functioning GPU replacement I'll be in the BIOS setup going forward.

Is your GPU a separate video card?

It's possible that your motherboard doesn't offer native support for it and you'll need to get your machine up and running, then install the drivers for it.

Possible.  I bought it through PCPartPicker (with the compatibility filter on), so I thought it would be natively supported.  Then again, I don't know if the "compatible" filter covers firmware aspects.  I'm going to go ahead & RMA it for a another one of the same model, & if it does the same, then I'll unplug it & install the drivers.

2nd time's the charm...I hope.

What main board did you purchase?  The GTX780 should natively work with all current main boards if you a) have it seated correctly, b)have it seated in a compatible slot, and c) plug in the supplementary power (and the power supply can put out enough wattage)

800W modular unit for power.

I disconnected the GPU to get the BIOS screen up, set boot drive priorities (CD, SSD, HDD), then installed the OS & HW drivers, then reconnected the GPU.  Now all the error mobo LEDs are off, but I suddenly realized that I don't have a monitor cable that will connect directly to the GPU (only plugs into the mobo), so I'm betting it's GTG once I get the right cable.

ETA: 2 new problems listed in OP.

Sweet!  

To answer your question, with mechanical hard drives, performance should increase as the number of drives increases (to a point, then diminishing returns of course). When reading, each drive goes to seek its respective piece instead of one drive doing all the work. That said, that's really only in a ideal setup, and you'd need more than 2 drives. In your case, the read speeds of a single ssd will still destroy.

Second, with 2 drives, all you could do is RAID 0 (striped, essentially concatenated) or RAID 1 (1:1 mirror). With 2 drives so substantially different, there'd really be no reason at all.Striping half of your data across an SSD and the other half across a slower mechanical drive would be a big performance detriment.

Another thing, if you're planning on running your OS off of a RAID volume, you'd need to make the RAID from a hardware controller instead of software. Some motherboards have it, but to get that performance gain you're looking for, you'd need a decent RAID card.

That's kind of what I surmised.  Still trying to get a network connection, though.

Is the Verizon DSL modem connected via Ethernet or USB?

I ran into a similar issue a few years ago.  A little googling and I found I had to install the sound drivers before installing the network drivers.  don't ask me why but it worked.

Ethernet, & the lights are on.  I re-installed the mobo drivers, but got nothing, so then re-installed Win7 (with the product key this time) & the OS found the adapter hardware to make the connection = GTG.



Re-installing Win7 got it done, thankfully.  I only had to install the mobo & GPU drivers, & of course the OS.  Virtually all the other peripheral device drivers were in Win7.  Made life a whole lot easier.

Build a server

Bump - see last comment in OP.

Have you formatted the drive yet?  Can't use it till you format it.  

eta:  Also, how do you have this second HDD connected to your system?  On Frankendesktop, I have the second internal drive connected to the SATA1 port on the motherboard.  Your OS/boot drive is usually connected to SATA0.

Great.  So I may have to dig back into the guts of it to sort it out.

At least in device mgr, the SSD is listed as Disk0 & HDD is Disk1, but I can't seem to select it for formatting from the GUI.

Okay, I just figured it out: the trick was to (1) go into 'Computer', R-click 'Management' -> (2) (opens) 'Computer Management', R-click 'Disk Management'.  From there, (3) R-click the disc (status should be online & unallocated) to initiate the 'New Simple Volume' wizard.  I just stuck with the default settings & ran through the wizard setup to format the drive, & now it's available.

I'm going to add this. Generally, you want to stay away from RAID when you have two drives of two different sizes as the RAID setups that will give you a usable backup if you have a hard disk failure will only image the disks to the size of the smallest drive. I'm also not sure if there is a software RAID option out there for Windows (all my server work is done in Linux).

As mentioned previously, you'll generally want to keep all of your boot info and programs on the SSD while all your files (music, pictures, documents) remain on the hard disk. This is handy because if you manage to screw up a boot sector on your boot disk, you don't loose your stuff if you are forced to re-install the OS. You may have to reinstall a few programs (depending on your OS) but this can be quite easy if one keeps an ISO image of all the program disks on the hard disk and use something like virtual clone drive to mount them and install to the boot disk straight off the storage disk (when I was working IT, it took roughly 70% less time to install Office and other programs if I just kept the disk images on a thumb drive and mounted versus plopping them into the disk tray).

It's pretty easy to set Win 7 up, its a right click on the proper folder and then simply changing the disk location for the shortcut. Linux and OSX, its a bit harder as you have to configure the fstab to mount and then do a little symbolic linking (basically creating shortcuts).

I've had a SSD boot/HDD file setup in my MacBook Pro for almost 4 years now…every year or so I accidentally screw up a boot sector or OEM app trying to free up some space on the SSD. Just take an hour or so to re-install OSX and its up and running again (it only re-installs the bad file sectors). Never have to reconfigure anything.

Looks like you have them plugged in "correctly".

Yeah, though I think I kind of lucked out a little.  Can't recall now, when I was assembling it, if I noted the drive order labels on the mobo, but it's GTG (see my previous post above).  I just needed to get into Disc Manager & run the wizard to format & allocate it.

Another lesson learned.

That's the way you do it...

Money for nuthin, and the chicks for free!