Asus Zenbook UX32A Ultrabook drives and partitions?

[jenb]

Hello there, I'm really sorry if this is in the wrong place, or if this has been asked before, my google fu has been weak here, but I think here's appropriate. I've just got my hands on a Asus Zenbook UX32A as a replacement for my old laptop and it seems to have rather strange partitioning. I haven't really been too tech savvy for the last few years but this model was described as coming with a small (22gb) solid state drive and a larger 500gb normal hard drive. When ordering I presumed the OS would be shipped on the SSD for faster boot however the 500gb hard drive has everything on and is partitioned into 4 separate parts.

Is it possible/wise to install the OS into the solid state drive? Having a read around it appears that they primarily use it for a cache for the laptop to recover fast from hibernating, but I rarely use laptops in this way and if it'd be possible to get the os running faster compared to its performance on the normal HD which is a slow hitachi. Checking around win7 requires roughly 20gb to install so even if possible would the small size of the drive be detrimental in the long run?

Alternatively is there any way I can merge the partitions without damaging the os files, just the ones on the larger hard drive.

Any help or advice would be awesome I'm normally relatively comfortable sorting out computers however I've never had a solid state drive before and I'm not sure if I should treat it differently. (I have been warned never to defrag it though!) Everything else about this laptop seems great so I'd like it up and running as fast as possible from the get go. It seems a shame to waste one of these super fast drives if I can use it. Thanks for reading.

 

[jaguarskx]

The small SSD drive is meant to be used as a cache drive to help improve the performance of the hard drive. The mSATA port where the SSD drive is attached to defaults the SSD to acting as a standalone drive. I know of no laptop who's BIOS gives you any other options.

Here is an option though. Click following link which instructs you on how to use the mSATA SSD as a separated drive and install Windows 7 / 8. The instructions are specifically for ThinkPad T430, but the general steps applies to all laptops.

Skip all steps regarding the replacement of the replacement / installation of a SSD because you intend on using the one that came with the laptop. You will be using a program called Easy BCD to change the boot order and a program called Macrium Reflect Free to clone the C: drive to the mSATA drive.

http/blog.laptopmag.com/triple-your-speed-how-to-install-an-msata-ssd-boot-drive-in-your-laptop?cmpid=492396


You need to minimize the amount of space Win 7 / 8 uses. I would do the following:

1. Disable Hibernation which takes up 4GB - 6GB. Click link below to disable Hibernation. It should work for both Win 7 & 8 since they operate the same way to the best of my knowledge.

http/support.microsoft.com/kb/920730

2. Move the pagefile (known as swapfile in Win XP) to one of the HDD's partition.

3. Uninstall any bloatware and programs which you intend to install on a different partition.

You want to ensure that no more than 16.5GB of the 22GB is used (roughly 80%). The remaining space is for TRIM which should be automatically activated by Win 7 and 8 when a SSD is detected. TRIM allows the SSD to live longer. A SSD is simply a large Flash memory drive. While the read / write speeds are amazingly fast, each sector can only be written over so many times before it becomes non functional. TRIM attempts to even spread out how many time each sector gets written to so that the lifespan is extended as long as possible. People have estimated 4 to 5 years with TRIM. This is why you should never defrag a SSD because defrag involves a lot of writing and re-writing to the SSD.

 

[Prostar Computer]

Actually, I think the SSD is reserved for Instant On, not as a cache drive (this unit may be configured differently though).

You can merge the partitions on the Hitachi drive, but you need to be careful here: to do so, you will need to format the partition you won't be using. As a result, you'll lose anything on that partition. So! If you try it, my suggestion would be to clone your drive, just as a fail safe.

You could technically fit a Windows installation on the mSATA drive, but then you lose your Instant On, and you can't really install any programs onto it since you won't have much headroom with how much space Windows will consume; so it won't really be practical or worth the trouble.

My suggestion instead would be to replace the Hitachi drive with either a SSHD from Seagate, or if you have the money, go full SSD. Samsung and Intel make excellent drives. Then you can keep Instant On, and make room for both Windows AND your programs. 😀