Downloading from / uploading to external drive via SSD PC

Question

Suppose I have a Windows 7 machine with a 256 SSD, and a secondary 2 TB HDD, as well as a NAS.

Will my SSD always have data written to it first, since it runs the OS, even if I specify my download location to either the HDD or NAS? Similarily, will uploading from the HDD or NAS to the internet via my PC also write to the SSD first?

Are both of these processes effectively the same to my SSD lifespan as downloading to or uploading from my SSD directly (and copy/paste/delete stuff manually as I sort it through my HDD and NAS)?

Answer 1

Your question leaves a lot of information out. For instance... "if I specify my download location"... what program are you talking about? ... each program behaves slightly differently. Some programs download the file to a local temporary directory and then move the file to the location specified... others simply download the file to the directory with some sort of funny name/extension... then rename it to the correct name when completed. In most cases, files will be written to the "system volume" which is where the OS was initially installed. If that is your SSD, then your stuff will be written there. You can expect the life of your SSD to be comparable to that of a regular spindle drive. Simply downloading files will not be the bulk of read/writes on your SSD... so I wouldn't even worry about which drive you are downloading to.

Answer 2

That's a good question, and honestly the answer depends on the application that is doing the downloading. Internet Explorer (at least older versions used to) downloads to a TEMP folder in the OS drive before moving it to the specified location. I believe iTunes also downloads to a temp folder prior to moving.