New SSD to replace my Primary HDD

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Therapistz

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Sep 23, 2013
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I just purchased an 256Gb SSD drive from newegg.com. I currently have a 1Tb HDD as my primary Harddrive. I was planning on using the SSD for the operating system and one game. I was wondering what would be the most efficient way to make my SSD the Primary drive with the operating system on it, without having to re-install everything all over again.

P.S. Since my 1Tb HDD has 226Gb of data on it, would it be possible to just copy the whole thing with a program of some-sort.
 
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Do a fresh install, that way you know windows is configured correctly to run on an SSD. If you just make an image of the HDD and load it on the SSD, while it will boot, you won't have the optimal SSD related settings turned on/off by default, and there are some other issues that arise sometimes, like the drive no being properly aligned.

Programs don't take that long to reinstall. If there are steam games, just back up your steamapps folder and copy it back in when you are done reinstalling steam.

Also, it's a good idea to unplug the hard drive while reinstalling windows on the SSD, that way it won't leave the bootloader on the HDD (I had this issue).
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blader15sk8

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Feb 6, 2006
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Do a fresh install, that way you know windows is configured correctly to run on an SSD. If you just make an image of the HDD and load it on the SSD, while it will boot, you won't have the optimal SSD related settings turned on/off by default, and there are some other issues that arise sometimes, like the drive no being properly aligned.

Programs don't take that long to reinstall. If there are steam games, just back up your steamapps folder and copy it back in when you are done reinstalling steam.

Also, it's a good idea to unplug the hard drive while reinstalling windows on the SSD, that way it won't leave the bootloader on the HDD (I had this issue).
 
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Y0GI

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Jul 22, 2013
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Don't plan on using the full 256 GB of the SSD, because SSDs require what is known as "over-provisioning". That is a fancy way of saying that you need to leave 15% - 20% of the drive as unallocated space for the SSD to work with.

Yogi

 
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Therapistz

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Sep 23, 2013
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I appreciate you mentioning that, I currently have 175Gb free on my 256Gb SSD. I figured that the SSD would run most efficiently with at least a 1/3 of free space. Although i think i could have been fine with a 120Gb SSD, but at least i don't have to worry about coming close to filling the SSD.




Do a fresh install, that way you know windows is configured correctly to run on an SSD. If you just make an image of the HDD and load it on the SSD, while it will boot, you won't have the optimal SSD related settings turned on/off by default, and there are some other issues that arise sometimes, like the drive no being properly aligned.

Programs don't take that long to reinstall. If there are steam games, just back up your steamapps folder and copy it back in when you are done reinstalling steam.

Also, it's a good idea to unplug the hard drive while reinstalling windows on the SSD, that way it won't leave the bootloader on the HDD (I had this issue).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, i just did a clean install without the HDD. Then I formatted my HDD and just reinstalled the few non-steam games i had.
 
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