Questions about SSD,HDD and formatting

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
L

link_q

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2009
66
0
18,630
Hello!
I have some questions for the community! My pc has been running slower,since it's 5 years old. One question is, i havent formatted it or defragmantated ever. Might it be a reason for the slow down? (not very savvy i know :p)

Also I'm planning on buying an SSD. I will install windows on it and make it the boot drive(i've seen the whole process) etc. I will then install games and the like there. My question here is do I need to format the original HDD?

Most importantly,will NOT formatting the HDD have any performance impact on the usage of the computer from the SSD???(ie playing a game from the SSD or installing and loading it from the HDD while on SSD windows)

I have a lot of data on it and I don't want to format if it isn't 100% necessary. But I do need the performance boost.
Thank you!
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
Hello link_q. It is not necessary to format it if you don't need to, but it's a good idea to defragment it every once in awhile. As for the slow down reason, it could be anything, you could defragment the drive to see if it helps, but just in case I'd run the manufacturer's diagnostic tool first and test the HDD, to see if there's anything wrong with it. If you suspect that there might be an issue with the drive, it's a very good measure to backup everything important you have on that drive.
Other than that, the HDD should not affect in any way, the loading speed of your programs and games which you run from the SSD. But you should remember to disconnect all HDDs while installing the OS on the SSD. Plus it'll be a good measure to backup...
Sort by date Sort by votes
Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Hello link_q. It is not necessary to format it if you don't need to, but it's a good idea to defragment it every once in awhile. As for the slow down reason, it could be anything, you could defragment the drive to see if it helps, but just in case I'd run the manufacturer's diagnostic tool first and test the HDD, to see if there's anything wrong with it. If you suspect that there might be an issue with the drive, it's a very good measure to backup everything important you have on that drive.
Other than that, the HDD should not affect in any way, the loading speed of your programs and games which you run from the SSD. But you should remember to disconnect all HDDs while installing the OS on the SSD. Plus it'll be a good measure to backup the data from the HDD and format it (or at least the partition with Windows on it) so that you don't end up having two drives with the same OS, this could result in a lot of issues.
Also when you get the SSD don't defragment it, ever. :)

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Solution
L

link_q

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2009
66
0
18,630


Thank you very much for your useful info! It really helped me because I was searching for answers for hours :)! Is it a good idea to make a new partition on my HDD, add data there(besides the external HDD)plus a linux installation and if I want, format the partition with the old Win7 installation? Also since I'm gonna boot from the SSD, how can the old Win installation cause problems?
Thank you again very much!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Yup, you could do it like this. As for booting your OS, it's not necessary that there would be issues with that, it's just not recommended, because sometimes conflicts may arise. If you don't want to have to go through reformatting and moving data and all, I guess you could go this way and just install it on the SSD. Just remember to disconnect the HDD while you do that and reconnect it after the the process is completed. And remember to set the boot priority after that. :)
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom