Which SSD to boot? I have two SSDs a 500gb and a 250gb

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littleben

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Hi,
I got the 250 for boot and applications and a little gaming but soon realized that it would soon run out of space so I got a 500gb one which I had thought I would primarily use for games.

Was just wandering which of my two SSDs I should boot with. one is 500gb the other 250gb (both samsung EVO 850)? Or if it even really matters?

Also another question: as the two drives are different sizes is it still possible to run them in RAID 0, would this be a good idea to improve boot time and performance? If the answer is yes would i need to back up the drives and reformat them?

Thanks in advance for any advice
 
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Moonstick2

Moonstick2

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You'd definitely need to reformat the drives to set it up, and then you're limited by the size of the smallest disk, meaning you'll have 250 GB of expensive SSD doing nothing. You'd also need to keep good backups because if one drive fails you'll lose all your data.

It should be very fast, but whether it's worth it offset against the time taken to do it and the loss of storage is up to you.

 
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urbanrider

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Personally I’d move to having the boot drive on the 500gb drive for simplicity sake. 500gb will let you install and run pretty much whatever you’re looking at installing on your main disk…and then if your still short on room you can move some games or whatever to the 250 gb drive.
This is assuming your comfortable cloning a drive (it’s pretty straight forward). If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, running some games off of the 500gb non-boot drive will be fine. The only downside I really see to that is some programs are a PITA to install on separate drives.
 
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littleben

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HI guys thanks for all your advice. I think i will switch my boot drive to the 500gb and will not bother with RAID for the moment with my setup. I will use the Sansung Data Migration software to clone the 250gb onto the 500gb unless any of you want to advise another option. have looked around online and people seem to think the samsung software is pretty decent.

So that leads me to my next question.. I have connected the drive to the MOBO (asus rampage iv) initially i had a little trouble getting the system to boot and for windows to recondise the drive. After setting the SATA config back to AHCI as this was the only way windoes would boot I finally thought to look for the new drive in the Disk Management utility...

It says I need to initialize the disk. I assume that I need to this with the 'GPT (GUID Partition table)' option opposed to the 'MRB (Master Boot Record)' one?

once i have initialized it i assume that i then clone the drives with the software then change the boot drive in the BIOS to the new 500gb SSD and it should work? then wipe (should i reformat?) the 250gb drive? or would it be worth keeping windows on there as a spare boot drive and use the remaining space for storage when needed?

I also assume i should switch the the new boot drive into the SATA_1 (6gb/s) port as it is currently in the 2nd port?

Thanks again for your help
 
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littleben

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HI guys thanks for all your advice. I think i will switch my boot drive to the 500gb and will not bother with RAID for the moment with my setup. I will use the Sansung Data Migration software to clone the 250gb onto the 500gb unless any of you want to advise another option. have looked around online and people seem to think the samsung software is pretty decent.

So that leads me to my next question.. I have connected the drive to the MOBO (asus rampage iv) initially i had a little trouble getting the system to boot and for windows to recondise the drive. After setting the SATA config back to AHCI as this was the only way windoes would boot I finally thought to look for the new drive in the Disk Management utility...

It says I need to initialize the disk. I assume that I need to this with the 'GPT (GUID Partition table)' option opposed to the 'MRB (Master Boot Record)' one?

once i have initialized it i assume that i then clone the drives with the software then change the boot drive in the BIOS to the new 500gb SSD and it should work? then wipe (should i reformat?) the 250gb drive? or would it be worth keeping windows on there as a spare boot drive and use the remaining space for storage when needed?

I also assume i should switch the the new boot drive into the SATA_1 (6gb/s) port as it is currently in the 2nd port?

Thanks again for your help

 
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littleben

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after carefully re-reading the options in the disk management utility I now realize MRB would probably be the right option (misread TB as BG)???

Also is it better to do the initialization in cmd with DiskPart?
 
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urbanrider

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1. Does the Samsung clone tool not recognize the un-initialized disk? I’ve never used that program specifically. If it doesn’t, initialize it as GPT in Disk Utility. MBR is the older format.

2. Use the Cloning program to clone the drive (Youtube should have a tutorial). Once its complete, remove the 250gb drive and set it aside and plug the 500gb drive into the old sata port that the 250gb drive was in. Boot up and confirm that everything is working properly. If its not, put back in the 250gb drive and check out why.

3. Once you’ve confirmed everything is running fine, do a re-format of the drive to clean it and get it ready for general storage. I wouldn’t bother keeping your old copy of windows on there…it just makes things confusing if you accidentally boot into the wrong disk.
 
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littleben

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It recognizes it but doesn't give an option to initialize it. So i will use the Disk management Utility in Computer Management and then follow the steps you have given me. Thank you very much
 
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ArtPog

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urbanrider has given you the correct steps to follow.

Using the Samsung Data Migration program it will not be necessary to initialize nor format your new Samsung 500 GB SSD. The disk-cloning process will take care of that.

As has been pointed out to you the SDM program is a nice piece of work for cloning the contents of a disk to a Samsung SSD. It's simple-to-use and straightforward in design. You should have little trouble in using that program as long as your source disk is completely functional without any problems of its own.

1. Install the program on your current SSD. Access the program and click Start.

2. The Source Disk (your old SSD) and the Target Disk (your new SSD) will be identified.

3. Click Start.

4. Click Yes when the confirmation message appears.

5. The disk-cloning process will begin. It can be a lengthy process depending upon the amount of data that's being cloned.

6. When the cloning process has successfully completed a message will appear to that effect.

7. Click Quit, then Shut Down.

8. After the system has been shut down it's best to temporarily disconnect the old SSD from the system and boot to the new SSD to determine all is well. As you have indicated, connect your new SSD to the first SATA connector on the motherboard which you've stated is the SATA_1 connector. The old SSD can now be connected to any following SATA connector.

I'm in agreement with urbanrider that if you don't need any particular storage data currently residing on the old SSD it's probably best to format that volume. While there's little likelihood that you would run into any multiple boot incompatibility problems because an OS is installed on that (now) secondary drive, it does happen. And there doesn't seem to be any valid reason to continue to have an OS installed on that "old' drive, right?
 
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USAFRet

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Alternatively, if the 250GB SSD is running fine, I'd say leave the OS on it. You won't really see any speed/performance difference between that and the 500.

Add the 500GB as another drive, and install what youlike on it.

But if you want to change, the above steps are correct.
 
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littleben

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Hi, thanks for the detailed info.

Will the program present me with the option to format the drive with GPT instead of MBR or shall I assume that it does it automatically? It currently says that it is RAW in the Samsung Data Migration program (and in Disk Management)
 
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