Should I buy an SSD now or later?

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I just ordered all of the parts to my PC (GTX 1080 and i7 6700k)

Ive spent all my money and at Christmas I was gonna get an SSD to plug into my build. My question is.

If I buy the SSD later, how can I reinstall windows into it instead of having it on my hard drive without hassle...

Since windows is much better when installed on a SSD, how could I move my windows into the SSD without going through the hassle of reinstalling everything etc...

Any ideas?
 
Solution
geofelt
I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
120gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games. If you can go 240gb, or 500gb you may never need a hard drive.

I would defer on the hard drive unless you need to store large files such as video's.
It is easy to add a hard drive later.
Samsung EVO is a good choice.

If what you have installed on the hard drive initially can fit on the ssd, you can use the free Samsung ssd migration tool to move windows and your programs to the ssd.
If it will not fit, you are looking at reinstalling windows and your apps.

Really, it is easier to start with a ssd and add a hard drive later
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
120gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games. If you can go 240gb, or 500gb you may never need a hard drive.

I would defer on the hard drive unless you need to store large files such as video's.
It is easy to add a hard drive later.
Samsung EVO is a good choice.

If what you have installed on the hard drive initially can fit on the ssd, you can use the free Samsung ssd migration tool to move windows and your programs to the ssd.
If it will not fit, you are looking at reinstalling windows and your apps.

Really, it is easier to start with a ssd and add a hard drive later
 
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pete_101

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Aug 2, 2014
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I completely agree. Get the SSD 1st and avoid all the hassle of trying to shift your OS and other programs.

 
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Rookie_MIB

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Jul 27, 2013
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I've done this myself, and it requires a little finagling to get it to work. The basic steps are:

1) download gparted and put it on a thumbdrive. google the instructions for that.
2) download clonezilla and put it on a thumbdrive. google the instructions for that.
3) reboot using gparted in the drive. You're going to shrink the windows partition to smaller than the size of the SSD.
4) reboot and make sure windows works.
5) reboot using clonezilla in the thumbdrive, and the SSD installed.
6) you're going to use clonezilla using images and disks (not partitions). You'll clone the HDD to the SSD.
7) shut down the computer, remove the HDD, put the SSD in the lowest sata port, reboot into bios, and point the boot order to the ssd (just in case it decides to aim it elsewhere).
8) reboot and test to make sure it works. Then you can use Windows to expand the windows partition to the full SSD size.

Like I said, I've done this before using windows (went from a single SSD to a RAID0 SSD set, cloned the OS drive to a backup img, wiped the drive, created the RAID0 in BIOS, then moved the image back to the RAID set, worked like a charm) and other OS's (OPENELEC move from 500GB HDD to 128GB SSD) so it does work.

That being said, it's much easier to get the SSD first, then install everything and considering a 256GB drive is about $100, it's not that expensive. Your average HDD is going to cost you $50-75, so just $50 more gets you far more speed.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Current cloning tools are MUCH easier than clonezilla and the required partition resizing.
Macrium Reflect, for instance.

CloneZilla was good 5 years ago. Not so much now.


But for the OP...yes, get the SSD first. HDD later.
 
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Rookie_MIB

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That may be. However, a 'good' tool is one that works, and it does the job. He can use whatever tools he wants, but that outlines the basic procedure which he was asking about in regards to transferring the OS from a HDD to a (potentially) smaller SSD after the fact without a full reinstall... :)
 
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