Looking To Install My First SSD

[manooly]

About a year and a half ago I built my first PC. With the help of this great community the whole process went perfectly. My PC is still up and running without any hitches. I still love it. I am now looking to upgrade it a bit with a new SSD drive. I'd basically like to load my OS (Windows 7 64bit Home Premium) along with a couple of MMORPG's (WoW and Lord of the rings Online). I don't need anything huge or too expensive. I'd really like to purchase it from Newegg.com too. I've had great success with them.

My question to you all is which SSD would be good for me? My mobo is an ASUS p7p55d-e pro. It has SATA III capability. Also, how do I go about transferring the OS to a new drive while it is on it's current drive (a 500GB Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm)? I figured I'd get this whole process started by starting a thread here. Please let me know what other information you need from me to help me accomplish purchasing and installing a new SSD drive into my system. I look forward to your feedback/comments!

Thanks for your time!

- manooly

 

[WyomingKnott]

Also, how do I go about transferring the OS to a new drive while it is on it's current drive (a 500GB Samsung Spinpoint 7200rpm)?
- manooly

The most frequent response on the question of moving the OS to the SSD is not to do it, but do a clean install on the SSD. That way, you don't have to worry about enabling AHCI, fixing the 4K boundary alignment, ensuring that TRIM is enabled, and the other thousand tweaks that SSDs are heir to.

The way to move the OS when your source drive is bigger than the target is to clone the OS partition to the SSD, then make it bootable with a repair installation while all other drives are disconnected. If your drive does not have a separate OS partition, but just a 500 GB C drive, this can get messy and I would, once more, recommend a clean install.

EASEUS provides a free backup and restore tool that restores an OS backup onto dissimilar hardware; that might be worth trying.

But if you have the patience for a clean re-install, do it.

 

[manooly]

Thanks for your reply! I think I would go the route of doing a clean install. Would it be as simple as installing the new SSD drive, then boot up like I would normally, make sure that the SSD drive is being read by the system, put in the Windows 7 install disk and direct the install to the new SSD drive, boot up again but go into the BIOS to change the boot drive to the new SSD drive? If so, how do I transfer all of my necessary data like Outlook files and other important stuff to the new SSD drive? Maybe I'm way off here, that is why I'm asking the guru's here. Also, what is a good SSD drive to buy on newegg.com?

Thanks again!

- manooly

 

[WyomingKnott]

There are multiple threads, and a couple of articles, on the subject of installing your SSD. They cover key issues such as enabling AHCI first, disconnecting all other drives during the initial Win7 install, tweaking, installing extra-large programs on the HDD, and so on and so forth. My favorite is by our own tecmo34: http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/solid-state-drive-ssd-tweaks-for-windows-7/552.html .

As for transferring files, you copy some and leave others on the HDD to save expensive SSD storage space. Do you really care how fast your mail file is read? Do look at the notes on moving My Documents _off_ the SSD and _onto_ the HDD.

In regard to which to buy, I am agnostic; others will weigh in. I strongly suggest a minimum size of 80 GB, with more if you have a lot of games.

 

[auedawen]

Manooly, you and I share a similar predicament, haha.

Basically I've had my rig for a year and a half. Now that SSD's are getting cheaper I also want to purchase one to boot off of (and run a few choice programs).

I do differ though in that I want to wipe my old HDD, and reformat it as my storage device. Does anyone know how I'd go about doing this? I'm not opposed to Reinstalling my programs and such, I just don't want any programs from the old HDD to conflict with the new SSD.

Hope I'm not hijacking your thread Manooly!

 

[manooly]

No problem auedawen! The more info we get the better.

I would also be fine with reformatting my HDD and reinstalling what I need on my SSD drive. Let's see if we get more help on this.

Thanks!

- manooly

 

[SuperCruz]

No problem auedawen! The more info we get the better.

I would also be fine with reformatting my HDD and reinstalling what I need on my SSD drive. Let's see if we get more help on this.

Thanks!

- manooly

Formatting the old HDD is one of the last steps.

Once you get everything running on the SSD, reconnect the HDD and right click it to full format NTFS.
Just make sure all your pics and stuff are backed up externally or moved to the SSD.

Once complete, it will show as one large drive.

 

[Sakkura]

The new Samsung 840 is a pretty good bet. I don't know your budget or the storage capacity you're after, but 120 GB is a pretty good balance between price and size.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147188