Need help upgrading my PC storage

Skadeshot · April 8, 2021

Hello!

So I've had my PC for a few years now and it has a 120gb SSD boot drive, plus a 1TB HDD, both SATA. The market has since shifted heavily towards SSDs being the standard.

I'm upgrading the storage now to a 970 Evo 250gb m.2 SSD for boot, plus a 1tb SATA SSD.

I'm good with installing Windows and whatnot, but my concerns arise when it comes to copying all my old data on to the new drives. What I had originally intended is that I will purchase hard drive enclosures to convert my old drives into external drives, then plug them into my new system with the new storage to then copy over the files I need, or at least provide a list of what I need to reinstall. Is this a suitable way of going about it?

What would happen if I leave my old drives in the system, will they be able to be accessed even though the old SSD isn't the C: boot drive anymore? Will the old 1tb HDD still work with the new storage so I don't need to turn it into external drives?

These are all precautions I'd like to take so any answers or suggestions are welcome, especially issues I need to be careful of.

Thanks guys!!

Noah0302 · April 8, 2021

31 minutes ago, Skadeshot said:

I'm upgrading the storage now to a 970 Evo 250gb m.2 SSD

I think this SSD is a bit overpriced. In my local market I can get a 500GB NVMe, like a Crucial P1 or Kingston A2000, for the same price

Quote

What would happen if I leave my old drives in the system, will they be able to be accessed even though the old SSD isn't the boot drive anymore? Will the old 1tb HDD still work with the new storage so I don't need to turn it into external drives?

Youd have to make sure that the first boot option in BIOS is your new SSD.
The files will still be accessable if you have not locked it with some sort of encryption.

The old HDD will still work, as long the you dont plan to use installed programs from the drive, since those will most likely depend on Registry entries that dont exist on the new installation of Windows.

You can leave everything connected inside your PC, just make sure you install Windows onto the correct drive and set the correct boot order in BIOS