Better to add new SSD as D: drive or clone current SSD to it

[Rylyguy]

I currently have a 512gb Samsung 870 Evo in my PC but I just got a 1tb WD blue sn550. Would it be better to keep the 870 Evo as my C: drive and add the sn550 as my D: drive or clone the 870 Evo to the sn550 and use the 870 Evo as the D: drive?

[bmx6454]

not going to be a noticeable difference either way, but i find it easier/less work to just add the 550 as the storage drive(D:).

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, Rylyguy said:

I currently have a 512gb Samsung 870 Evo in my PC but I just got a 1tb WD blue sn550. Would it be better to keep the 870 Evo as my drive and add the sn550 as my drive or clone the 870 Evo to the sn550 and use the 870 Evo as the drive?

Me, I tend to just use the bigger one as non OS.
Since that'll where I install stuffs to.

If we're talking about speed, I doubt it's that much noticeable unless you count the miliseconds on boot.
As for games or apps load speed, I don't think there's a significant difference between an NVME and SSD

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'd personally prefer NVME for OS drive, but I agree you wont notice the difference unless you run out of RAM.

[Poinkachu]

12 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I'd personally prefer NVME for OS drive, but I agree you wont notice the difference unless you run out of RAM.

Me too.
I just hate reinstalling windows.
And cloning can be kinda janky at times.
xD xD

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

Me too.
I just hate reinstalling windows.
And cloning can be kinda janky at times.
xD xD

Yeah I don't clone, especially on SSDs.

[wseaton]

I've cloned jillions of SSDs and never had an issue as long as you're using decent software: Macrium etc. The only time things get janky if you're using trashware like clonezilla, or trying to migrate from behind RAID 1, etc. I have a different arsenal of tricks for this.

 

I prefer to keep my OS drive on a smaller, independent drive for one reason: disaster recovery. It makes it easier and faster to do backups and treat bulk data differently when they are on different logical or physical drives. I treat critical production servers this way and home PCs. A 100-150Gb OS drive is pretty easy to backup and restore if things go pear shaped. A 1TB OS and data drive is a lot more cumbersome.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, wseaton said:

I've cloned jillions of SSDs and never had an issue as long as you're using decent software: Macrium etc. The only time things get janky if you're using trashware like clonezilla, or trying to migrate from behind RAID 1, etc. I have a different arsenal of tricks for this.

 

I prefer to keep my OS drive on a smaller, independent drive for one reason: disaster recovery. It makes it easier and faster to do backups and treat bulk data differently when they are on different logical or physical drives. I treat critical production servers this way and home PCs. A 100-150Gb OS drive is pretty easy to backup and restore if things go pear shaped. A 1TB OS and data drive is a lot more cumbersome.

I worry that cloning wont get the partition alignment correct which can slow down and wear SSDs more than they should.

 

As for disaster recovery, makes sense for a workstation where time is money and you're backing it up regularly.  Completely overkill if its a gaming PC where everything can be re-downloaded and a re-install is a minor inconvenience, especially if your broadband is fast.

[SSD Sean]

4 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I worry that cloning wont get the partition alignment correct which can slow down and wear SSDs more than they should.

 

As for disaster recovery, makes sense for a workstation where time is money and you're backing it up regularly.  Completely overkill if its a gaming PC where everything can be re-downloaded and a re-install is a minor inconvenience, especially if your broadband is fast.

Nah, cloning software doesn’t have alignment issues these days…that was 10yrs ago… if so, it’s time for a new software. Macrium reflect and acronis true image work well. I’ve cloned thousands of SSDs and HDDs…

 

Also, how the other guy described backups is exactly how I recommend. OS imaging and bulk file syncs from secondary data drives. Not overkill for any system…just standard practice. Not everyone has the ability to redownload 1-4TB of data out of the blue…

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 hours ago, SSD Sean said:

Also, how the other guy described backups is exactly how I recommend. OS imaging and bulk file syncs from secondary data drives. Not overkill for any system…just standard practice. Not everyone has the ability to redownload 1-4TB of data out of the blue…

The thing is though, any OS image will inevitably be out of date when you recover it, meaning downloading updates.  If you're going to need to update anyway, it seems kinda pointless having an OS backup.

Again I totally see the point if its your work PC, but if its not it seems constantly doing the backups is more work than the unlikely chance you might need to recover that PC some day.  I only regularly backup important files to my NAS and then regularly back that up.

I never backup games because they get updated so often its pointless.  I do have one benefit there though, a gaming laptop to go with my desktop, so "some" games are duplicated across those two PCs so essentially a backup.  Although now I'm lucky enough to have 5G and soon Gigabit fibre, that wont even be necessary as copying from the laptop would be slower than downloading.

[SSD Sean]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The thing is though, any OS image will inevitably be out of date when you recover it, meaning downloading updates.  If you're going to need to update anyway, it seems kinda pointless having an OS backup.

Again I totally see the point if its your work PC, but if its not it seems constantly doing the backups is more work than the unlikely chance you might need to recover that PC some day.  I only regularly backup important files to my NAS and then regularly back that up.

I never backup games because they get updated so often its pointless.  I do have one benefit there though, a gaming laptop to go with my desktop, so "some" games are duplicated across those two PCs so essentially a backup.  Although now I'm lucky enough to have 5G and soon Gigabit fibre, that wont even be necessary as copying from the laptop would be slower than downloading.

Never automated any tasks? My PCs all back themselves up/file sync to my NAS every night without my need to touch a single one. Backup is not hard or pointless and when configured properly, mostly up to date...and people often times have caps on their downloading.1-1.2TB/mo. is common in the US. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

11 hours ago, SSD Sean said:

Never automated any tasks? My PCs all back themselves up/file sync to my NAS every night without my need to touch a single one. Backup is not hard or pointless and when configured properly, mostly up to date...and people often times have caps on their downloading.1-1.2TB/mo. is common in the US. 

My PCs backs up to the NAS using rsync when I logout, much easier being Linux as everything important is in my home folder.  I wouldn't know where to start with Windows, especially avoiding backing up large unimportant files.