SSD and HDD setup

[SquiddyButler]

I'm buying a new SSD and hard drive because my original HDD is running out of space. When I put them in my computer, is there anything special I need to do to set it up? Or would I just see the new ones in my files and drag games to it and such. Also my computer takes a while to boot up, so I'm hoping the SSD will help with that. 

[Levent]

Just adding an SSD wont reduce your boot times, you either have to install windows there or clone your windows partitions to there. Other than that, if you are getting a compatible SSD there is not much to be aware of.

[SquiddyButler]

Just now, Levent said:

Just adding an SSD wont reduce your boot times, you either have to install windows there or clone your windows partitions to there. Other than that, if you are getting a compatible SSD there is not much to be aware of.

Oh alright, thanks. I got my pc about 2 years ago and it used to boot up insanely fast but now it take about 10 minutes. 

[Dedayog]

3 minutes ago, SquiddyButler said:

I'm buying a new SSD and hard drive because my original HDD is running out of space. When I put them in my computer, is there anything special I need to do to set it up? Or would I just see the new ones in my files and drag games to it and such. Also my computer takes a while to boot up, so I'm hoping the SSD will help with that. 

Is money too tight to use all SSD? HDD's are just not up to par with good systems needing faster access to files. 

 

SSD and a new Windows install will have you booting in sub-15 seconds.  All good.

 

Just now, SquiddyButler said:

Oh alright, thanks. I got my pc about 2 years ago and it used to boot up insanely fast but now it take about 10 minutes. 

Please tell me you're exaggerating?  If not, you need to look at what loads with Windows, and curtail that.  

[TylerD321]

If you want to use the SSD as a boot drive I would do a fresh install of windows on that and set it number 1 in your boot menu. The rest of your files should be fine but you could reformat your HDD and do fresh installs of games to ensure windows doesn't have any issues by being on two drives.

[SquiddyButler]

To do that would I need to install windows on a flash drive and then put in on the SSD? 

[SquiddyButler]

6 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Is money too tight to use all SSD? HDD's are just not up to par with good systems needing faster access to files. 

 

SSD and a new Windows install will have you booting in sub-15 seconds.  All good.

No, but I don't think I want to spend hundreds of dollars to get 4-5 TB of SSDs

[TylerD321]

2 minutes ago, SquiddyButler said:

To do that would I need to install windows on a flash drive and then put in on the SSD? 

You would need to do windows installation media. Create installation media for Windows - Microsoft Support

 

What I would do, is get one fast NVME drive at 1 or 2 tb, install windows on that and any game you play every day or most often. Then the rest of your games/files can go on the HDD(s?) you already have.

[SquiddyButler]

8 minutes ago, TylerD321 said:

You would need to do windows installation media. Create installation media for Windows - Microsoft Support

 

What I would do, is get one fast NVME drive at 1 or 2 tb, install windows on that and any game you play every day or most often. Then the rest of your games/files can go on the HDD(s?) you already have.

Alright, thanks so much this actually helps a ton

[Dedayog]

13 minutes ago, SquiddyButler said:

No, but I don't think I want to spend hundreds of dollars to get 4-5 TB of SSDs

No, I would get a TB or 2, that;s enough for quite a lot of games.  I didn't expect you to need 5TB worth of games.  Unless the room is for regular data, movies, music, files, etc.

[SquiddyButler]

2 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

No, I would get a TB or 2, that;s enough for quite a lot of games.  I didn't expect you to need 5TB worth of games.  Unless the room is for regular data, movies, music, files, etc.

I was gonna get a TB or 2 extra, I use my pc for other things that take up a decent amount of space, but the games is the main part

[TH3M4DR4TT3R]

The problem is the boot times of ten minutes so it does sound like a clean install of windows on to an SSD/NVME drive would help with that. I have a 1TB NVME boot drive and a Toshiba 1.5TB external HDD for all the crap like movies, pictures and so on. I then have a couple of older drives that I put old media files on to just as a backup instead of using cloud storage.

[ewitte]

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

Is money too tight to use all SSD? HDD's are just not up to par with good systems needing faster access to files. 

SSD price is fine now but if you need a lot of storage, it still gets expensive.

 

For instance, this is what I have.

7.84TB SSD (2TB, 2TB and a 3.84TB drive all NVME)
22TB HDD (6TB stand alone and RAID with two 8TB drives)

[SquiddyButler]

6 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Please tell me you're exaggerating?  If not, you need to look at what loads with Windows, and curtail that.  

Sorry I just saw this, and no, I am not exaggerating. It actually take around 10 minutes to load up. On the startup settings, I have nothing but windows defenders, everything else is turned off.  

[RokinAmerica]

In case I missed it, please let us know your specs. If you are booting from HDD you will see improvement in changing to SSD.  Larger SSD allows you to store more of your most frequently used programs on top of your OS. Add your existing HDD as data/backup/storage and you will see speed improvement with a fresh install in the new SSD boot drive. I believe I saw all of these in here earlier, but I just hit vacation/holiday about 5 hours ago and too happy to be able to quote/credit all that did, but you will like it. Happy and safe holidays to you!

 

PS. I run a 1TB NVMe, !TB SSD for data, 2 TB SSD (just bought for under $90) for backup of the other two, and a couple of internal HDDs and an external NVMe with about 400GB music. 

 

7 TB internal. Depending on where you are, storage has fallen down in cost a lot recently.

[SquiddyButler]

4 minutes ago, RokInAmerica said:

In case I missed it, please let us know your specs. If you are booting from HDD you will see improvement in changing to SSD.  Larger SSD allows you to store more of your most frequently used programs on top of your OS. Add your existing HDD as data/backup/storage and you will see speed improvement with a fresh install in the new SSD boot drive. I believe I saw all of these in here earlier, but I just hit vacation/holiday about 5 hours ago and too happy to be able to quote/credit all that did, but you will like it. Happy and safe holidays to you!

• CPU
  i9 10850k
• Motherboard
  Rog Strix Z490-E
• RAM
  Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB
• GPU
  Zotac Amp Holo 3070
• Case
  Phanteks P500a
• Storage
  WD Hard Drive
• PSU
  Corsair RM 850x
• Cooling
  Noctua NH-D15

   

  Thanks for your reply! And happy holidays to you as well ^^

[RokinAmerica]

So just the hard drive for storage in your system? Any SSD will be a huge improvement, but the more you can store on it in addition to Windows the more you will benefit. You can get really good SSD's 1 TB-2 TB with cache/dram for under $ 60/100 USD. Great investment in your system. I think you will be very happy with the change/ upgrade but will defer to those here that know better.

[RokinAmerica]

Just for reference, I am running a i5-10600k, 16GB Ram, 12GB 2060 (run 3 large monitors for work, no real gaming) but the drive setup makes it all up to password in about 15-20 seconds... Into desktop right after that.  I will time it next time, but it is fast. I work on my less capable PC than yours and I use Excel, edit photos and website/video. 

[RokinAmerica]

As I said earlier, I am in the holiday spirit. I also work from home since day 1 of Covid so I don't talk to people live much. My conversational skills are much more verbose than before. For that I do apologize. In short, your system is better than mine, but mine boots much faster, only thing different is I boot SSD, you boot HDD.

 

Same on my laptop and my backup desktop. Those are from 2015-2016. Boot and run fast.

[SquiddyButler]

20 minutes ago, RokInAmerica said:

So just the hard drive for storage in your system? Any SSD will be a huge improvement, but the more you can store on it in addition to Windows the more you will benefit. You can get really good SSD's 1 TB-2 TB with cache/dram for under $ 60/100 USD. Great investment in your system. I think you will be very happy with the change/ upgrade but will defer to those here that know better.

Yes the HDD is the only thing in my system right now. I am about to buy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFZXR1B?tag=pcbuilder-us-20 which is 2TB. 

[SquiddyButler]

7 minutes ago, RokInAmerica said:

As I said earlier, I am in the holiday spirit. I also work from home since day 1 of Covid so I don't talk to people live much. My conversational skills are much more verbose than before. For that I do apologize. In short, your system is better than mine, but mine boots much faster, only thing different is I boot SSD, you boot HDD.

 

Same on my laptop and my backup desktop. Those are from 2015-2016. Boot and run fast.

Lol don't worry about talking to much, your helping me a lot. And yeah the HDD is my main problem

[RokinAmerica]

12 hours ago, SquiddyButler said:

Yes the HDD is the only thing in my system right now. I am about to buy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFZXR1B?tag=pcbuilder-us-20 which is 2TB. 

You are going to really like moving from HDD to that. Please update us on your progress and outcome after you install, and if you need assistance either I or the people that really know this stuff will help.

Edited December 31, 2022 by RokInAmerica
Clarification

[SquiddyButler]

12 minutes ago, RokInAmerica said:

 but mine boots much faster, only thing different is I boot SSD, you boot HDD.

 

Same on my laptop and my backup desktop. Those are from 2015-2016. Boot and run fast.

If I moved windows to the SSD would I need to reinstall everything? Or would it still all be there.

[wseaton]

You can clone windows to an SSD. I do it all the time.

 

Use Macrium Reflect. Its free and does it well.

 

10minute boot tines indicate a faulty hard drive or corrupted windows installation. My server 2008 SBS systems booted faster than that. 

[Dedayog]

9 minutes ago, SquiddyButler said:

If I moved windows to the SSD would I need to reinstall everything? Or would it still all be there.

Clone with Samsung Data Migration tool since you have Samsung drives.  Macrium is good too, but Samsung's interface is cleaner and it's a little easier.  Macrium has a lot of options for things you may not need.