New SSD Data Migration

[TheLunarHero]

Ive recently purchased a 250gb Samsung EVO SSD in attempt to increase the speed of my PC. (Previously used a 1TB WD Blue HDD) Obviously, Id like my OS (Windows 8.1) and some key applications on my new SSD while using my 1TB slow drive for mass storage. I was planning on transferring the majority of the data (many games) from my HDD onto an external drive allowing me to migrate everything from the HDD to the SSD. I would then reload my games onto the HDD and be good to go. Are there any better ways to migrate my OS and key applications? I'm an SSD novice so any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Nup]

Good question! find myself asking the same thing, so Bump. 

[Enderman]

Migrating an operating system to a new SSD is not a good idea. Sure it saves you trouble right now of having to reinstall everything, but it causes far more problems in the future.

Many people on this forum come asking for help when their disk usage is spiking to 100% randomly, their system hangs, or they get a BSOD, and many times it is because they migrated their OS from HDD to SSD.

 

I highly recommend that you spend the time and effort to clean install your operating system and programs to avoid having issues and potential data loss in the future, and eventually having to do the reinstall anyway.

 

All you have to do is unplug your old HDD and plug in the SSD. Then install windows and all your programs.

Then plug the old HDD in (when the PC is off of course) but make sure you boot into the new SSD.

From inside windows you can access all your files from the HDD and just drag them over to your SSD from within windows explorer.

[TheLunarHero]

So once I re-install my HDD I can safely delete all the windows files from it?