Can I do this?

[Dr Worm]

I am wanting to get an SSD, but all my games are on my old hard drive and it will take me ages to re download them all. Can I use this old hard drive for storage even with an OS on it while using the new SSD with a new OS as my main? or do I need to clean everything from the old hard drive and re download my games? Thanks

[cheeze_tartz]

just use the SSD for your OS and programs, and then put your games on your HDD

[Nexxus]

your going to be better off having your OS along with heavy programs if you have any (photoshop, vegas, 3ds Max ect) on the SDD then games, the only games I put on my SSD are ones with particulerly long loading times like GTA or civ5, everything else I keep on a 7200rpm drive.

[Dr Worm]

just use the SSD for your OS and programs, and then put your games on your HDD

 But do I need to clean my HDD completly? or can I leave the OS on it and still use it as storage for my games?

[cheeze_tartz]

 But do I need to clean my HDD completly? or can I leave the OS on it and still use it as storage for my games?

just do a re-install of Windows on your SSD and you'll be fine

[Dr Worm]

just do a re-install of Windows on your SSD and you'll be fine

 

So I don't have to lose all my games on my hdd? do I have to get rid of the OS on my hdd?

[cheeze_tartz]

So I don't have to lose all my games on my hdd? do I have to get rid of the OS on my hdd?

yeah, just re-install Windows and you don't have to re-download your games or anything

[Dr Worm]

yeah, just re-install Windows and you don't have to re-download your games or anything

 So I just put windows 8 on my ssd and boot from that and it will let me use my "HDD with windows 7" for storage and my games? *i know the OS will take up space, but other than that it still works as regular storage?

[Nexxus]

install the OS on the SSD plug the hdd in and you can copy stuff from the HDD onto the SSD assuming you put them in the EXACT right directory. Steam is smart enough to deal with this.

Being the SSD is likely not big enough to hold all your games though id copy over what you want the most then just format the HDD after moving as much of your games to the SSD/a USB drive for safe keeping or whatever.  your going to have a ton of wasted space by not reformating it/cleaning it out

[Nexxus]

Also while steam might be able to handle games being moved between drives there is no promise other things you have installed outside of steam are intelligent enough to handle being moved from drive C to a Drive D

[Dr Worm]

install the OS on the SSD plug the hdd in and you can copy stuff from the HDD onto the SSD assuming you put them in the EXACT right directory. Steam is smart enough to deal with this.

Being the SSD is likely not big enough to hold all your games though id copy over what you want the most then just format the HDD after moving as much of your games to the SSD/a USB drive for safe keeping or whatever.  your going to have a ton of wasted space by not reformating it/cleaning it out

 

So I cant use the HDD with windows 7 on it as storage?

[Nexxus]

So I cant use the HDD with windows 7 on it as storage?

you can use it to dual boot but why...you are going to be using at least 20gb on the hdd with the windows install alone, thats not including all the junk you have already installed.

Unless there is a damn good reason you NEED to get into windows 7 from time to time..like an old program that works on 7 but not 8...which is pretty unlikely you are just hurting yourself by not wiping windows from the hdd. just leave the comp on overnight downloading everything you want and odds are you will be fine. or if it REALLY bugs you borrow an external hdd and download all your installers and shit before installing the ssd.

[Dr Worm]

So I can use it as storage though? the only downside is not much space? yes or no. Thanks