Upgrade to SSD from a HDD

binici

binici

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Hi all,

Currently in my system is a 1 TB Hitachi 7200 SATA drive. I'd love to image what is on the drive and put the data on a SSD.

Is this possible? Of course imaging with HDD to HDD is cake with software, but to be honest, I never have tried with SSD and HDD.

Afterwards, I'll use the 1 TB HDD for all my backups, games, downloads and etc.,

Any tips, recommendations on brand/specs, feedback would be great.

Thanks!
 
It is possible, but might be a real hassle depending on the physical layout of the sectors that are being used. You'll need to move everything you don't want on the SSD off first then defrag to move the occupied sectors together and then perform a partition shrink to the same size as the formatted SSD. Depending on how many files need to be moved for the defrag, it is probably faster to do a fresh install on the SSD and then transfer the files and settings over.
 
I just went with a crucial m4 128gb SSD and have no complaints. Crucial seems to be what everyone recommends and 120/128 seems to be best price for performance. I just paid $180 @ microcenter. If you can afford 240gb go for it. I did a fresh install and linked my users folder over to my HDD since there space hogs.

Tomshardware just did SSD review. I would check it out.
 
I'd go for a fresh install and just use the other drive as a data drive. That's what I did.
It's nice to have a fresh install too so that you can really appreciate the new speed you'll be getting on boot times.
Don't go too small on the SSD size though. I'd say you'd really want around a 120gb drive, but don't go any smaller than a 60gb.

I had a 30gb system drive for years and what a pain trying to watch the free space.
 
honestly from a 7200 you wont notice much of a difference. of course i had 2 black hds raid0ed together.

i just use it for the os and basic programs that like to install on the oses harddrive =p
 
Thanks everyone. Looking into Crucial M4, but will have to buy it when I have a bit of extra cash. These SSD's are not cheap, lol.
 
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