New SSD- Now what with old HHD?

OK, I finally went SSD and bought a 240 GB SSD for my PC ( AMD Vishera 4300 in ASUS mobo, NVidia 550 GTX, 8GB RAM, 500 Western Digital HHD) Right now, I am using 92.4 GB of space on the WD hd, with documents and media files being 16 GB of that. leaving 373 GB empty.

I plan to clone my current HD to the new SSD, after shrinking my primary partition to allow it to fit on the smaller SSD. After that - then what?? Should I just remove the HDD and go with only the SSD, reformat the HDD, then use it as media and/or older game storage to avoid letting the SSD fill up?

Another option I have is this: keep the HDD intact after cloning, with the OS (Win 7 Home Premium), games, and all media files kept in case something goes wrong in the future: then take an older WD 256 GB hd, reformat it into 1 partition, then use it along with the new SSD for media and game storage.

Which option makes the best sense? What would you do??

Thanks for your ideas.

I agree with Golden.
Keep it as extra storage for games, photo's, music and media files. One never has enough storage.
THW

SSD for OS and if it's large enough, programs, HDD for data and seldom used programs. Most all enthusiast I know use this procedure.

You may want to consider a clean install of the OS on the SSD for optimum performance.

hi madcrate, wont he have to get a new activate key with fresh install?? cloning seems to a great idea to avoid paying again for a key already bought....I do like the idea of fresh install for performance..I guess we all gotta know our options. I have heard on other sites that activating with a phone is actually pretty good so maybe MS can cut a break to a person simply upgrading their HD
thanks
jim

csjag said:

What would you do??

If you don't already have an external USB 3.0 drive (e.g. 2TB) for data backups (say, using NovaBACKUP or Macrium Reflect or similar) and system images (say, using Macrium Reflect or NovaBACKUP or similar), you could use all that space on the hard spinner as your internal backup drive.

All good ideas, guys. I know that the fresh install route is the absolute best route for optimum performance. With that said, I have used cloning before ( such when installing a new HD simply to get more capacity) with no ill effects. I even have a printout of an article from this forum about moving Win 7 to a SSD using the cloning method. Frankly, the idea of starting all over again is not very appealing (fresh install) considering that I have used the cloning method before with excellent results ( I used Acronis True Image )

I still like the idea of using an older HD for storage and keeping my current HD intact after cloning it to the new SSD. I would hate the idea of having the SSD fail at some point and loosing everything. By keeping the current HD intact, if such a failure of the SSD should occur, I simply put the HD back in and I would have a instantly PC, though slightly out of date. Just trying to consider all options at this point. Thanks for the many thoughts.

That,too , is a possibility. I was considering keeping my current HD in its current state, even after moving a cloned image to the SSD. That was allow the HD to remain intact, OS and all, in case something terribly wrong takes place.

Britton30 said:

I didn't see any suggestions you use the HDD to store backup of your system, e.g. images. Imaging with free Macrium

Look up two posts from yours, #6 (two hours earlier than yours)!

What am I, chopped liver???