SSD / Backup - recovery

Barring hardware failure, I'm sure you will.

The OS is always C drive. Hook the SSD to port 0. Disconnect the other hard drives. Once the SSD is installed and booting, you can turn off the computer and reconnect the other hard drives. You will find they have different drive letters. I always recommend a clean install. Windows will automatically recognize it as an SSD and properly align it and turn off defragmentation. The only other things that are really needed is to turn off Hibernate. You will not have that option in shutdown, but it will save space on the SSD. It saves the same space as the amt. of ram you have.
Here is a good tutorial on prepairing a SSD for installation although you do not need the 'clean all' command on a new SSD. To turn off Hibernate open an elevated command prompt (Start-type cmd-right click-select run as administrator) in the window type powercfg -h off then hit enter. It will look like it did nothing but it did. Don't listen to a lot of people tell you about SSD tweeks. You can tweek them to death. That is all that is necessary. It will run well as long as you are in AHCI mode.

And one more question about Windows installation : is that okay to delete this 100 MB System Reserved ? Is that really necessary

If you do that, your system will not boot because the 100MB partition contains the bootmgr. I would leave it alone. But if you absolutely want to get rid of it, you have to set C as active partition and repair the bootmgr.

You might also have a look at my little SSD beginners tutorial: SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System Although not everything applies to your case because you do a fresh install, there may be some useful hints anyhow.

Do not partition the SSD - it is too small (btw: why did you not get the 60GB Vertex2, it is cheaper than the 50GB model Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) ).

For imaging the SSD I recommend free Macrium. It is a lot faster than Acronis: Imaging with free Macrium

The black window is what you need to use diskpart. When you get to the 1st window, do not select your language, hold down the shift key and press F10. A command prompt will come up. If you do that and create an aligned partition and format it, you will not have the 100MB partition.

stereo said:

Thanks.
I'm not living in US, the prices here are a bit expensiver.
Anyway, 50 GB should be okay for C partition.

Yeah, you are going to be OK if you move the user folders to the HDD and do little adjustments like eliminating the hiberfile.

Regarding the user folders I recommend to create new folders on the HDD for Documents, Music, Pictures, etc. and then INCLUDE those into the respective libraries. That gives you a clear seperation of your own files and the files that some programs create in e.g. Documents.

Usually you should expect C to stay in the 20 to 30GB range - unless you have very large programs (like some games).

stereo said:

essenbe said:

The black window is what you need to use diskpart. When you get to the 1st window, do not select your language, hold down the shift key and press F10. A command prompt will come up. If you do that and create an aligned partition and format it, you will not have the 100MB partition.

And if i install Windows without using Diskpart, would that be okay ?

Yes, Windows will align it and create the 100MB partition. It will be just fine.