Thank you, ignatzatsonic and countzero;
I just put one in my Amazon cart. (Intel 535 Series Solid State Drive 240GB 240 2.5-Inch SSDSC2BW240H601) Are there any cables needed, or mounting gadgets as well?
After that, I would love to learn about what kind of partitioning scheme you might choose if this were your own machine.
Over to you for comment.
That looks to be a 2.5 inch drive with no mounting brackets and no cables, which is fine.
Good brand, good tools downloadable for it.
Whether you need "mounting gadgets" depends on your case.
Some cases include brackets to convert a 3.5 inch drive bay to 2.5 inch to accommodate SSDs.
Other cases don't include such brackets.
Other cases have special 2.5 inch drive bays intended to hold SSDs.
I have no idea what kind of case you have.
Worst case scenario: your case has no special 2.5 inch drive bay and no brackets to help you.
That would mean you'd have to do one of 2 things:
1: buy mounting brackets at Amazon or Newegg for 5 or 10 bucks.
2: ignore the whole bracket thing and just tape the drive in your chosen location with duct tape or something like that. Works fine. Did it myself for a year or so until I changed cases.
Cables: SSDs use standard SATA cable just like any regular hard drive. You can use the cables from your hard drive or buy spares if you need them.
Partitioning scheme:
Typically, you'd just make the whole drive a single C partition and store your data somewhere under C:\users.
Or you could use the SSD for JUST Windows and applications and store all data on a regular hard drive. This is what I do.
It all depends on your individual requirements.
Normally, there's no reason to partition an SSD into C, D, E, etc. SSDs are relatively small and if you start splitting them up like that you risk filling up a partition sooner than you figured and then you've got a problem.
**** mounting brackets. gaffa tape all the way.
or just cram it anywhere. ssds don't weigh anything, don't get hot. no hazard.
Hi,
Depending on your case you might be able to fit one of these items in it
Amazon.com: Vantec 2.5-Inch Dual Bay Trayless SATA III - 6G Mobile Rack (MRK-225S6-BK): Computers & Accessories
OK !!
I got it installed, assigned it a drive letter (I) and did a simple read/write test which worked fine.
This is what I bought:
($119.99) Intel 535 SeriesSSDSC2BW240H6R5 2.5" 240GB SATA I
Also got a bracket "Sabrent 2.5SSD to 3.5" bracket ~$10.00.
The install was a snap.
Now, on to the BIOS & opsys:
On bootup, I hit F12 for boot options and selected my usual drive from old & went on from there.
My system is currently set up with the 2 physical drives set up in a raid 0 configuration.
Here is what it looks like:
And here is the end of my knowledge base.
The end goal is to move the entire contents of the old drive (C) to the new drive (I) and start booting/operating entirely from the new SSD and use the old HDD for data.
FYI:
I did create a backup to an external drive and selected 'create system image' and made a rescue/repair disc. So theoretically, I could restore the opsys to the new drive? Then swap letters through some tomfoolery? Simply do a SATA cable swap? Then, of course there is the ubiquitous SAS6ir utility during bootup.
What is the best path forward?
Thanks for the patience and kind help.
Steve
Normally, you'd just image or clone from the old OS drive to the new OS drive.
Or do a clean install.
But you are off in RAID land, so I'll bow out.
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