My first SSD!

pparks1 said:

just leave it on. it's only 100mb

+1

I would just let Windows handle the entire process.

There are pros and cons to the 100MB partition. It keeps your MBR seperate which is a good thing, especially in a double boot setup. Damage to the MBR is also less likely.
But for imaging it is a bit more tricky. Depending on the imaging program you have to make some extra provisions during the imaging and the restore.

One completely different matter in the context. Make sure your SSD is wired to Port0 on the mobo (or at least to a Port with a lower number than your HDD). Else it can happen that your MBR ends up on the first partition of you HDD. The system seems to settle for the first disk it finds to place the MBR - that has happened to me. On one of my systems, my MBR ended up in a data partition on the HDD.

Title sounds like "My first love" which is funny because the SSD does have a transformational quality to it as it impacts the performance so much. It may well be a "My first SSD love" lol.

whs said:

But for imaging it is a bit more tricky. Depending on the imaging program you have to make some extra provisions during the imaging and the restore.

This is a very good point.



One thing I have found that helps avoid any issue is just make a complete, Entire Disc Image as it is, rather than imaging partitions.
This, at least for me, has kept the alignments and partition structure intact as it should be upon re-imaging.



I use Acronis however, so Im not exactly what the best method is with other programs, if thats your preference.
I would guess the same.

Yeah, with Acronis that is a little easier because you can clone the whole drive. I use free Macrium which lets you only image partitions. But else I like Macrium because it is easy to use and very reliable. I guess one day I will bite the bullet and spend the $40 for the Pro version which supports clones too.