SSD, boot order, drive letters- I need some info

[Diosoth]

I have a 1TB WD Black coming to replace my 10 year old WD Green drive. I intend to use Macrium Reflect to copy the drive I have and use it as the new C: drive as opposed to a fresh OS install, fresh game installs, copying important data off backups, as that would take me days and some games I no longer have the ability to reinstall.

That said... everyone says SSDs are better for running the OS. So an option would be to keep the data drive while installing W7 and drivers onto a boot SSD. However all the games and such will probably not like it if the existing drive is reallocated to ED: is the DVD drive- and in fact the various built-in card readers are also assigned to drives so I actually have no idea what a second hard drive will be labeled) as they're looking in specific locations for their data. I would ideally want to keep the current drive as C: for that while booting off an SSD on E: I know the BIOS can specify boot device preference but can I do this and keep my preferred drive labels?

Secondary, as the OS and drivers will be on the SSD, how do I go about cleaning Windows, NVidia drivers, etc off the main C: data drive as they would be redundant?

 

[file3456]

If your games and what not are installed in C drive, that is the main OS drive, you won't be able to really move those to another drive without reinstalling each one to that drive. There is a program I believe from EaseUs that can help migrate programs from one drive to another, but last I checked it was only capable of doing that with certain software or YMMV.

The process of picking and using a different drive letter is an easy task. Or at least should be. The options to do that are all in the Disk Management section of Windows. To get there just right click the My Computer icon, chose Manage | Storage | Disk management. Then right click the drive and you can change the drive letter. But again, if you games and what not are already on C drive you will have to reinstall them to use the other dive if you decide to go with an SSD and platter drive.

Your best bet would be to spend the money on a 1 TB SSD and clone to that. The only really benefit with a SSD is its speed. Then I would buy a 1 TB platter and clone to that via a USB to SATA adapter and keep periodic clones so that you don't have to worry about losing your data.

Secondary, as the OS and drivers will be on the SSD, how do I go about cleaning Windows, NVidia drivers, etc off the main C: data drive as they would be redundant?

That's kinda a hard process. What I would do is find the installation folder for the video driver, etc and just delete the folder. Since the OS won't be using the drivers on the disk you can safely delete the folders.

 

[Diosoth]

It sounds like it would be far more hassle than I care to deal with to try and use a separate SSD while keeping all other data intact. Thanks for the info.

A 1TB SSD is about $110 on Amazon, plus a couple dollars more for a 2.5-3.5 drive bay adapter so I can mount it in place. The WD Black I ordered was $60. So maybe at a later date I'll get the SSD but for now I'll just clone to the new Black drive and use that as I don't have an extra $110 to spend right now(I've already spent $245 on PC upgrades and other needed parts to keep a 10+ year old PC anywhere near current, which went above my planned budget but the GTX 750 Ti SC was well worth it).

 

[Megahertz07]

As I wrote, you don't need a big SSD. You can install a small SSD (120G - US$25) for windows and programs and use the HDD for data.
You will have the speed of a SSD and the space of a HDD at low cost.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Very good, and SOUND advise.



And, keep the SSD backed up to some other drive, because when an SSD fails, it's an instant fail.
I had a PNY SSD that worked one day, but when I tried to boot up the next day, that SSD just wasn't there.
And the PNY Company refused to help me, even though the SSD was only three months old.
I'll never buy PNY (anything) ever again.


Cheers Mate!

 

[Diosoth]

So much for the "brand new" HDD I ordered which arrived like this, clearly used. The seller now has other negs for selling used drives as "new". I question whether this is even in a useful state so I'm returning it without bothering to test the thing.



I will probably just buy a 1TB SSD next month instead.

 

[file3456]

I've had that problem multiple times from Amazon and the Newegg market place. I'd check the SMART data and it was a used damn drive. Happened twice with Amazon and once with Newegg marketplace.

 

[Diosoth]

On the plus side the spare HDD I've had in storage for a few years is a 1TB, rather than the 500GB I thought it was. I'll shut things down tonight or tomorrow, put in that extra fan and such and fit this drive in to make sure it's still in working order(it should be but it's been in a drawer for some time, I plugged it in when I got it to make sure it worked but haven't used it since) and clone the drive over if it's good to go. It's a WD Blue, so not as good as a Black but better than Green, anyway.

 

[Diosoth]

GOOD NEWS! SMART is showing the WD Blue drive is good. I'll run another test to be sure but otherwise I plan to run Macrium to clone the drive tonight while I sleep as I expect it to be a 4 hour or more task.

The 40mm fan I rigged into the front of the case in the little space I had to put any fan at all is also helping ambient temps by 1-2C, not much, but something.

-------

The clone took 1hr 42min to complete, faster than expected but likely bottlenecked by the Green's slower speed. Green was unplugged totally and Blue now the only drive, everything appears to be working as it should with all data copied. Next shutdown I will pull the Green and box it up(I have a removable HDD caddy so getting drives in and out is that much more work) as a backup should this drive fail.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

So much for the "brand new" HDD I ordered which arrived like this, clearly used. The seller now has other negs for selling used drives as "new". I question whether this is even in a useful state so I'm returning it without bothering to test the thing.



I will probably just buy a 1TB SSD next month instead.

A few years ago, I had to RMA a WD drive three times in one summer. All the replacements were obviously refurb's. The last one was so scratched up, it looked like it had been kicked across a concrete floor. I wouldn't even install it, but I gave it away, and in less than a month it FAILED.
So, for this old Tech, WD is permanently on my Sh** List. My Advise? Never buy WD drives.


Go SSD, and good luck to you,
TechnoMage

 

[Diosoth]

I bought it from an eBay seller. I had it on my watch list and got a seller offer for $6 off.

I'll use the WD Blue I had on hand for now and buy a 1TB SSD when it's convenient, I'm hoping if I wait a bit prices will drop some. I did have to update the Intel RST drivers though as I was getting a lot of minor Windows errors and performance issues that are apparently typical when cloning an HDD to a better model and swapping it out if your drivers aren't recent enough for the drive- which all cleared up after the RST update.