Exporting OS from 'C' hard drive to an SSD?

[russellsnr]

Hi, Just waiting a computer that has the OS on a one TB hard drive although stated made for gaming I would only use it for Graphics (Lightroom and On1 Photo 2018) so would I get any advantage apart from boot up time to transfer the OS to an SSD (have a 120GB SSD) or leave as is? Also if I transfer the OS with an app like CloneZilla for example does that automatically set the SSD to 'C' drive and the old drive to maybe 'D;? Thankyou for any advice, Russ.

 

[Major Eazy]

Well, it is a lot quicker thus shorter boot up time, if the software was on the SSD than on the HDD. Although it is quicker to a computer, however it is hardly noticeable to a human. You would get an advantage of quicker boot up times and loading times, but over years, the memory would start to play up if it had been written to the SSD far too many times.

Thus, most people suggest having your Operating System and the application software (AKA "apps) on the SSD for quicker loading times.

But use the HDD mainly for your own user files, which you would always open, work on it, save, open again, save again, thus a HDD would last longer than a SSD when it comes to always reading and writing to the hard drive.

So I would suggest moving the Operating System and applications to SSD, and leave the user files, photos, music files, all the files you created or downloaded, on the HDD.

Operating System and application software more or less stay the same size, over the years, you would slowly add some more MBs, your SSD takes a long time to fill up, usually an extra hundred of MB worth of added software, mostly from updates, installing another one more new app, junk files created by program files.

But user files, it can grow a lot faster, fill up the 120GB a lot quicker, as you take more and more photos, edit more and more files in Photoshop, download more and more movies or MP3 files. Thus the 1TB HDD would be better for files you create.

My set up is 250GB SSD with Windows 7 and all application software including iTunes application but not the iTunes Library, including Lightroom but not the Catalogs. The storage space takes a long time to run low because I haven't installed any new application software, expect for updating anti-virus.

I have a 4TB HDD which have all my documents, photos, other files I created and saved, the iTunes Library (all the downloaded movies and television shows), the Catalogs for LR, in the past 2 years, it is already half full.

 

[troutfisher]

Don't forget you will probably have to enable AHCI mode in the BIOS for the SSD, unless things have moved on and it happens automatically

 

[russellsnr]

Thankyou for the replies. Russ.

 

[Furtim]

Hi, Just waiting a computer that has the OS on a one TB hard drive although stated made for gaming I would only use it for Graphics (Lightroom and On1 Photo 2018) so would I get any advantage apart from boot up time to transfer the OS to an SSD (have a 120GB SSD) or leave as is? Also if I transfer the OS with an app like CloneZilla for example does that automatically set the SSD to 'C' drive and the old drive to maybe 'D;? Thankyou for any advice, Russ.

I did exactly this last weekend on the Mrs' PC - bought a 500Gb SSD from Crucial, used their free software to clone OS over etc.

There were a few issues - I'll highlight to save you falling for the same!

Problem 1 - Can't Clone
I bought the USB transfer kit with the SSD, the idea is to connect the SSD via USB in the first instance, clone with the free software and then open up and put the drive in and boot straight off it.
That failed at the first hurdle - first the software failed to recognise the disk as a Crucial branded disk when connected via the Crucial USB kit so won't start, and downloading other software refuses to clone the disk because the 'sector size' is different.

The solution - forget the USB kit and stick the drive inside the PC from the get go.

Problem 2 - Can't boot with blank SSD connecting inside computer
When I first connected the drive via USB, the cloning software was not recognising it unless I initialised the disk. I chose the defaults of GPT (or GUID Partition Table). However, because of this the PC would not boot with the additional disk once it was installed inside.

The solution - reformat the disk as MBR (Master Boot Record) with the USB kit and then place inside.

Problem 3 - Getting Windows to boot from the right disk.
At this stage, the MBR formatted disk inside the machine, the cloning worked perfectly and quickly. Then came the time to turn the PC back on. It would keep booting into the old hard disk. I brief glimpse into BIOS didn't show any problems - the boot order was Windows Partition Manager / USB / CD etc, but no problem I think, I'll just remove the old hard disk temporarily, and it will boot from the SSD - no, it just failed to boot, going into recovery mode.

Digging around deeper in the BIOS in the advanced settings, I noticed I had two entries in the boot table, both named identically - something like 'Windows Partition Boot Manager'; if I manually selected the second on of those, it would boot from the SSD. A lot go further digging and I found a way to disable entries individually.

The solution - Dig around in your BIOS and find the right settings to disable boot from the old disk - harder than it sounds! (or Dell has a really sucky BIOS!).

Eventually, it's all working as planned and it's a huge upgrade to the working speed of the PC (a 5 year old Dell XPS i7/32GB ram). I put it down to me not understanding how GPT works - last time I built a PC is, well, a long time ago, but if there's any learning to be taken from this, feel free.

 

[russellsnr]

I did exactly this last weekend on the Mrs' PC - bought a 500Gb SSD from Crucial, used their free software to clone OS over etc.

There were a few issues - I'll highlight to save you falling for the same!

Problem 1 - Can't Clone
I bought the USB transfer kit with the SSD, the idea is to connect the SSD via USB in the first instance, clone with the free software and then open up and put the drive in and boot straight off it.
That failed at the first hurdle - first the software failed to recognise the disk as a Crucial branded disk when connected via the Crucial USB kit so won't start, and downloading other software refuses to clone the disk because the 'sector size' is different.

The solution - forget the USB kit and stick the drive inside the PC from the get go.

Problem 2 - Can't boot with blank SSD connecting inside computer
When I first connected the drive via USB, the cloning software was not recognising it unless I initialised the disk. I chose the defaults of GPT (or GUID Partition Table). However, because of this the PC would not boot with the additional disk once it was installed inside.

The solution - reformat the disk as MBR (Master Boot Record) with the USB kit and then place inside.

Problem 3 - Getting Windows to boot from the right disk.
At this stage, the MBR formatted disk inside the machine, the cloning worked perfectly and quickly. Then came the time to turn the PC back on. It would keep booting into the old hard disk. I brief glimpse into BIOS didn't show any problems - the boot order was Windows Partition Manager / USB / CD etc, but no problem I think, I'll just remove the old hard disk temporarily, and it will boot from the SSD - no, it just failed to boot, going into recovery mode.

Digging around deeper in the BIOS in the advanced settings, I noticed I had two entries in the boot table, both named identically - something like 'Windows Partition Boot Manager'; if I manually selected the second on of those, it would boot from the SSD. A lot go further digging and I found a way to disable entries individually.

The solution - Dig around in your BIOS and find the right settings to disable boot from the old disk - harder than it sounds! (or Dell has a really sucky BIOS!).

Eventually, it's all working as planned and it's a huge upgrade to the working speed of the PC (a 5 year old Dell XPS i7/32GB ram). I put it down to me not understanding how GPT works - last time I built a PC is, well, a long time ago, but if there's any learning to be taken from this, feel free.

Hi, Well only one thing to say really Whoops!! two things. Thanks, Russ.