I'm still using an old desktop computer I built many years ago and upgraded to W10 from a WXP to W8.1 Pro promotion (~2014?). It seems to be bit a bit slow starting up so I'm thinking that doing a clean re installation of Windows 10 couldn't hurt. I currently have 2 hard drives: 160 GB c: (OS) and 500 GB d: (data). My d: drive is slowly running out of space (48.7 GB free of 465 GB) so I thought I would buy a 1TB drive to use as my d: drive and move the 500 GB drive to be my c: drive.
For higher reliability, I thought I would get a 1TB NAS drive and found a Seagate Ironwolf on clearance. Seagate Presales Support recommended the current model. Is there any reason to be concerned about a superseded but brand new NAS hard drive?
Hard Drive Upgrade
- Thread starter fraso
- Start date
Thinking SSD is the path for your upgrade. 1TB for close to $100.
Nick1994
$100 site donor 2023
I wouldn't even consider using a spinning disc hard drive unless it was purely for storage.
SSD is where it's at for the OS.
SSD for the OS. You'll be amazed by the difference in performance.
Last edited:
SSD for the OS. It does have to be that big either. I ran W10 on 128GB I bought two years ago before they got cheaper. The rest of the machine was about 10 years old at the time.
Originally Posted by Randy_R
SSD for the OS. It does have to be that big either. I ran W10 on 128GB I bought two years ago before they got cheaper. The rest of the machine was about 10 years old at the time.
Last edited:
Thanks for the prompt replies. I hadn't thought about SSDs because I thought they were too expensive. I see that BestBuy.ca has some reasonably-priced 250 GB drives and I haven't looked much further yet. Is there a better SSD drive to look out for?
As for Seagate, I haven't had much experience with them lately and I believe that I have WD in my computer right now. Would it be worthwhile getting a NAS drive for data safety?
Any good places to get disk drives?
At this point almost every SSD is reliable. I like SanDisk.
https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-240GB...PLUS+240GB&qid=1578801503&sr=8-1
Last edited:
I got a 500G Samsung SSD and cloning cable for about 100$ at BB. The 1T SSD drive was only $110 but I just didn't need that much space. Samsung offers free cloning software to go with their SSD drives.
Going to the SSD turned a slug laptop into a screamer. Only problem I had was that the cloning software would not work until I had decrypted the HD (std Win 10 encryption). That was about a 12 hr process with the old slow hard drive.
I didn't do the cloning thing. Just a clean W10 install and kept the old spinning disk as storage
Definitely go with an SSD for your boot drive. I upgraded my HP 8730W with an SSD, running W10 and it boots in ~45 seconds. I have a 500gb 7,200 RPM drive that handles all the storage and apps, I swapped out the CD-ROM drive for an additional hard drive caddy. It's certainly helped with the way the machine runs, at this point I can't imagine buying another machine.
I just upgraded an older laptop to a Samsung EVO 860 SSD and the speed change was awesome. I was also considering a Sandisk Ultra 3D. There are several types of SSD storage technologies, some faster and more reliable than others
check here
kill 2 birds with one drive: get the large (1TB) SSD. divide into C for boot OS, D for storage. allocate the storage.
I'd recommend
1. delete all the unneeded files (temps, HTML, downloads, old windows updates, etc) - use CCleaner
2. defrag your original C and D drives (feel good step) (completely unnecessary for SSDs)
3. use the HDD-specific version of Acronis (WD, Seagate, etc) to clone your original HDDS to the new SSD
4. when cloning adjust the source (C, then D) to copy to a larger (C, then D) by whatever you need.
5. you can connect the new SSD drive to your machine using a USB kit or whatever is (included or optional)
with your new SSD drive
6. when you replace the HDDs, get couple of USB enclosures and re-purpose old drives as USB backups.
7. change settings for your machine to sleep or hibernate (or even shutdown) using a standard button/lid change
and yes, the speed improvement is awesome.
Depends how old your computer is. Ram, processors and hard drives have gotten so much faster and bigger in size. Often it pays to just get another computer. Desk tops are almost ancient now with all the good lap tops and tablets out now.
I have a 4 year old HP Envy Desktop. I installed a Samsung EVO SSD. Cloned the old HDD to it. The old drive took about 60 to 90 seconds to boot up. Now It only take 10 seconds to boot up and programs work very fast.
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Californiabob
kill 2 birds with one drive: get the large (1TB) SSD. divide into C for boot OS, D for storage. allocate the storage.
I'd recommend
1. delete all the unneeded files (temps, HTML, downloads, old windows updates, etc) - use CCleaner
2. defrag your original C and D drives (feel good step) (completely unnecessary for SSDs)
3. use the HDD-specific version of Acronis (WD, Seagate, etc) to clone your original HDDS to the new SSD
4. when cloning adjust the source (C, then D) to copy to a larger (C, then D) by whatever you need.
5. you can connect the new SSD drive to your machine using a USB kit or whatever is (included or optional)
with your new SSD drive
6. when you replace the HDDs, get couple of USB enclosures and re-purpose old drives as USB backups.
7. change settings for your machine to sleep or hibernate (or even shutdown) using a standard button/lid change
and yes, the speed improvement is awesome.
Originally Posted by fraso
Any good places to get disk drives?
Last edited:
SSD from a major brand for the OS, and then free up your current 160GB HDD + 500GB HDD together for storage if you want to save money. If you don't mind spending a bit, get an HDD that has good newegg review rating (i.e. usually means WD or Toshiba with 5 year warranty and not Seagate). Do not use SSD for long term storage, the data retention these days are target to 1 year powered off in room temp instead of 5 years. Keep your old HDD for backup and keep them in a separate physical location, just in case your house is on fire you can still get your family photos back from grand parents or in laws. I know a guy who lost all his kids photo because his house caught on fire from a small electric heater, had he kept a second HDD off site these photos would have been safe.
Thanks for the very thoughtful advice. Ideally, I would like to get a new computer but my current machine runs well enough and it's not in the budget right now. I'm thinking that I will buy a SSD as my new c: drive (OS and programs) and wait for a good promotion on a [WD/Toshiba] 1TB NAS hard drive. When I get around to replacing it, I thought I could use the SSD in my new one. Also, great advice about keeping a backup of my important data in a remote location.
Since my 500 GB WD drive still works fine, there is no reason I could not continue using it as my data drive for a little while longer. I'm sure I can free up some space with a bit of drive cleanup.
I know that I could do a W10 reset on my current installation, I thought it would better to do a clean installation of W10 on a new drive than to to clone it.
Some questions:
- Although 120 GB is enough to run W10, would there be any benefit to a using a larger (say 250 GB) SSD for my c: drive. It would be nice if my computer also recovered quickly from hibernation.
- Does W10 encrypt the c: drive by default? If so, is there an decryption procedure so that I could access any files I need later on (eg, via USB)?
- I see that many popular SSDs (Crucial, Samsung, WD, etc) appear to have poor customer support. If the drive fails, are you basically SOL?
- One of the issues with SSDs I came across was that the BIOS would not recognize it. The MB support page doesn't even list W10 but at least it shows some SDDs for W8.1. How would I check if it'll work with my board (ASUS M4A88T-M/USB3)?
