Thinking of getting a larger hard drive for my desktop

Remind us again, in all of this mess, why a second internal drive for seldom used files isn't a consideration?

If it MUST be an SSD and you're confident that you only need a little bit more space, a 256gb SSD is cheap these days and would allow you to supplement your existing drive while not having to replace a perfectly good one or deal with copying/cloning the old one.
Because I don't want the hassle of going back and forth between drives. What's wrong with having it all on one 1TB drive that is only half full?
 
Got the 500 GB Crucial external drive today for a backup to replace my old 100 GB Maxtor. Wow that thing is small. What is the max folder size you should copy and paste at one time? I have three folders to backup in 40, 18 and 10 GB size. Can I do each one in it's entirety?
 
Got the 500 GB Crucial external drive today for a backup to replace my old 100 GB Maxtor. Wow that thing is small. What is the max folder size you should copy and paste at one time? I have three folders to backup in 40, 18 and 10 GB size. Can I do each one in it's entirety?
I don't see why not, some hard drives get warm when constantly moving data.. I have an external WD (spinning type) that because of this thread made me remember I had to back up some data, so thanks!! It was as warm as your hand, just sitting there for hours. I moved about 900gb (backed up the entire drive as a disk image). But yours is an SSD, shouldn't be an issue.

Yes you could move each folder one at a time, just the bigger the folder, the more time it would take.
 
I didn’t read all replies so perhaps it was covered. OP is on Win7 I bet he has a win8 or win10 upgrade or maybe even both downloaded. MS was doing this stuff back in a day, using users as download proxies to distribute win8 and later win10. I remember there was a specific update that had to be removed to stop this.

I also didn’t see the built in windows drive cleaner. That will show you updates and other files and allow you to delete them.

As far as installing everything on the new drive, I would get free cloning software. It will copy everything to the new drive and no activation is needed. But it’s better to do a proper cleanup first because it will copy all the garbage as well.
 
Got the 500 GB Crucial external drive today for a backup to replace my old 100 GB Maxtor. Wow that thing is small. What is the max folder size you should copy and paste at one time? I have three folders to backup in 40, 18 and 10 GB size. Can I do each one in it's entirety?
It doesnt matter. As long as the communication is not interrupted during said file transfer. So if you have some sort of power saving feature turned on, factory defaults will turn off the computer after a set amount of time and thats just terrible to both drives.

And Always copy and past the file folders, do not cut and paste. If you are using fancy software make sure you can open said files without said software on the new drive...loooking at you Acronis TIB files I come across every so often.
 
So what’s the best way to do regular backups after I copied everything over? Currently for the photo folder, I would copy and paste the new subfolders to the backup drive every few months. What about my 10 GB documents folder after I copy that to the backup? I may modify existing documents as well as add new ones many times a day. Can’t keep track of that to back up consistently. And copying and pasting the whole folder to the backup seems like it would wear out both drives quicker.
 
So what’s the best way to do regular backups after I copied everything over? Currently for the photo folder, I would copy and paste the new subfolders to the backup drive every few months. What about my 10 GB documents folder after I copy that to the backup? I may modify existing documents as well as add new ones many times a day. Can’t keep track of that to back up consistently. And copying and pasting the whole folder to the backup seems like it would wear out both drives quicker.

That's not bad just to have them ready. I like to have multiple backups of things like photos. But it's probably a good idea to have regular backups that can restore your entire drive setup. I don't have that much experience with Windows, but you might have a look at this:

 
What about using a cloud service, too for a backup? I think Microsoft OneDrive has an automatic daily backup.
 
also thinking about a SSD for my 17" HP lappy, only a few years old but could be faster even thou its a cheapie, intel CORE i3 8th gen. replaced hard discs + upgraded Ram before but never seen the inside of my 17" HP, girlfriends older smaller 15.4" dell was the worse IMO!!
 
also thinking about a SSD for my 17" HP lappy, only a few years old but could be faster even thou its a cheapie, intel CORE i3 8th gen. replaced hard discs + upgraded Ram before but never seen the inside of my 17" HP, girlfriends older smaller 15.4" dell was the worse IMO!!

It really depends on the design. I remember once I tried to open up a Lenovo laptop and I couldn't figure out how to get the cover off. But previous generations had covers where I could easily access RAM or even a drive. I didn't even need instructions since it was so obvious.

I looked up how to add RAM to my wife's old Dell laptop. I think it required the hinge be removed. The easiest I've ever seen for drives were Macs (especially the original MacBook). Which is ironic because some of the hardest I've researched (too scared to try when I saw what was involved to swap out a drive) were Macs (the white iBook series). However, those had easy memory upgrades that go under the keyboard.
 
also thinking about a SSD for my 17" HP lappy, only a few years old but could be faster even thou its a cheapie, intel CORE i3 8th gen. replaced hard discs + upgraded Ram before but never seen the inside of my 17" HP, girlfriends older smaller 15.4" dell was the worse IMO!!
I think for the non-gamer anything from Intel's Sandy bridge architecture will be fine in terms of performance. I would upgrade that HDD to an SSD. The real question in general with intel's older platform is security. Their are inherent platform software (firmware) that intel will no longer support and secure. On AMDs side similar concept for their older high end platforms (Bulldozer aka the free spaceheater) but their low end was absolute crap and thats a def upgrade.
 
Thats only the high end 990. He wouldn't be getting one of those for that machine anyway.

That's the news of the day but for a different configuration of drive. Since mine is in a 10 year old machine, it's a SATA drive in my case.... (an 860 evo).

It's a firmware issue. Samsung has issues updated firmware that will prevent this problem.
FYI:

 
As to those saying SSD's last longer than you think, well, just had the opposite experience with an SSD failing after 2 years with NO warning. Not an off brand either (Samsung for those who are curious).
Same here, but I beat you with three years.
 
Love my slow-poke 1 TB round and rounds. One is a 5400 rpm, one is 7200. Some things should be physical. That's what Madonna sings.
 
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