Good guide for installing SSD?

Kenjiin · 2 Feb 2016 at 15:57

I recieved my cheap Crucial BX200 240gb SSD yesterday, just for installing Windows 10 and having a few games and applications that I use all the time, and keep my HDD for storage, but I'm so confused!

I can't find a nice simple step by step guide of what to do and in what order. Does anyone have a link to a dumbed down version of what to do? lol

I've bought a cheap usb to put the windows 10 installer on, but I'm not even 100% on where to get the exact file from

Or how to get rid of windows installed on my orginal HDD once it's all done

I don't really want to get started until I have a decend guide in front of me

Glanza · 2 Feb 2016 at 16:44

Remove current hdd,
Plug in SSD,
Install OS,
Updates / drivers / game installs etc,
Plug old hdd in,
Go into Bios and make sure SSD is first boot device,
Boot into Windows,
Format old HDD,

Done.

Begbie · 2 Feb 2016 at 16:47

Do you own a copy of Windows 10?

Kenjiin · 2 Feb 2016 at 16:54

I upgraded from Windows 7.

I'm currently downloading Windows 10 ISO to put onto my USB drive, is that correct?

And this may seem like a really stupid question, but wouldn't formatting my HDD after all that delete everything from my HDD making me have to re-download all my games etc, or is there no getting around that??

Begbie · 2 Feb 2016 at 16:55

Keep them on your current HDD, then transfer the ones across you want. Easy enough with steam anyway. You can do it via steam, I just copy and pasted them across though and it was fine.

munge · 2 Feb 2016 at 19:19

Begbie said:
Do you own a copy of Windows 10?

Valid question as I just upgraded my parents' PC and only found out afterwards that you are supposed to install Win 10 to get it activated and get the key before you then install Win 10 on the new HDD.

I was lucky in that when I phoned the activation hotline to get my Win 10 activated, they allowed me to activate it over the phone. They said I should have activated the upgrade before reinstalling. The suggestion was it was down to their goodwill rather than any formal policy and that it might change in future.

You might be lucky, but I'd have been @@@@@@ if I'd had to reinstall 7, then 10 to only delete again!

Uaon · 2 Feb 2016 at 19:50

If you're upgrading to windows 10 be sure to deactivate auto optimize hard disk, or you will have your ssd defragged weekly, you can still set it to keep your mechanical defragged however by simply selecting which disk get optimized.

APM · 2 Feb 2016 at 22:43

Make sure only the SSD had a data connection to the mobo when you do the OS install.

lsg1r · 3 Feb 2016 at 02:55

Uaon said:
If you're upgrading to windows 10 be sure to deactivate auto optimize hard disk, or you will have your ssd defragged weekly, you can still set it to keep your mechanical defragged however by simply selecting which disk get optimized.

optimize only deals with trim on ssd's, no defrags... it's needs to be on with windows 10

Uaon · 3 Feb 2016 at 13:32

lsg1r said:
optimize only deals with trim on ssd's, no defrags... it's needs to be on with windows 10

No need for the condescension and it does defrag albeit "intelligently" if volsnap is turned on, and volsnap is turned on by default when you enable system restore.It's better to run the dist trim command manually when needed and not left to run daily or weekly as it's just not needed imo. The things to optimize would to disable Superfetch and Prefetch, drive indexing and manage page file size. Samsung's aoptimization software will do all this through through its wizard software..

ttaskmaster · 3 Feb 2016 at 14:11

Saw thread title, thought OP meant physically installing into case!!

lsg1r · 3 Feb 2016 at 18:08

Uaon said:
No need for the condescension and it does defrag albeit "intelligently" if volsnap is turned on, and volsnap is turned on by default when you enable system restore.

thats not what you said though is it....I would guess most of us on this forum turn off our system restore as soon as we can to save space if nothing else.

As to turning those other items listed in samsungs tools off (I've got a samsung ssd), well selecting 'performance' (which turns most of them off) actually made my windows 10 system perform worse. Now in windows 7/8 turning off a lot of those things did actually help but windows 10 doesn't work the same way, it's actually been designed with ssd's in mind.

I still do turn of hibernation and I move my page file to another older ssd not that the amount of use a page file gets these days will make a huge difference to the lifespan of a modern ssd.