Advice on installing an SSD for the first time!

py2006

Hi guys,

So I have decided to invest in an SSD for the first time. I have two 1TB Samsung drives in my pc at the moment. Windows has gotten quite slow to boot up and shut down as my drive is near capacity. So I want to get an SSD (prob a Crucial M4 128GB) for Windows/photoshop and a game or two and use my two HDD's for storing movies etc.

So I have a few questions:

Is there much involved in installing an SSD?
They are quite slim so I am worried about where it will rest inside the case?
Should I detach the current windows drive before installing it on the SSD?
What changes to I make to the bios? (boot order I presume)
Once Windows is installed, how do I remove it from the HDD but keep my files/folders
Any other advice would be great! Thanks in advance.

MiniNukinfuts

Buy an SSD upgrade kit. This includes a 3.5" conversion kit. So it can fit the SSD into a current HDD bay. Change it to be the first boot device in the BIOS. Install windows onto it as you would normally. Then once installed, you store all the large files, (movies, songs etc) on the HDD's via a Symbolic Link. That's how i've been running on my Mac, practically the same method.

Eboggles

Or just velcro the SSD to your case... It hasn't got any moving parts inside, and it's silent so it doesn't really matter where you put it.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

py2006 wrote: »

Hi guys,

So I have decided to invest in an SSD for the first time. I have two 1TB Samsung drives in my pc at the moment. Windows has gotten quite slow to boot up and shut down as my drive is near capacity. So I want to get an SSD (prob a Crucial M4 128GB) for Windows/photoshop and a game or two and use my two HDD's for storing movies etc.

So I have a few questions:

Is there much involved in installing an SSD?

nope

They are quite slim so I am worried about where it will rest inside the case?

dont be, just get an adapter like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0037SHEAQ/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01
put the ssd in this put this in a 3.5 bay where the rest of your hd's are

Should I detach the current windows drive before installing it on the SSD?

umm.. yes I guess I did anyway

What changes to I make to the bios? (boot order I presume)

enable AHCI mode.. you'll have to google your own motherboard/bios to find where it is in the options.. or just have a look

afaik once you ahve AHCI mode enabled your old windows install won't even boot off a regular HD so if you ever need/want to install windows again on a non ssd drive be sure and switch AHCI back to IDE

Once Windows is installed, how do I remove it from the HDD but keep my files/folders
Any other advice would be great! Thanks in advance.

pray to the gods of windows 7 and ****ing user/security/permissions.
if you have the space, copy everything you can off the drive and format.. otherwise be prepared to **** around with windows 7 permissions to be allowed delete windows stuff from your own hard drive.
i managed to get it done when I installed my ssd a month ago but I got annoyed and just ended up randomly clicking stuff until I was allowed delete the old windows folder., no idea what I clicked that actually let me do it.



oh and get whichever ssd kit is cheapest.. I dont mean go for the cheapest brand ssd neccesarily but desktop/notebook/whatever kits.. all you want is the ssd and a sata cable. when I bought mine it worked out a fair bit cheaper to buy the adapter I linked above and a notebook kit SSD instead of getting the desktop kit

afaik samsung 830's and crucial m4's are the brand/makes to get atm

py2006

Thanks for the great advice guys. Out of curiousity, I presume an SSD slows down when it gets close to capacity in the same way an HDD does? How much space does windows 7 take up on an 128gb SSD?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i think i read that an ssd needs some free space alright to work efficiently.. dunno though


my windows install is 16 gigs

py2006

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

pray to the gods of windows 7 and ****ing user/security/permissions.
if you have the space, copy everything you can off the drive and format.. otherwise be prepared to **** around with windows 7 permissions to be allowed delete windows stuff from your own hard drive.
i managed to get it done when I installed my ssd a month ago but I got annoyed and just ended up randomly clicking stuff until I was allowed delete the old windows folder., no idea what I clicked that actually let me do it.

Ok that part worries me a little. I have nearly 900GB of stuff I want to keep on my current OS drive! I don't wish to format it just yet!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

then don't

you dont have to delete the old windows install, once youn have ahci enabled windows will boot from the ssd

and like i said it is possible to delete the windows from the old drive, you'll just have to google to find out how cos I dont know

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

pray to the gods of windows 7 and ****ing user/security/permissions.
if you have the space, copy everything you can off the drive and format.. otherwise be prepared to **** around with windows 7 permissions to be allowed delete windows stuff from your own hard drive.
i managed to get it done when I installed my ssd a month ago but I got annoyed and just ended up randomly clicking stuff until I was allowed delete the old windows folder., no idea what I clicked that actually let me do it.

The gist of it is to take ownership of the now secondary drive and its subcontainers and then assign Full Control to Everyone, being sure to also apply it to child objects. This should prevent you from running into permissions issues. This will make its OS unbootable though.

py2006

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

then don't

you dont have to delete the old windows install, once youn have ahci enabled windows will boot from the ssd

and like i said it is possible to delete the windows from the old drive, you'll just have to google to find out how cos I dont know

Well, a quick google tell me that windows only takes up 22gb of space anyway, so maybe I am worrying about nothing!

py2006

py2006 wrote: »

Well, a quick google tell me that windows only takes up 22gb of space anyway, so maybe I am worrying about nothing!

The amount of space used will vary depending on whether hibernation and/or the page file are enabled. The hibernation file usually takes up the same amount of space as your physical RAM. You can disable this at the command prompt if you want to - hibernation is more useful on laptops than desktops. The command is powercfg -h off

The page file usually defaults to 1.5 times your RAM but on high memory systems (4GB+) I've seen it lower.

py2006

Karsini wrote: »

The amount of space used will vary depending on whether hibernation and/or the page file are enabled. The hibernation file usually takes up the same amount of space as your physical RAM. You can disable this at the command prompt if you want to - hibernation is more useful on laptops than desktops. The command is powercfg -h off

The page file usually defaults to 1.5 times your RAM but on high memory systems (4GB+) I've seen it lower.

I was not aware of this, I am on a desktop with 8gb.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah hibernation is next to useless with an ssd as it just boots so fast anyway