Data Transfer Question - Going from SSD/HD Combo to 2x SSD or 1x Larger SSD

devnull · 18-04-2020 02:43PM #1

Having upgraded the RAM from 8GB last year, the biggest bottleneck in my system is clearly that 1TB Hard Disk Drive which slows the system down. It's very noticeable that anything stored on it runs much slower.

Core i5-7600k
16GB RAM (2x 8GB Dual Channel DDR4)
Nvidia Geforce 1060 6GB
256GB Samsung EVO 860 256GB (82GB Free, Windows Drive, most apps)
1TB 7200RPM Toshiba HD (363GB Free, media, games etc, some small apps)

I realistically have two options to get the bottleneck out
- 1x 2TB SSD
- 1x 256GB SSD & 1x 1TB SSD.

Now obviously the first one is the most expensive one and probably going to be the most disruptive and hard to set-up because of the fact that it involves combining two drives into one but at the same time, from a space point of view it's going to be better and also more efficient in the long run to have everything on one drive.

The second method would be the cheapest and quite easy to carry out since I'd just need to clone the 1TB HDD onto a new 1TB SSD, however ideally I'd like to have the 1GB SSD as the main drive but that's not going to be something that will be easy to achieve without moving a lot of data around and probably doing a clean install of Windows, which I am trying to avoid.

Does anyone have any recommendation on what the best solution would be or the best way to go about it? I don't mind things to become a little bit fiddly to set it all up, but I don't want to spend hours fixing all sorts of problems.

The SSDs I would be buying would be:
Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SATA (Can get it for a discounted £100)
or
Samsung 860 QVO 2 TB SATA (Can get it for about £175)

I can't justify paying £260+ for a 860 Evo 2TB, much as I prefer the EVO.

Lu Tze · 18-04-2020 03:17PM

Clone the existing 256gb ssd to the new 1TB , expand the partition to fill the drive.

Then move across the stuff that actually makes a difference, and leave the rest (video, music, pictures, rarely accessed files) etc on the old 1 TB hard drive.

Skerries · 18-04-2020 06:26PM

I would ideally like a 2tb ssd myself as I have a 256gb ssd and 2 x 1tb ssd's as I had to add another drive due to the size of games these days
it's a bit messy having to specify to install anything new to the 2nd drive but workable

BloodBath · 19-04-2020 04:40PM

You could also buy a new 1/2tb SSD and use the old 256gb 1 as a cache drive to boost the HDD either.

TheChrisD · 19-04-2020 05:03PM

Why stop using the existing boot SSD? Makes sense to keep using it and just redirect all the games onto the new SSD.

Skerries wrote: »

it's a bit messy having to specify to install anything new to the 2nd drive but workable

I never found it to be too messy. Xbox app, Steam, GOG, Battlenet and the like all allow setting a default install folder.

devnull · 21-04-2020 09:43AM

BloodBath wrote: »

You could also buy a new 1/2tb SSD and use the old 256gb 1 as a cache drive to boost the HDD either.

Will need somewhere to mount that SSD as will be running tight on room in the case with 4 drives in there including the optical one. However I do have a spare large drive bay that I can use.

Any recommendations on any mounting kits to use to hold a Samsung SSD in place in a hzrd drive / CD style drive bay, The SSD is currently sitting on bottom of case so to have two in I'm going to need to use that bay to stop it getting very tight.

Honestly I was thinking of taking both the Toshiba and the DVD-RW drive out to create a bit of space in the case, as I have never used the DVD drive for 18 months and it'll make for better cooling with two 3.5 drives gone.

Lu Tze · 21-04-2020 10:53AM

devnull wrote: »

Will need somewhere to mount that SSD as will be running tight on room in the case with 4 drives in there including the optical one. However I do have a spare large drive bay that I can use.

Any recommendations on any mounting kits to use to hold a Samsung SSD in place in a hzrd drive / CD style drive bay, The SSD is currently sitting on bottom of case so to have two in I'm going to need to use that bay to stop it getting very tight.

Honestly I was thinking of taking both the Toshiba and the DVD-RW drive out to create a bit of space in the case, as I have never used the DVD drive for 18 months and it'll make for better cooling with two 3.5 drives gone.

Use some of that sticky Velcro tape to put it somewhere out of the way in the case. No moving parts, doesn't really need to be mounted

devnull · 21-04-2020 10:57AM

Lu Tze wrote: »

Use some of that sticky Velcro tape to put it somewhere out of the way in the case. No moving parts, doesn't really need to be mounted

It's more a lack of space in the case to do that, it's only a small case really and is already pretty cramped inside, I could lay it on the bottom of the case but probably need a longer SATA cable for that, getting increasingly hard to keep wiring neat.

If I remove one of the drives it gets easier for space reasons and cable management and I could just use a USB to SATA cable to prepare/clone the drives first.

devnull · 22-04-2020 10:32PM

Right, having had a look at the case and the various connectors that are free and the cabling in what is a MicroATX case, I'm going to be taking the HDD out after everything is worked and already took the CD Drive out to make a bit more space in the case and properly mount things and tidy the cabling up.

I've got the new 1TB SSD now and I've connected it up. However the Samsung Data Migration software is strangely not allowing me to select the Toshiba HDD as a data source to migrate to the new SSD, it will only allow me to select the Samsung 256GB drive and clone that to the 1TB drive (see attached)

Any ideas why that is? It cannot be the fact it can only clone Samsung Drives, because when this machine was first built it only had a Toshiba HDD which was then cloned to the 256GB Samsung SSD using exactly the same software, the HDD was then formatted and used as a data drive and I've also used Samsung Data Migration on other machines to clone primary HDs to SSDs and there's always been an option.

The only thing different in this case from all other times I've used this software appears to be that I'm trying to clone a secondary drive, but surely that shouldn't be a factor here? If you're just cloning a drive then whether it's primary or secondary it shouldn't make any difference here surely?

devnull · 23-04-2020 01:21PM

Updated from my original version (3.1) to the latest version of Samsung Data Migration (4.0) with that terrible dark theme and problem persisted (although much of the interface was tough to read)

Apparently Samsung Data Migration only supports cloning primary drives, which is surprising, so I guess I'm going to have to do a batch copy and paste of the entire drive - I assume this will take a while compared to a clone?

Data Transfer Question - Going from SSD/HD Combo to 2x SSD or 1x Larger SSD

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