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Upgrading OS to an SSD

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So, I have a pc with a 1TB HDD in it, it has my OS and all of my files on it, I think in total I have about 700/800 GB used up. I am thinking of buying a PNY 120GB XLR8 SSD (I have a PNY GTX 570, never had a single problem with it, it runs every game on max setting so I know and love PNY). Now, as you can guess I want to put my OS onto the SSD and leave the rest of my files on the HHD, what I don't want to have to do is back up the 700/800 GB of data onto another drive, format the HDD and put it all back, is there a way to continue using my HDD as is with the OS on the SSD? Also, once I have my OS on the SSD how do I set up my HDD so that I'm not going manually across to the HDD to find files, I just hit Documents as I usually do and it brings me across to the HDD automatically? Basically so that it uses the HDD as the default file storage, so if I want to save a picture from google for example, it opens up "My Pictures" on the HDD my default and not on the SSD.
 
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You can set,in win 7, on Pictures properties, on what folder to be default, and for My Documents too...
 
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I recommend you buy a Samsung EVO instead, they are by far the best value for money consumer SSD on the market. No highly commending reviews on the PNY SSD's. You can install your OS to that SSD, go into the BIOS and set the Samsung as the 1st boot device, and then have the HDD also plugged into the next SATA port on your motherboard. That way you can boot from the OS, and wont have to format the HDD, you can just access it as if it were a data drive. You may want to remove the OS files from the HDD, as they'll be wasting space.

As for folder redirection, right click on the documents shortcut on the start menu and it will let you select which drive it defaults to.
 

Aquinus

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I would just do a clean install on the SSD. What I do it I create a new library for documents, music, pictures,etc. that point to directories on my RAID-5 so I'm rarely saving files to the SSDs. So all in all, if you want it to go swimmingly and want to witness the full awesomeness SSDs have to offer, start from scratch and just hold on to the 1TB drive and re-organize it after Windows is installed on the SSD.
 
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I recommend you buy a Samsung EVO instead, they are by far the best value for money consumer SSD on the market. No highly commending reviews on the PNY SSD's. You can install your OS to that SSD, go into the BIOS and set the Samsung as the 1st boot device, and then have the HDD also plugged into the next SATA port on your motherboard. That way you can boot from the OS, and wont have to format the HDD, you can just access it as if it were a data drive. You may want to remove the OS files from the HDD, as they'll be wasting space.

As for folder redirection, right click on the documents shortcut on the start menu and it will let you select which drive it defaults to.

Thanks, I will look into the Samsung SSD instead and set it up as you suggested, that's exactly what I needed.
 
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Don't install windows with the mechanical connected, disconnect all drives but the SSD. Otherwise it can write some windows operating system files to the other drives. After windows is installed, connect the other drives (mechanicals). Make sure you have AHCI mode enabled.
 
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disconnect all drives but the SSD. Otherwise it can write some windows operating system files to the other drives

This, pretty important to bare in mind.
 

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Don't install windows with the mechanical connected, disconnect all drives but the SSD. Otherwise it can write some windows operating system files to the other drives. After windows is installed, connect the other drives (mechanicals). Make sure you have AHCI mode enabled.
This, pretty important to bare in mind.

It's important to set the SSD as the first HDD in your BIOS' boot order. As long as it's first, it will install the boot loader to the SSD and not the 1TB drive and you should be fine. Disconnecting the drive naturally makes the SSD first in the boot list, but disconnecting it isn't necessary.
 

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It's important to set the SSD as the first HDD in your BIOS' boot order. As long as it's first, it will install the boot loader to the SSD and not the 1TB drive and you should be fine. Disconnecting the drive naturally makes the SSD first in the boot list, but disconnecting it isn't necessary.

You may be correct in that the majority of the time it's not necessary, but I had boot files go to the storage HDD bc I wasn't paying attention when installing to my boot drive, necessitating a reinstall again. So I prefer to err on the side of caution from now on, and always disconnect any other drives when installing.
 
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You may be correct in that the majority of the time it's not necessary, but I had boot files go to the storage HDD bc I wasn't paying attention when installing to my boot drive, necessitating a reinstall again. So I prefer to err on the side of caution from now on, and always disconnect any other drives when installing.

I had a similar problem due to lack of attention after a long day at work; I partitioned the wrong drive and lost a lot of my dads files, managed to get most of it back but when it takes 5 seconds to disconnect a drive and hours to restore a silly mistake, it's better to just disconnect and remove all possibilities for something to accidentally go wrong.
 
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Aquinus

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I had a similar problem due to lack of attention after a long day at work; I partitioned the wrong drive and lost a lot of my dads files, managed to get most of it back but when it takes 5 seconds to disconnect a drive and hours to restore a silly mistake, it's better to just disconnect and remove all possibilities for something to accidentally go wrong.

You may be correct in that the majority of the time it's not necessary, but I had boot files go to the storage HDD bc I wasn't paying attention when installing to my boot drive, necessitating a reinstall again. So I prefer to err on the side of caution from now on, and always disconnect any other drives when installing.

Kind of like partitioning the wrong drive. That's user error. Considering what you're doing, I would recommend vigilance over unplugging the drive.

Additionally, if you were to do something like that, you can change the boot order, boot from the Windows install disc, and run recovery and it will re-create the boot manager on the first drive in the boot list. Reinstalling isn't usually necessary to fix this if it were to happen.
 
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Well what I done is partitioned the backup drive with the data on, had to use some software to read the deleted files and restore them, it found most but some where corrupt. As you said, this is user error and was a stupid mistake because I wasn't concentrating but it's something avoided by spending 5?seconds to unplug the drive.
 
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