[SOLVED] Expanding C drive ?

[souflex]

Hello everyone! so i have my pc that i built 4 years ago, and i installed the OS on a 120 gb ssd and have a 1 tb hdd for the rest of my stuff. however, over the years the ssd filled up and i don't really understand why. my question is, if i open the rig up and slap another ssd inside, can i simply make it "part of " the original c drive that is running out of space ?

 

[USAFRet]

Hello everyone! so i have my pc that i built 4 years ago, and i installed the OS on a 120 gb ssd and have a 1 tb hdd for the rest of my stuff. however, over the years the ssd filled up and i don't really understand why. my question is, if i open the rig up and slap another ssd inside, can i simply make it "part of " the original c drive that is running out of space ?

No, not as you imagine.
You can, however, replace the 120GB drive with a larger one.

Given certain conditions, this can be pretty seamless.
What new drive were you thinking of?
Desktop or laptop?

 

[Kieran White (Kraw20)]

If you are on a strict budget and your motherboard supports it you could install an additional 120gb ssd and raid them together in raid 0. To do this though you will need to reinstall windows There will be a risk that comes with doing this and that is a risk of losing all of your data in the future as if one of the drives fails then you cant rebuild all of the data since RAID 0 does not support this. Depending on how bold you want to be and how old your current SSD is you have the choice of being cheap and risky and going for RAID 0 or being safe and buying a whole new drive all together that is of a bigger capacity.

 

[USAFRet]

If you are on a strict budget and your motherboard supports it you could install an additional 120gb ssd and raid them together in raid 0.

While there are probably worse options to get him where he wants, I can't think of one right now.

$65 for a new 500GB SSD, free clone software, done.

 

[popatim]

Raid would require the motherbd be put in raid mode which means the HDD would need to be reformated which leads to reinstalling Windows, drivers, updates , software, Personal files.... And you haven't even asked if there is already a valid backup plan in effect to save those personal files.

Raid 0 also requires having a backup otherwise you get to repeat the above when anything happens to the either of the disks. I will mention that this is a rare event from my perspective when implemented correctly; Identical drives on a well supported raid controller, but you still need to be prepared for it.

Probably better off seeing what is consuming all the space first IMO.

 

[Ketchup79]

DO NOT recommend RAID As mentioned, if this is a desktop and you have enough for a decent-size drive, this can be a be a pretty seamless option.

 

[souflex]

No, not as you imagine.
You can, however, replace the 120GB drive with a larger one.

Given certain conditions, this can be pretty seamless.
What new drive were you thinking of?
Desktop or laptop?

sorry for being MIA, lots of work. i have another 120gb ssd i found lying around still unopened, and i have a desktop

 

[USAFRet]

sorry for being MIA, lots of work. i have another 120gb ssd i found lying around still unopened, and i have a desktop

No, you need a different, larger, drive.

 

[Alabalcho]

Download an utility like WinDirStat, and analyze your SSD. See where the space is used. If it is large data files in your user profile directoty, you can safely move them to the other SSD, or the hard drive.