HD to SSD - When Best To Install Intel Rapid Storage Technology?

[MalcH]

I'm about to replace the SATA hard drive in a new Dell Inspiron 3542 laptop with a Samsung 840 Evo SSD. The laptop has an Intel board and came with Intel Engine Management Components pre-installed.

The laptop doesn't have Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed which from what I've read can help SSD optimisation.

Would it be best to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology before cloning the SATA hard drive to the SSD, install it after cloning or doesn't it matter?

 

[avarice]

I would suggest to install it first. Otherwise it should not matter. (you are cloning the drive - right?)

Regardless - you will be impressed with the responsiveness of your laptop once you complete the upgrade.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Not sure what your going to use to 'Clone' but unless it is specifically from the SSD maker (like the Samsung EVO's Magician software) the cloning won't work well, the biggest issues are around the LARGER HDD can't "fit" on a smaller SSD though the actual 'used' part does fit on the SSD, it looks at the drive as a WHOLE (500GB HDD does NOT fit on a 128GB SSD). There are other reasons too.

As a person whom did this as well, and the MANY MANY MANY posts out there, the simplest answer (as long as we are NOT talking Windows 8.1) is to run Windows Easy Transfer to a external HDD to backup your 'data' and 'settings'. Make sure you have all your CDs/downloads and 'keys' laid out, then use DBAN to wipe the HDD, this will prevent the HDD from 'conflicting' with the SSD that the HDD is the boot drive NOT the SSD.

Install the SSD, install Windows, do all Windows Updates including options except BING. Download and run Slim Drivers, install all the latest updates for alot of the other things 'under the hood' , but you don't need to reboot until you do the last update.
Get AVIRA http://www.avira.com/en/download/product/avira-free-ant... (or go to www.filehippo.com and download Comodo/Panda or AVG (AVAST! was hacked so I don't recommend them anymore)). Then download Malwarebytes do full system scans ,amually once a week to once a month.

Now for the tricky part: By default installations are set to C, the SSD, this means you would fill up the SSD rather quickly, and after 50% full the perfomance drops quickly on SSDs. So you need to 'retrain' yourself to NOT CLICK THROUGH installs, but SLOW DOWN AND READ EACH SCREEN. When you get to the screen that says INSTALL TO C:\Program Files(x86)\NameofSoftware you need to change the C:\ to D:\ so it does the install to your HDD instead. This will save you space as well as headaches later. Install all your software you want to install doing this method. Once done, then run WET again and restore from the Ext HDD, reboot, and everything is back EXACTLY as it was.

 

[MalcH]

Thanks for both replies, all the info much appreciated.