[SOLVED] I am getting an ssd.

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Mista Krank

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I have a Toshiba 1tb HDD and I want to add an SSD. I have an HP Custom to order. My system is the Pavilion Gaming TG01-0170M CTO. I get fps drops when playing every game, I have Task Manager open to see my performance and my GPU temp. Every time I get an fps drop I see my Disk have a huge spike than it continues to spike it is getting frustrating. I opened my case and seen that there is a M.2 SSD slot. Can I keep my Sata HDD for storage? Do I have to reinstall windows? Is there a way that doesn't involve reinstalling Windows 10. My motherboard is the HP Erica 8643. I went on the Crucial website and this is a M.2 SSD that supports my system and its called Crucial P2 2TB PCIe M.2 2280SS SSD.

My Specs:

Ryzen 5 3500
1660 Ti
16tgb ram 3200mhz
 
Solution
This isn't complicated. 1) Buy the SSD (its a great choice) 2) Clone the hard drive (your SSD will probably have cloning software-if not there are many good free ones) 3) In the BIOS (UEFI ),make the SSD your boot drive.
Done!
Now you can erase your hard drive and use it for storage.
If you wish to clone from old to new, say so.

Specific details to follow. Not some joker on a video.

Or, specific details on a clean install.


Either way....specific written steps.
Which do you wish to do?
I am kinda nervous about all of that so I am gonna keep my HDD as my main and use the SSD for games so I can have a good gaming performance, the booting doesn't bother me because Its not really slow.
 
Yeah can you tell I have 0 experience with cloning software? I did not know that. Now I'm curious. Why?
  1. To actually verify it worked 100%. Boot from ONLY the new drive.
  2. It actually makes a small change in the Registry.

Full reliable testing - ONLY the new SSD connected.
If for some reason the boot partition was missed, the system will still boot.
Going down the boot priority, it will boot from the first viable thing it finds. If that happens to be the boot partition that lives on the old drive...that's what happens.

Physical disconnection is the One True Way to verify.
 
At the end of the clone process, physically disconnecting the old drive before the first boot is not an option.
You MUST do that.
I think I will just keep my HDD as my main and just use the SSD for games because I don't wanna mess things up and I'm not used to adding componets to pc's I just know how to switch out ram and add the M.2 ssd
 
  1. To actually verify it worked 100%. Boot from ONLY the new drive.
  2. It actually makes a small change in the Registry.
Full reliable testing - ONLY the new SSD connected.
If for some reason the boot partition was missed, the system will still boot.
Going down the boot priority, it will boot from the first viable thing it finds. If that happens to be the boot partition that lives on the old drive...that's what happens.

Physical disconnection is the One True Way to verify.

Thanks. Make sense.
 
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specifiy the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is not optional. This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
 
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I really recommend you use that SSD as your OS drive. The difference between boot time and OS responsiveness on a SSD is really something else compared to a 7200RPM HDD.
I understand all of that, but this is my first PC. I got it only 2 months ago and I don't wanna mess things up on my end. I am new to all of this stuff. I used to play on console.
 
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specifiy the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is not optional. This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
OK I see now I just got one last question. Can an SSD be used for a storage drive for games so they can load quicker and so I can have a better performance.
 
Ok I think I might use my main drive (HDD) for my Launchers and Files that's not game related and use my SSD for Games so I can have a better performance in my games. I am gonna keep my OS on the HDD and as a boot drive (yes I know it sounds dumb) just to be safe so I won't do nothing dumb and I'm gonna use the new SSD for my games so I won't experience anymore fps drops because of the HDD
 
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