Question Options for Replacing HDD with SSD

[MikeA01730]

Hi,

I have a HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Tower PC that I bought in 2017. It has a 256 GB SSD C: drive and a 2 TB HDD E: (i.e. data drive), both SATA.

I need more space on my E: drive and was thinking I'd speed things up and solve my space problem by replacing the HDD with a larger SSD. The obvious approach is to replace the HDD with a 2.5" SATA SSD. I've done that before and know how to do it.

My motherboard also has an M.2 slot, and I've read about PCIe add-in cards and U.2 connectors. My question is if I do the obvious HDD to SSD SATA replacement am I missing anything? I'll take the dive into other options if there's a benefit, otherwise I'll just do the straight SATA drive replacement.

Anything else I should know?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[USAFRet]

You can trivially replace the 2TB HDD with a 4TB SATA III SSD.

Or, if there are extra SATA ports, Add instead of Replace.

 

[USAFRet]

My question is if I do the obvious HDD to SSD SATA replacement am I missing anything?

Depending on the actual specs of the PC, probably not.

 

[Cj-tech]

Hi,

I have a HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Tower PC that I bought in 2017. It has a 256 GB SSD C: drive and a 2 TB HDD E: (i.e. data drive), both SATA.

I need more space on my E: drive and was thinking I'd speed things up and solve my space problem by replacing the HDD with a larger SSD. The obvious approach is to replace the HDD with a 2.5" SATA SSD. I've done that before and know how to do it.

My motherboard also has an M.2 slot, and I've read about PCIe add-in cards and U.2 connectors. My question is if I do the obvious HDD to SSD SATA replacement am I missing anything? I'll take the dive into other options if there's a benefit, otherwise I'll just do the straight SATA drive replacement.

Anything else I should know?

Thanks,
Mike

If you swap the drives, it should be as simple as creating a new partition and formatting it (you could even clone it). Another option is to add another SATA or even a M2 drive. Make sure to determine which type of M2 drive your motherboard supports. Unless you are storing games on the drives, I’d probably look into cloud storage or a NAS. That’s a lot of storage to be sitting in only one place if it’s a lot of important stuff.

 

[Firestone]

Last i checked, a 4TB SATA SSD is about $200+ USD.

Keep in mind that you can get a HDD of similar or larger capacity for less, though it might not be ideal.

M.2 has an advantage in not needing any extra cables.

You didn't describe what your data drive is used for. If it's general mass storage then HDD vs SSD is not as big a deal, but if it's data that you're gonna be using actively (such as game installs or media projects) then you'll obviously benefit from SSD

Either way the upgrade is likely to be trivial. But having an external 3.5" / 2.5" SATA drive dock or reader might relieve some headaches if you choose to replace with SATA instead of M.2

In general, I'm strongly in favor of getting HDD out of all PC's and moving your mass data storage to some other dedicated device on your network, then just keeping an extra 2TB+ SSD in your system for "hot / warm data" that you're actually using right now and leave the rest on large HDD network volumes for mass storage