Storage questions various

[hoorhay]

Okay, two main questions

1.) I'm selling my current tower to fund a new one. I'm retaining the hard drive from my present build(WD 1TB Blue). Can this be reused with the new build with the OS already installed? Or will there be complications?

2.) I was looking at very cheap SSD options. I'll eventually switch the OS over to this from my retained mechanical drive. I see people hating on the V300 a lot comparing it to other SSD options. But looking at the actual read/write speeds compared to a basic mechanical drive, it still seems like a giant leap in speed. Is funding a faster ssd worth it aside from benchmarking?

 

[ss202sl]

It can be used, but the existing OS may not work. The MB will most likely be different which means the drivers will be different, and most of the time this ends up needing a clean install of the OS. Also the existing system may have had an OEM OS license meaning that the OS license actually goes with the system MB(not the HDD). You may need to buy another OS license.

 

[hoorhay]

They're both custom built. Going from Z87 mobo to Z97. I do have the install disc

 

[boosted1g]

1) Yes you can reuse the drive, but you will have to reinstall Windows.

2) An SSD is a significant improvement over a hard drive due to the near instant seek times. The faster read/write numbers is more just icing on the cake.
The hate for the V300 is because Kingston released a pretty darn good drive for a reasonable price, then 6 months latter after they got rave reviews and decent benchmarks they switched the nram chips to asynchronous chips that took the performance to 1/3 but marketed it as the same drive with the same speed because using 1 specific benchmark that uses compression it still meets those numbers.
Kingston pulled this little bait-and-switch right before holiday season in 2013 and has been struggling to clear stock ever since.

I would stick with Samsung 850 evo or Crucial MX200 (or MX 100). You just missed it, yesterday amazon had the 850 evo for $56.

 

[boosted1g]

Also, you can not reuse windows from your old PC, each PC will need their own windows license.

 

[ss202sl]

The disk isn't the license. You can download the ISO

 

[hoorhay]

But I can install 8.1 and use it as an unofficial copy for a few days until I can afford a copy? I'm only going to get technical preview of 10 immediately afterwards anyway

 

[ss202sl]

There is no (license)activation grace period with Windows 8.1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Product_Activation

 

[RealBeast]

They're both custom built. Going from Z87 mobo to Z97. I do have the install disc

If it is Windows 8 you can use it on your new machine as long as you do not also use it on the old machine.

Windows 8 is a bit different on licensing, in that you can use both the retail and OEM installs on another machine of *yours* but not transfer the OEM version to another.

With Windows 7 you could not even use an OEM version on any upgrade that included a new motherboard.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So long as you have the product key then you can have the Windows 8 or 8.1 installation on any one machine you choose. You will of course have to reactivate online or by phone. It doesn't matter what machine or how many times you upgrade, so long as it's only on one machine.