[SOLVED] switching Windows and some games to Ssd from hdd

[FINNIE8OY]

Hello,

I have a hdd 1tb storage And I got a 256 gb Ssd for my birthday.
I want to have atleast Windows And Some games on it, But How do I switch Windows And Some games from my hhd to my ssd.
And are there other things that is important or better to have on your ssd?
Thank you.

 

[Solandri]

If you're using Steam as your games platform, they make it pretty easy to move games between drives. You'll want to keep at least 15% of the SSD space free (otherwise write speed starts to plummet). That's about 35-40 GB free in your case. So you probably don't want to move your entire game library to the SSD. Just move the games you're currently playing to the SSD. Leave the others on the HDD. Move them to the SSD when you're playing them frequently, move games you've finished or lost interest in to the HDD.

https://www.howtogeek.com/269515/how-to-move-a-steam-game-to-another-drive-without-re-downloading-it/

If you're not using Steam, you'll probably have to reinstall the game on the new drive. There are a handful of games which will run without being installed. In that case you can simply copy the game's folder onto the other drive and run it from there. But in most cases a full reinstall is needed.

There is a trick you can use to avoid reinstalling. Using a Windows feature called directory junctions, you can make Windows think a directory is on one drive, when it's actually on another. I won't go into details here since for your problem you'll either use Steam or have to reinstall anyway (since you're moving your OS from the HDD to the SSD). But I mention it because it may be useful in the future to take a game installed on the SSD that you're no longer actively playing, and move it to the HDD while still appearing to be on the SSD.

 

[FINNIE8OY]

If you're using Steam as your games platform, they make it pretty easy to move games between drives. You'll want to keep at least 15% of the SSD space free (otherwise write speed starts to plummet). That's about 35-40 GB free in your case. So you probably don't want to move your entire game library to the SSD. Just move the games you're currently playing to the SSD. Leave the others on the HDD. Move them to the SSD when you're playing them frequently, move games you've finished or lost interest in to the HDD.

https://www.howtogeek.com/269515/how-to-move-a-steam-game-to-another-drive-without-re-downloading-it/

If you're not using Steam, you'll probably have to reinstall the game on the new drive. There are a handful of games which will run without being installed. In that case you can simply copy the game's folder onto the other drive and run it from there. But in most cases a full reinstall is needed.

There is a trick you can use to avoid reinstalling. Using a Windows feature called directory junctions, you can make Windows think a directory is on one drive, when it's actually on another. I won't go into details here since for your problem you'll either use Steam or have to reinstall anyway (since you're moving your OS from the HDD to the SSD). But I mention it because it may be useful in the future to take a game installed on the SSD that you're no longer actively playing, and move it to the HDD while still appearing to be on the SSD.

Thank you, But How do I switch my os to my ssd from my hdd? Because I cant Really find a clear answer for This.

 

[Solandri]

Oops, sorry, I misread your question. Given your constraints (HDD bigger SSD, with lots of stuff installed on it), it's going to be very difficult to migrate Windows from the HDD to the SSD. You'll have to shrink the existing partition,create a new partition in the free space, and move files from the c: partition to the d: partition. Then you'll have to shrink the c: partition some more, extend the d: partition with the extra free space, and move more files. Repeat until you have the c: drive down to less than about 200 GB. Then you can use a partition manager / SSD migration tool to clone the HDD's individual partitions (minus the d: drive partition) to the SSD. This will take a lot of time, and is very risky since every time you shrink or extend a partition, you risk losing the data on it.

The easier solution by far is to buy an external drive like I suggested. Move data from your HDD to the external drive until there's 200 GB or less remaining on the HDD. Then use a cloning tool to clone the HDD to the SSD. If your SSD did not come with a cloning tool, you can use any of these:

Clonezilla, Minitools Partition Wizard, Macrium Reflect Free, Easus Todo, Paragon Drive Copy (may not be free anymore).