To Clone or to Clean Install?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Astralv

Astralv

Distinguished
May 6, 2013
1,931
11
20,015
Hey there

I have 250GB SSD on 2014 Haswell 4770K computer and it has about 50Gb left. I want to start over. I don't have anything super important on C drive that can not be moved. I am planning to install Adobe Suite with all Adobe software related to video production. My graphics card is AMD Radion 7870 HD. I bought ADATA 1TB SSD. The question is- should I clone C drive to newADATA drive or should I clean install Windows and leave 250GB drive there in case I want to use my old hobbyist video editing software? Thank you.
 
Solution
USAFRet
1. There should be no issue with the most recent Win 10.
No prep needed for creating the USB install. Just know that whatever is on it will be wiped out.
Just use the MediaCreation tool, and it will get whatever is latest.

2. Dual boot? Shouldn't take more than a day to get it all set up and verified working.
Sort by date Sort by votes


Why not just put the new 1TB drive in, and install the Adobe suite to the new 1TB?
If the current SSD is working fine, why mess with it?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
1. I agree with above ... unless OS install has been "getting tired". I see no reason to reinstall. It's a good idea to bench ya system when new with an application based utility like RoG Real bench. Re-run every 3 months or so and when ya think it looks tired, then ya can reinstall.

2. A 2nd OS install on similarly sized partition is always a good idea in a production environment...if the 250 GB one goes south, then you can still work. However, that's 1/4 of ya storage space. There's another thread her witha guy who has a 128 GB SSD and I gave him 13 things to look at to trim the used file space down... see if you can find w/ a search.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I can not tell if it is tired- it does not have any significant issues, other than it has Cyberlink suite installed- Photo Director, Power Director (video editor), Office 2013 and Office 2016 at the same time- I can get rid of this clutter. I am not looking forward to reinstall the Office, antivirus and all drivers, but it is not that hard to do. One of issues with this system that I can think of is that it falls asleep as supposed but wakes up randomly, every hour and it wakes up my hamster. lol. I am starting new adventure of working with video on slightly under spec computer- last thing I want is to run it from other drive. I believe major software should run from C drive. And eventually I will run out of space on C- only 50GB left. so why not now? Any Pro and Cones? Thank you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ultimately, its up to you.

My current main system has had exactly 1 "clean install" since the actual build in 2012.
Win 70->8->8.1->10.
It got a full wipe and reinstall with a parts rebuild last November.


You current 250GB SSD having only 50GB free is easily rectified. There is almost certainly a whole lot of excess crap lying around that can be uninstalled or deleted.
WinDirStat can help you locate that.

But, a clean install WILL clean out all the gunk.
Of course, that means a reinstall of ALL your applications, etc.

And still, I'd use the 250GB for the OS/application drive, and have all that other large stuff go to the 1TB drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That's like mine ... my system is tested quarterly for signs of slowdown and showing none has not been reinstalled since it was built other then after i disabled the RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays that I experimented with for 1st 3 months.

My wife system is, on average a yearly wipe / reinstall. She can't resist clicking on every "FREE" button, uses half dozen tool bars and participates in a half dozen, survey / coupon sites. Sometimes, I do a fresh install every 6 months.

With the kids, when they wore young, used to do a fresh install every year during XMas break. Trying 8 or more games a week, sharing stuff with friends, hitting sites their friends foind this wonderful free thing made it a trifecta every holiday season ... now at 21, 26 and 27, they take care of their own but while I was paying attention, they did so occasionally ... 2 had SSD failures, 1 of them twice ... Other than that maybe 1 fresh install per system life which went 3-6 years.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It also has 2TB WD Green, so all the stored junk is on D. I do not put anything on C, so I don't know what's 200GB made of. I have music computers- old and new, I do all work there, this is my Internet computer- nothing serious. But I want to make it video editing machine to avoid installing video applications on my music computer. Program files are only 9.8GB. Program Files X86 27Gb. Program Data 7GB. AMD folder 10GB, Users 10GB, Windows folder 70GB- I thought it should be smaller. I don't even have Creators update installed yet. That is about 125 GB, where the other 70GB is not known.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I like WinDirStat as it gives a nice "at a glance" representation of what is taking up space. But in the end, this is how I get rid of it when I come home and find a PC on my workbench with a post-it on it saying "Plz clean C drive"

1. Rin Disk Cleanup and check all the boxes.
2. Turn off the page file on the SSD and move it to another drive.
3. Move the temp folder to same location
4. I usually create a small partition at the beginning of the 2nd storage device (HD / SSHD) for 1 and 2 as the outer rim is 2x faster than the inner.
5. Clean out all your windows service pack uninstall files*
6. Do a file search on *.dmp and *.tmp and remove all files older than ya last boot. *
7. Do a *.* search of the drive and rank the results by file size. See if any "don't belong".... such as downloaded GFX card driver installation files.
8. Make sure any folder with "My" in front of it is empty ...
9. Search for log files that can be deleted such as backup logs that are outdated
10. Recognize that you are being fooled when you buy a 128 GB SSD... it only fits 119 GB if files... with the 15% recommended free space, that's 101 GB.
11. Watch out for utilities **like** Furmark which leave a 2GB dat file if installed to the SSD.
12. Programs like iTunes **like** to install huge *.ipa files in C:\Users as well as *.mpg files
13. Disable File Content Indexing and not only free up space but improve performance


* if ya didnt check all boxes in item 0
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This is nice list if you know how to do it. To me it is a lot of work. I would have to look up everything online. Turn off the page file- how would it kow to save system restore on other drive? I remember it saying 'For disk 1", "For Disk 2"- looks like each disk has restore points for itself only- C for C, D for D and so on.

Temp folder is empty. Move it how? Just move?

How do I clean out all your windows service pack uninstall files?

I have many versions of AMD graphic- probably updates. I don't know if it save to remove.

How to tell if backup logs outdated- what back ups? I have backup drive for this computer but I hardly ever do backups because it does not have anything important other than documents and pictures. (Hm- good idea to back up those).

I don't see any reason to struggle with installing massive software titles on small drive. I can install new drive, install Windows, drives install will take 15 minutes- less time than clean the C drive. On my last build I reinstalled Windows 14 times, so it really is not a big deal. The only big deal is to get to the back of computer to unplug things as I have no access to the back of my desk and don't know how I will drag this computer out to install the drive... Thank you for the tips- good tips.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This is nice list if you know how to do it. To me it is a lot of work. I would have to look up everything online. Turn off the page file- how would it kow to save system restore on other drive? I remember it saying 'For disk 1", "For Disk 2"- looks like each disk has restore points for itself only- C for C, D for D and so on.
Click to expand...

Again, a web search should easily bring up numerous How To's.

1. Hit start button ... type the word clean in the search window ... at top of popup you will see "disk cleanup" ... click it ... select the SSD (C:\) ... check all the boxes and hit ok ... go to more options tab and lose old restore points or dump unwanted programs.

2. Assuming Win7 .... yahoo search on "windows 7 move page file"
https://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/53542-how-move-paging-file-another-physical-hdd-win7.html

3. Assuming Win7 .... yahoo search on "windows 7 move temp file"
https://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/339850-ssds-moving-my-temp-folders.html

4. When formatting the new drive you just create the partiton in Disk management ... yahoo search on "windows 7 create partition" ... then d 2 and 3 above. The link below talks about creating a certain type of partition but procedure is same

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/119151-system-reserved-create-using-disk-management.html

5/6. You can check this manually but item 1 shuda taken care of this....

7. Simply search any partition / drive for *.* and then click on the size column twice to list largest to smallest

8. Look in the folder, see what's there... move it somewhere else

9. See item 7 above and do same thing except *.log

11/12. See item 7 above ... when ranked by largest file at top... look at the names of the files for largest files. Do you need the programs they are associated with on the SSD ? Lotta times folks might use Fraps to make a video and the 2 Gb file is sitting on their HD 2 years later.

13. yahoo search on "Windows 7 Disable File Content Indexing" ...
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/simple-ways-to-increase-your-computers-performace-turn-off-indexing-on-your-local-drives/

It was a lot more work to type it than actually doing it.... I usually knock it off in 5 minutes...10 tops if I have to keep asking "Do you want this moved or deleted" ?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


It is fine for the OS and application drive.
Have all the working video files on the 1TB SSD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It is a weekend and the only time I have to install another drive. I don't know why I am waiting for your blessing to clean install, but for some reason I am still not convinced. I want big new C drive with lots of space- why bother with cleaning old drive. When I install Adobe Suite, even if it installs on C, it would be harder to go back and ever reinstall. And I don't think it is a good idea to run major programs from D drive. Now is the time of change and time to update Windows on the new drive. Can I have any reasons listed of why it is not a good idea? Thank you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


1. Sure, go ahead with the whole install on the 1TB. Don't need our blessing...:)
Just saying that this is the way *I* would do it.

2. It is NOT an issue to run applications off a second drive. The OS does not care, as long as you install it on that second drive properly.

3. Applications take up less space than you may think. The resulting files from those applications DO take a lot of space.
For instance...a single days shooting in my camera can easily take more space than Adobe Lightroom (~1GB) takes up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yeah, right. How you explain near 200GB taken on my drive with no personal files or video. All I have is Tomb Rider and Cyberlink suite. I been checking folders to see if I need to back up something and found absolutely nothing.

So I decided to do the following:

1. Download the Media Creation Tool when I find the link for it and free USB drive. Is there any reason to preserve my Anniversary edition installer? What are the chances that my hardware would have issues with Creators? Strangely, 2 of my other computers already updated, but this one and one other computer, both Haswells, did not update yet. I heard there was some issue with some Ethernet or something that Microsoft does not force Creators on computers that it detected has this hardware. Any info? Should I install 1607 Aniversary or Creators?

If I need to install Creators, how do I prepare the USB stick? If I have something on it that I already backed up, do I need to format it before creating installation media? If so- FAT32 (default) or NTFS?

2. I will have dual boot for a while until I install all the drivers and make sure new drive works ok, then format the original C. Is this the best plan? Thank you.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
1. There should be no issue with the most recent Win 10.
No prep needed for creating the USB install. Just know that whatever is on it will be wiped out.
Just use the MediaCreation tool, and it will get whatever is latest.

2. Dual boot? Shouldn't take more than a day to get it all set up and verified working.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom