Windows 10: Yay I got an SSD drive for Xmas.....er WHAT do I do with it?

I, like alot of people, have been hearing about SSD drives for a while now but I've not had the money to get one as they always seemed to be way too expensive for me. However I have tried to keep up with the technology and how it's been changing and have seen recently that the standard SATA SSD drives have come down quite a bit in price with the whole newer QLC thing and the newer M.2 form factor starting off being a bit cheaper to start with and if you have the space and money and a decent motherboard you can get an incredible speed boost over even SATA SSD Drives.....etc....etc....

In any case I was lucky enough to get a 512GB SATA SSD for xmas and got pretty excited as I have only some, what I would call "upper middle class" HDD's right now and I have a few games that are VERY R/W intensive especially when starting up and would like to be able to use it to speed those up since I figure i'm looking at a 5-6x R/W speed increase if i'm lucky.

My dilemma now is, what EXACTLY should I do with it, being the first SSD going into my system? Because in all the things I've read about SSD's I don't remember exactly any definitive information about how to put it in and what it should be replacing.

I've heard discussion about using it as a replacement for my C: drive for the OS, and also people saying they use it as a replacement or temporary location for games that I want to speed up that I currently play alot of. To me as I do have a fairly extensive background with hardware installation and troubleshooting that the concept of replacing it as my main OS drive, and then putting some of the slowest loading/current games I am playing on it. But I don't know this from any information i've read about how SSD's work other than my intuition about how they work currently and how much you want to fill them and/or not fill them up.

Right now I am on Win10 Ver 1909 which is running stable for me. An Asus ROG Maximus Hero VI motherboard. I'm currently working with about 650-700GB full on my C: Drive, but I'm fairly certain a big chunk of that can be removed as it is probably media files from back when I only had one HDD and I just need to move it to another drive or delete it. One of the main games I am playing right now is Witcher 3 again, which windows tells me is aprox 50GB, and also Conan Exiles, which is one of my longer loading games and comes in at about 77GB right now.

I got a Addlink S22 QLC 512GB SSD drive so I'm trying to best organize myself to be able to put Win 10 and at least one of the games I play on that drive if possible. I suppose I wont really know for certain until I clean out the extra stuff on my C: drive for sure. I don't want to go over what I believe is the recommended 80% full status of the SSD if possible.

So what i'm primarily wondering is the idea that probably at least putting my whole OS on the SSD is a given and hopefully I have enough room for one or two of my games I play frequently, or if I can't put a game on there I want, would I get the same kind of speed increase from putting it in as another storage drive and using it to run any of the games I want to speed up from there and leave the OS on the HDD for now? Since i'm not super familiar with all the concepts about the little details about how SSD's work in a system I'm thinking someone else who knows more may have a better opinion on all this.

Also if someone can tell me what is a good free cloning program to use if I do decided to make it a replacement OS drive that would be good also. And if anyone knows of some good software that helps you keep track of the health of an SSD and make sure your using it in the best possible manner from a longevity point of view also. I know Win10 from what i've been told is fairly good at understanding the difference between an SSD and a HDD and it apparently knows how to handle both in the correct manner but I don't know that from firsthand information or experience.

I have attached a simple CPUID text report in case anyone needs to see any other details about my system to make an informed recommendation.
Thank you for any help in this area that people can think of.
P.S. My apologies for this post being very long winded and rambling. I have ADD and Hepatic Encephalopathy, and it makes my brain very forgetful and makes me feel like I have to talk everything I'm thinking out so that people understand where I am coming from.

:)

 

Hard drive/ OS issue

a guy suggested :

• shutdown
• unhooked HDD
• restarted
• yay !!
• reconnected HDD
• restarted
• yay !!

also , try method 3
How do I unlock the drive where Windows 10 is installed?

 

Cloning to SSD then swapping drive letters


@SamHobbs
What you want done is very simple and can be done in short period of time. Here's my suggestion:
There's 2 modes that Windows can be installed: UEFI and the old legacy MBR. Open Disk Management, look at the disk where your C drive is, if there's a

1. EFI System Partition, your Windows was installed using UEFI.
2. System Reserved partition, your Windows was installed using MBR

Next, Connect your SSD to an available Sata port (no need to format or do anything). Download: Macrium Reflect Free . Install and run. Follow the steps below:

1. From Macrium, click on image this disk under your C drive and save it to either an Internal or External Drive. This will create a single backup image of the whole disk containing your C drive.
2. Again, from Macrium, click on Restore tab and select the image created from step 1, Select your SSD as the destination drive, click Next->Finish
3. Exit Macrium. If your Windows was installed using MBR, Open disk management and make sure the SSD is marked "Active" else go to next step.
4. Shutdown your PC. Disconnect the HD containing Windows C drive then connect your SSD to it.
5. Reboot. Your PC should boot and the Windows should have C as the drive letter.

NOTE: The procedure above is to backup your Windows to an image file then copy it back to the SSD. This ensures proper cluster size aligment for the SSD. In addition, Macrium also perform Trimming for the SSD. This is more preferable than cloning.

 

Upgrading HP SSD drive on HP 750-524

I purchased an HP Envy tower with a 128Gb SSD which is where Windows is installed, I have purchased a new 1TB SSD drive that I would like to replace the 128 GB drive with. My machine did not come with the Windows 10 Media, what steps do I need to take before
I install the new drive and install windows.

• Where do I get the Windows 10 install
• What steps are needed to create an Install disk
• Do I have to deactivate my old install before removing the old drive.

Please let me know if there are any other considerations.

Best Regards,

Wes