wanting to move/install windows on a new ssd

[Head of Vegetables]

Hello,
I have windows 10 currently installed on my 1tb harddrive and I'm looking to buy an m.2 ssd to install windows on and maybe a few games that have longer load times, such as modded skyrim and fallout4.
Anyway, I m preferably going to get a 500gb one but depending on sales and such, will get a 1tb one. If I get a 500gb one I can't necessarily clone my current drive all too easily since it is sitting at about only 60-100gb of free space.

So here are my questions:

If I unplug my HDD w windows on it and install the M.2 and just re-enter like my windows key (I still have it), can I just install windows that way and then set it as the boot drive? If I do it this way, will I have to set it as the boot drive before physically installing windows on it or since it will be the only drive connected, will it automatically try to boot from this drive?

Also, if the way I described works, what happens to windows on my HDD? Do I need to remove it, and if so how, and will removing it lose my data and like uninstall my games and apps? Or will it just be on that drive still but since it won't be used as boot, will it not matter?

Another question, if this happens to work and I boot from the M.2 and plug my other drive back in, will my desktop be normal or will all my application icons be removed since it will be a new windows install? That isn't a huge deal if it isn't because I can just make shortcuts again, but still curious.

Perhaps I am overcomplicating this but I don't really want to mess anything up and I haven't ever done this before. I may be completely wrong in my understanding of how to get windows on the new SSD even.
Help/ clarification on how to do this and answers to my questions would be greatly appreciated.

[C2Dan88]

After installing Windows to your new drive and reconnecting your hdd you may need to boot into bios and set your new drive as first boot drive. Should only need to this once.

Installing fresh copy of windows to your new drive will result in any apps/games installed on your hdd not being recognised. You can try using a shortcut to the programs exe if you have problems then best to reinstall the app

With games though you should only need to reinstall the steam client on the new drive.Then go to settings > downloads > steam library add a destination to where your games are located on your HDD and steam should shows games located on hdd as installed (may need to verify integrity of game files to recognise properly and games will run first time installation steps again).

But easiest solution is to buy a drive that is the same size capacity as your old one and clone it

[Head of Vegetables]

Originally posted by C2Dan88:

After installing Windows to your new drive and reconnecting your hdd you may need to boot into bios and set your new drive as first boot drive. Should only need to this once.

Installing fresh copy of windows to your new drive will result in any apps/games installed on your hdd not being recognised. You can try using a shortcut to the programs exe if you have problems then best to reinstall the app

With games though you should only need to reinstall the steam client on the new drive.Then go to settings > downloads > steam library add a destination to where your games are located on your HDD and steam should shows games located on hdd as installed (may need to verify integrity of game files to recognise properly and games will run first time installation steps again).

But easiest solution is to buy a drive that is the same size capacity as your old one and clone it

First off, thankyou for the reply.
Ideally, I will buy a 1tb drive and clone but if there isn't a good deal I may just do it the non cloning way. If I do it the non cloning way, what happens to the windows that is installed on my current HDD? Does it just become dormant in a way? Also, is cloning a lengthy process since my HDD is nearly full?

As for the steam client, would I need to uninstall it from my current HDD and just have it installed on the SSD?

It's unfortunate that is isn't easier to do an OS migration and it would just work, as in more plug and play like with an external hard drive connecting via USB.

[nullable]

Cloning works pretty well and it's pretty fast, as fast as the HDD can possibly work. Although dependent on the size of the data you're cloning. And if you can do it, it's very convenient to just pick up where you left off.

If you're cloning the whole drive once the NVMe is set as the boot drive the HDD would just be a data drive that happens to have a Windows folder on it. And you'd be free to format it or do whatever you want with it, re-purpose it as a backup drive or put software data on it you don't feel like would benefit from SSD speeds.

I typically run My Documents and Downloads off a secondary drive.

[Head of Vegetables]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Cloning works pretty well and it's pretty fast, as fast as the HDD can possibly work. Although dependent on the size of the data you're cloning. And if you can do it, it's very convenient to just pick up where you left off.

If you're cloning the whole drive once the NVMe is set as the boot drive the HDD would just be a data drive that happens to have a Windows folder on it. And you'd be free to format it or do whatever you want with it, re-purpose it as a backup drive or put software data on it you don't feel like would benefit from SSD speeds.

I typically run My Documents and Downloads off a secondary drive.

Yeah cloning seems much more convenient and I will definitely go that route if I can find a 1tb drive for a good price. I'm not going NVMe, just m.2 sata ssd. I'm not exactly sure what a good price would be though, but I'm not trying to spend a ton.

I was worried about the hdd having windows and causing problems but from your description, it doesn't seem to be too much of an issue.

Still though, if I don't get a 1tb ssd and I go the route of just installing windows on that while unplugging my current drive, will it just be a simple "put in windows key" type thing? and then I can set it to be boot drive and then plug my other drives in and tinker around to get everything up and running again? I only ask because it's possible I don't get a drive the same size as my current HDD if I can't justify the cost, but I still want to be able to have my OS on the ssd for the benefits that come with that, as well as a few games as mentioned before.

Thank you though for your input this far.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Free up space on your 1tb hdd until it's used space is below the total formatted size of new ssd. Then install drive clone software from the ssd makers support website. Then do an "Entire Disk Clone"

Once clone is complete, reboot amd enter the bios and make ssd the only boot option. Once in OS on new ssd, wipe the HDD fully clean and repartition + reformat it as MBR+NTFS

Also bring up Services and Disable "Superfetch"

[stoneyoda]

remove your system drive (the 1tb HDD)
install windows onto the SSD by USB using the
Windows 10 installation media tool[www.microsoft.com]
(You can use your windows key during or after the installation.)
select the USB with the creation media set up on it as your boot drive in bios
and go through setting windows up onto the SSD
once you've set it up, after getting into windows remove the USB,
turn off the computer, plug back in your HDD
the reason you should remove it during a windows installation is, sometimes windows will create a dual boot if more then one drive is plugged in, meaning it will not start without both drives, you don't want this,so keep any other drives then the SSD you want windows on in the system while you install.

turn the computer on and go into bios, select the SSD as your first boot drive
(should already be by default)

then head into windows
and transfer whatever you want off your old system drive (photo's,files,games)
then if you want format the HDD for the 30gb it takes
otherwise you can just leave windows on it. and use it as a normal system drive
doesn't matter, (to get your steam games to show up,
go into steam>settings>downloads>steam library folders>add library folder>add your old Steam\steamapps\common Folder )


there you go.
cloning the drive is really annoying and i'd suggest you just do what i mentioned.
considering it sounds like you don't have 3 drives, and clone drives with only 2 (including the system drive) is a pain in the ass.
instead of trying to move enough to have enough space to clone then waiting for it all to clone over...


aswell, go into the windows settings and remove the pagefile off the HDD and put it to "system managed" on only the SSD.
no reason to keep the one on the HDD since it's massively slower. and could cause alot more stutters then the SSD if your pagefiling hard.

[stoneyoda]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Also bring up Services and Disable "Superfetch"

should leave this on, improves cpu performance.
aswell can i ask why you recommend MBR over GPT

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Also bring up Services and Disable "Superfetch"

should leave this on, improves cpu performance.
aswell can i ask why you recommend MBR over GPT

Superfetch should be on for a hdd, off for ssd.

GPT is only meant for Win10 os drive.

[stoneyoda]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

should leave this on, improves cpu performance.
aswell can i ask why you recommend MBR over GPT

Superfetch should be on for a hdd, off for ssd.

GPT is only meant for Win10 os drive.

you want to keep super fetch on regardless, it does infact make your computer noticeably faster
don't tell me you are one of those people who thinks it hurts the SSD lifespand

GPT is better then MBR in every way,
the only reason you should ever use MBR is if GPT is not available
(like if you aren't using windows 10)
wht the feck are you on about.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Superfetch should be on for a hdd, off for ssd.

GPT is only meant for Win10 os drive.

you want to keep super fetch on regardless, it does infact make your computer noticeably faster
don't tell me you are one of those people who thinks it hurts the SSD lifespand

GPT is better then MBR in every way,
the only reason you should ever use MBR is if GPT is not available
(like if you aren't using windows 10)
wht the feck are you on about.

It serves no purpose when using an ssd. When you install Win7/8/10 fresh to an ssd, you will notice Superfetch is disabled by default because you have an ssd. This is how it's supposed to be. The caching is only needed for mechanical drives.

GPT serves no benefit except on the OS drive unless you needed to have a Dynamic Drive that needs to be split up to more partitions then what MBR can handle.

[stoneyoda]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

you want to keep super fetch on regardless, it does infact make your computer noticeably faster
don't tell me you are one of those people who thinks it hurts the SSD lifespand

GPT is better then MBR in every way,
the only reason you should ever use MBR is if GPT is not available
(like if you aren't using windows 10)
wht the feck are you on about.

It serves no purpose when using an ssd. When you install Win7/8/10 fresh to an ssd, you will notice Superfetch is disabled by default because you have an ssd. This is how it's supposed to be. The caching is only needed for mechanical drives.

GPT serves no benefit except on the OS drive unless you needed to have a Dynamic Drive that needs to be split up to more partitions then what MBR can handle.

super fetch is not disabled by default with installing fresh on an ssd
there's no reason to turn it off. it quite literally improves cpu performance.
and causes applications to load faster.


this isn't even something you should be arguing about
two seconds of googling shows you the benefits of super fetch and how there are no downsides to keeping it running, people only disabled this because on boot with a HDD it cause 100% usage.

i don't even wanna get into it with gpt vs mbr
there's a reason we've switched over from mbr

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

It serves no purpose when using an ssd. When you install Win7/8/10 fresh to an ssd, you will notice Superfetch is disabled by default because you have an ssd. This is how it's supposed to be. The caching is only needed for mechanical drives.

GPT serves no benefit except on the OS drive unless you needed to have a Dynamic Drive that needs to be split up to more partitions then what MBR can handle.

super fetch is not disabled by default with installing fresh on an ssd
there's no reason to turn it off. it quite literally improves cpu performance.
and causes applications to load faster.


this isn't even something you should be arguing about
two seconds of googling shows you the benefits of super fetch and how there are no downsides to keeping it running, people only disabled this because on boot with a HDD it cause 100% usage.

i don't even wanna get into it with gpt vs mbr
there's a reason we've switched over from mbr

Superfetch is for prefetch purposes, ssds never need that.

And yes, it's always off when you install Win7/8/10 to an ssd.

If you do a clone from a hdd to an ssd, the service is still on.

[Pocahawtness]

You should only boot with one drive when you intend to install the OS otherwise the boot may detect the other drive and do something weird like installing a boot manager. However, it would be far easier to remove some things from your existing drive and then clone it. Then boot up on the new drive wipe the old drive and re-install whatever things you deleted. If you boot with two versions of windows on the PC and try to save applications it's going to get very confusing. Make sure that when you have both drives in place that the BIOS is configured to boot only from the new SSD.

Prefetch and Superfetch can be disabled if you have an SSD. Disabling them will slow boot down but your SSD is fast enough that it just about make up for it. What you are really saving is the overhead of processing for Prefetch and Superfetch. In other words it simplifies your system. You may or may not consider that worth doing. They are not disabled by default since they do speed up even an SSD just the amount the speed it up is a lot less than an ordinary HDD.

[Head of Vegetables]

Originally posted by 604 C4rockyrust.com:

remove your system drive (the 1tb HDD)
install windows onto the SSD by USB using the
Windows 10 installation media tool[www.microsoft.com]
(You can use your windows key during or after the installation.)
select the USB with the creation media set up on it as your boot drive in bios
and go through setting windows up onto the SSD
once you've set it up, after getting into windows remove the USB,
turn off the computer, plug back in your HDD
the reason you should remove it during a windows installation is, sometimes windows will create a dual boot if more then one drive is plugged in, meaning it will not start without both drives, you don't want this,so keep any other drives then the SSD you want windows on in the system while you install.

turn the computer on and go into bios, select the SSD as your first boot drive
(should already be by default)

then head into windows
and transfer whatever you want off your old system drive (photo's,files,games)
then if you want format the HDD for the 30gb it takes
otherwise you can just leave windows on it. and use it as a normal system drive
doesn't matter, (to get your steam games to show up,
go into steam>settings>downloads>steam library folders>add library folder>add your old Steam\steamapps\common Folder )


there you go.
cloning the drive is really annoying and i'd suggest you just do what i mentioned.
considering it sounds like you don't have 3 drives, and clone drives with only 2 (including the system drive) is a pain in the ass.
instead of trying to move enough to have enough space to clone then waiting for it all to clone over...


aswell, go into the windows settings and remove the pagefile off the HDD and put it to "system managed" on only the SSD.
no reason to keep the one on the HDD since it's massively slower. and could cause alot more stutters then the SSD if your pagefiling hard.

Hey! Thank you for your very detailed reply. I have a few questions real quick.

1) You mention not having a third/ other drive available. If I am able to borrow one from one of my friends, would you recommend cloning instead, or going a different route than you described in your post? I think it is possible that I could borrow one of my friends drives though, so would that be easier then?

2)you said if i want to format the hdd then do so. Would you recommend this and what are the benefits to doing so? In my case, I would just be continuing to use it as a normal drive so would partitioning it even be worth it in my situation? I'm also not too familiar with what partitioning a drive is and what it does, I apologize for my lack of such knowledge.

Thanks again though

[Head of Vegetables]

Originally posted by ｢C❤️A｣ Pocahawtness:

You should only boot with one drive when you intend to install the OS otherwise the boot may detect the other drive and do something weird like installing a boot manager. However, it would be far easier to remove some things from your existing drive and then clone it. Then boot up on the new drive wipe the old drive and re-install whatever things you deleted. If you boot with two versions of windows on the PC and try to save applications it's going to get very confusing. Make sure that when you have both drives in place that the BIOS is configured to boot only from the new SSD.

Prefetch and Superfetch can be disabled if you have an SSD. Disabling them will slow boot down but your SSD is fast enough that it just about make up for it. What you are really saving is the overhead of processing for Prefetch and Superfetch. In other words it simplifies your system. You may or may not consider that worth doing. They are not disabled by default since they do speed up even an SSD just the amount the speed it up is a lot less than an ordinary HDD.

Hey,
you mentioned to wipe my old drive after booting on the new drive, how come you would suggest this since I'm not necessarily trying to move all my stuff to the new drive?
Also, how come it gets confusing if I try to save applications if I leave windows on both drives? This would only be the case assuming I follow @ C4ROCKY's methodology.

Honestly, I am unfamiliar with pre and superfetch but will look them up and familiarize myself w them. Though, until I'm comfortable with it, I will likely leave them at default before messing with them.

Thanks though, I appreciate it!