Help needed with adding SSD to existing system

I ordered a Dell XPS 8300 from the Dell Outlet Center (Thanks MaxxuM for the advice) for a really good price. It will come with a core i5 processor, 8G RAM, 1T HDD, and a dedicated 1GB AMD graphics card . I plan to buy and install a 64GB (that's all I can afford) SSD soon after I get it. I want to use the SSD for OS, Programs, etc. (Thank you Tim for that one)
My question: How hard is it to transfer the Windows 7 whatever else I need from the existing HDD to the new SDD? Your advice is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Reinstall Windows 7 and all your software.

An SSD for the OS is a nice luxury, the OS and software starts quickly, and it feels snappy. The biggest gains for people who process a lot of photos is putting the cache on it. Of course you can put both on there - 64GB will give you space for a 30GB cache, which is big enough to hold what you're working on now and probably quite a bit of older stuff too.

Don't let the drive fill to 100%, they don't perform as well apparently.

If it didn't come with restore disks, you'll need to create them.
Then shut down, put the SSD in, boot with the restore disk, and reinstall to the SSD.

If the Windows 7 install seems to stall, give it an hour. Sometimes it does that with SSDs, apparently, like mine did.

tim wrote in post #12899655
Reinstall Windows 7 and all your software.

An SSD for the OS is a nice luxury, the OS and software starts quickly, and it feels snappy. The biggest gains for people who process a lot of photos is putting the cache on it. Of course you can put both on there - 64GB will give you space for a 30GB cache, which is big enough to hold what you're working on now and probably quite a bit of older stuff too.

Don't let the drive fill to 100%, they don't perform as well apparently.

Thanks tim, good tip.

Merlin_AZ wrote in post #12899810
If it didn't come with restore disks, you'll need to create them.
Then shut down, put the SSD in, boot with the restore disk, and reinstall to the SSD.

Thanks Merlin_AZ, I'll try that

tim wrote in post #12899895
If the Windows 7 install seems to stall, give it an hour. Sometimes it does that with SSDs, apparently, like mine did.

OK, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks again tim

To save space on the SSD, move the hiberfil and pagefile folders off the SSD.
They are huge space hogs.
My son did this on his 60 GB SSD and got a bunch of space back.

Great tip. Thanks Merlin_AZ
Anybody else? I won't turn away any free advice. I joined this forum to learn, not just photography, but anything anybody cares to share with me.

Turn off hiberation in power settings and the hiberfil file disappears completely. Leave the page file on the SSD, you want that as fast as possible. Putting it onto a spinning disk will slow your machine down, if you run out of ram.

Noted, Thanks for all of your help mate.
T

with 8 gigs of ram you practically don't need a page file. I disabled my pagefile on my box because it never got used for what i do. I did set up a scratch disks in PS though as those pictures get HUGE!

Thanks rcfury.

rcfury wrote in post #12915974
with 8 gigs of ram you practically don't need a page file. I disabled my pagefile on my box because it never got used for what i do. I did set up a scratch disks in PS though as those pictures get HUGE!

This.


I run with 16gb and I have my page file set at 100mb (Just because some programs are a bit funky w/o it). Make sure to change the windows 7 trim settings if it isn't already.

acajun wrote in post #12898708
I ordered a Dell XPS 8300 from the Dell Outlet Center (Thanks MaxxuM for the advice) for a really good price. It will come with a core i5 processor, 8G RAM, 1T HDD, and a dedicated 1GB AMD graphics card . I plan to buy and install a 64GB (that's all I can afford) SSD soon after I get it. I want to use the SSD for OS, Programs, etc. (Thank you Tim for that one)
My question: How hard is it to transfer the Windows 7 whatever else I need from the existing HDD to the new SDD? Your advice is greatly appreciated, thanks.

i just followed the process of upgrading my harddisk to a SSD.
You need to look for any free clone hard disk software.
then just clone your C drive into the SSD drive.
next, restart your PC, pressing either the Delete or the F1 button to get you to the system BIOS. Look for the "boot sequence" then set SSD with the higher priority boot order. Save the BIOS, restart PC and you just transfer your Hard disk over!

cheers,
Scott

Dasweb wrote in post #12916558
Make sure to change the windows 7 trim settings if it isn't already.

I didn't think there were any settings one could change. Please elaborate.

Yeah I didn't know there were settings. I suggested the reinstall in case Windows realised something during install.

XXClone is free drive cloning software, but I personally would reinstall.