Replacing old HDD with new SSD - What should I be aware of?

[relztrah]

I have an older laptop that I still use but I would like to replace the small HDD with a larger one, and of course I would put in a solid state drive. I looked in the forum SSD Setup Tips but that thread is several years old and the links are now dead. And perhaps the previous issues with automatic defragmenting have been resolved since that forum began.

What should I be aware of before i purchase and install a solid state hard drive?

 

[PCTailor]

Just from my initial thoughts (some may be obvious):

• Ensure your laptop has the capacity for another storage drive, many only come with 1 slot.
• Think about what you'll be using the SSD for - obviously the biggest benefit will be using it as a boot drive, so you'll want to get your OS onto the SSD. If you do this:
  • Best bet is to clean install your OS onto the SSD drive and then you can clear the HDD (if wanted).
  • You can clone the drive in its entirety, but this can have complications.
  • Backup any files/folders you want onto another drive before removing so that you can transfer over your files onto the relevant drive.
• Automatic defrag shouldn't make a difference now (say if you're just using Windows own service) as it won't defrag SSDs and simply TRIM them.
• Superfetch and Prefetch can still be disabled, as it's more that they are redundant with SSDs.
• I'm assuming you're getting a standard 2.5" SATA SSD, in which case, nothing else to add, but if it is PCIe / M.2 then there are other considerations.

Outside of that it's basically plug and play.

 

[axe0]

If you have a laptop with a cd/dvd drive in it and only have 1 slot for your drive. You could remove the cd drive and use an HDD caddy in the place of the cd drive, it's a special casing for a 2.5" drive or SSD that can connect with the port where the cd drive connects to.

For my laptop, I bought a crucial mx200 SSD and put it in the place of the HDD. I removed the cd drive and got an HDD caddy. This HDD caddy is located where the cd drive originally resided and holds the HDD, it works perfectly.

 

[relztrah]

• Superfetch and Prefetch can still be disabled, as it's more that they are redundant with SSDs.

How do I do that?

Thanks to both of your for your suggestions.

 

[PCTailor]

How do I do that?

Thanks to both of your for your suggestions.

Through services on the Windows OS once it's installed. It's not something you do in advance.
Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Windows

We usually recommend disabling it just as it's redundant and can sometimes slow SSDs down, as it's a service to try and speed HDD operations up.