[cjc75]

I have 2 computers...

Both are in my Sig.

Black Sparrow, is an old AM2+ build with a Phenom II x4 940/nForce750a chipset mobo, with 4gb of DDR2-1066, and 32bit Windows XP.

Nyarlathotep is a newer Core i5-2500/z68 Extreme4 Gen3 mobo, with 8gb DDR3-1600 and Windows 7 64bit.

I have a budget, and with my current budget I have two options...

I could upgrade the old AM2+ build with a newer i3-3225 and Z77 Motherboard, and DDR3 Ram, and keep using Win XP; and take my z68 out of the other computer, swap it with the Z77 and use the Z68 on the i3... and again this would still be running Win Xp 32bit...

OR.

I could just keep using the Phenom II x4 940 and all its current hardware, reinstall Windows with a fresh copy of Windows 7 64bit... then get an SSD to add to my Sandy Bridge (Nyarlathotep) system...

Which would be the better upgrade to go with?

 

[Sean Webster]

ssd

 

[cjc75]

I'm starting to lean more that way...

I have 3 SSD's I am looking at, each around the 256gb range...

Crucial M4
Plextor M5
Samsung 840

I will probably reinstall Windows if I must, but I would rather not as it would be a pain in the butt to reinstall EVERYTHING with it... so I would like to try to find a way to migrate my existing installation along with maybe some of my Steam Games if I can, and just leave all the rest and non-important applications/software on my Hard Drive along with MyDocs/Pics/Vids etc all left on the HDD as well...

Just not quite sure how to do this... I'm new to the SSD thing.

Also Sean I appreciate your input, I've skimmed through some of your guides, very informative and thorough!

 

[Sean Webster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjc75

I'm starting to lean more that way...

I have 3 SSD's I am looking at, each around the 256gb range...

Crucial M4
Plextor M5
Samsung 840

What are the prices?

Id look for a sale for around $150
Quote:

I will probably reinstall Windows if I must, but I would rather not as it would be a pain in the butt to reinstall EVERYTHING with it... so I would like to try to find a way to migrate my existing installation

clone. You can shrink your current OS paritition to the capacity of the drive you get then clone it over with easeus partition master home edition and easeus todo backup
Quote:

along with maybe some of my Steam Games if I can

leave the steam folder on the HDD
Quote:

, and just leave all the rest and non-important applications/software on my Hard Drive

you wont need to
Quote:

along with MyDocs/Pics/Vids etc all left on the HDD as well...

Just not quite sure how to do this... I'm new to the SSD thing.

Also Sean I appreciate your input, I've skimmed through some of your guides, very informative and thorough!.

in all just go ahead and split your current drive into two partitions. The OS one with all your programs. the the data one with steam, documents, pics, etc. then clone the OS partition over. expand the data partition with easeus partition master home edition. move team folder over to the SSD if you have the room.

 

[cjc75]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean Webster

What are the prices?

Id look for a sale for around $150
clone. You can shrink your current OS paritition to the capacity of the drive you get then clone it over with easeus partition master home edition and easeus todo backup
leave the steam folder on the HDD
you wont need to

in all just go ahead and split your current drive into two partitions. The OS one with all your programs. the the data one with steam, documents, pics, etc. then clone the OS partition over. expand the data partition with easeus partition master home edition. move team folder over to the SSD if you have the room.

The prices I am looking at range around 189 - 199; from either Newegg or Microcenter... I'll search around for other places that may have them on sale.

Here are the 3 that I am looking at...
Crucial - CT256M4SSD2
Plextor - PX-256M5S
Samsung - MZ-7TD250BW

My current HDD is the WD 1TB 6.0gbs Drive, though of course I know its not actually running at that 6.0gbs...

I am using almost 750gb total, and its all on the same partition so I'm not quite sure how I would shrink the OS... I presume I would just take the "Windows" folder itself, along with certain programs, and split that onto its own Partition? My ProgramFiles (not the x86 one) is only about 3 GB, so I'm presuming thats the one to split onto the Windows Partition...

 

[Sean Webster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjc75

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean Webster

What are the prices?

Id look for a sale for around $150
clone. You can shrink your current OS paritition to the capacity of the drive you get then clone it over with easeus partition master home edition and easeus todo backup
leave the steam folder on the HDD
you wont need to

in all just go ahead and split your current drive into two partitions. The OS one with all your programs. the the data one with steam, documents, pics, etc. then clone the OS partition over. expand the data partition with easeus partition master home edition. move team folder over to the SSD if you have the room.

The prices I am looking at range around 189 - 199; from either Newegg or Microcenter... I'll search around for other places that may have them on sale.

Here are the 3 that I am looking at...
Crucial - CT256M4SSD2
Plextor - PX-256M5S
Samsung - MZ-7TD250BW

My current HDD is the WD 1TB 6.0gbs Drive, though of course I know its not actually running at that 6.0gbs...

yea look for a sale. The 840 has gone for $150 on sale a few times already.
Quote:

I am using almost 750gb total, and its all on the same partition so I'm not quite sure how I would shrink the OS... I presume I would just take the "Windows" folder itself, along with certain programs, and split that onto its own Partition? My ProgramFiles (not the x86 one) is only about 3 GB, so I'm presuming thats the one to split onto the Windows Partition...

You have a 1TB drive. Shrink your current partition down as small as possible. Then make a new one. Move your personal files over, pics, videos, music, etc till that new partition is full. Then shrink the OS partition again, move more data over, etc. Once all your user data is moved then you should have a 50-150GB OS partition and a data partition. Then you can easily clone over the OS partition.

Also...where is your backup drive? do you have one? That would be especially useful when doing this...

 

[jprovido]

+1 ssd. a phenom II x4 @ 3.6ghz is still a beast. an SSD will make your first pc fly

ssd is still the most noticeable upgrade you can do on a pc.

 

[cjc75]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean Webster

yea look for a sale. The 840 has gone for $150 on sale a few times already.

You have a 1TB drive. Shrink your current partition down as small as possible. Then make a new one. Move your personal files over, pics, videos, music, etc till that new partition is full. Then shrink the OS partition again, move more data over, etc. Once all your user data is moved then you should have a 50-150GB OS partition and a data partition. Then you can easily clone over the OS partition.

Also...where is your backup drive? do you have one? That would be especially useful when doing this...

I have an External Back Up Drive on my Router, accessible from any PC on my network. Its a 500gb drive and should have about 375gb left on it, I also have an extra 640gb sitting on a shelf from a previous upgrade a few years back. Not sure what data is still on it, but easy enough to hook up as a slave drive and find out what space is available... Then also there is the second PC, the AMD system with the Phenom II, its also got another 1TB WD in it, though only using about 380gb on it so its got plenty of space available, and its accessible over my LAN.

I will probably work on your suggestion over this weekend when I have the full day to myself! I'll probably just plug in the old 640gb and see whats on it, I haven't touched it in years so whatever is still on it is probably not important and I can just wipe it, and use the entire Drive to copy files and programs over as I shrink the main partition...
Quote:

Originally Posted by jprovido

+1 ssd. a phenom II x4 @ 3.6ghz is still a beast. an SSD will make your first pc fly

ssd is still the most noticeable upgrade you can do on a pc.

I wouldn't be putting the SSD on the Phenom II system...

It would be going on my Sandy Bridge system!

Now, if I could afford a second SSD to put on the Phenom II system then believe me I would, cause I priced a pair of 128's and it comes out a lot more then a single 256, for example I can get a pair of 128 Plextor M5s's for $98... or a single 256 Plextor M5s for $169 which is looking like a much better deal! So I am kinda leaning more towards preferring the idea of a larger SSD on just the Sandy Bridge system.

 

[jprovido]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjc75

I have an External Back Up Drive on my Router, accessible from any PC on my network. Its a 500gb drive and should have about 375gb left on it, I also have an extra 640gb sitting on a shelf from a previous upgrade a few years back. Not sure what data is still on it, but easy enough to hook up as a slave drive and find out what space is available... Then also there is the second PC, the AMD system with the Phenom II, its also got another 1TB WD in it, though only using about 380gb on it so its got plenty of space available, and its accessible over my LAN.

I will probably work on your suggestion over this weekend when I have the full day to myself! I'll probably just plug in the old 640gb and see whats on it, I haven't touched it in years so whatever is still on it is probably not important and I can just wipe it, and use the entire Drive to copy files and programs over as I shrink the main partition...
I wouldn't be putting the SSD on the Phenom II system...

It would be going on my Sandy Bridge system!

Now, if I could afford a second SSD to put on the Phenom II system then believe me I would, cause I priced a pair of 128's and it comes out a lot more then a single 256, for example I can get a pair of 128 Plextor M5s's for $98... or a single 256 Plextor M5s for $169 which is looking like a much better deal! So I am kinda leaning more towards preferring the idea of a larger SSD on just the Sandy Bridge system.

that's what I meant. that's why I said first pc

 

[cjc75]

So on my Sandy Bridge system (the one the SSD will be for) I found that I still have the original Windows installation backed up on the same HDD... as ""windows.old" folder, and thats accounting for 344GB; and my ProgramFiles(x86) folder is accounting for 304GB...

So there is 648GB that I can move right there. I've already started transferring the "windows.old" folder over to somewhere else cause I never use it other then to poke in looking for some old files I need on rare occasions... It will pretty much take most of the afternoon to move it all at once, but I'm going out for part of the afternoon so I can just leave it going with its 'move' operation...

My only question now is this...

If I just up and move, the entire ProgramFiles(x86) folder, and all of its contents, won't that sort of mess up command lines, and things like Steam that are looking for those programs within a specific file path? Its not that difficult to just go and update a few command lines on some desktop icons, etc.... but would moving that entire folder cause any problems for Windows in the future?

I see now why you say using a spare slave/backup drive will be a lot easier and quicker... I downloaded the easeus partition master free edition and it takes a while just to complete 1 operation of shrinking a partition!

 

[Sean Webster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjc75

So on my Sandy Bridge system (the one the SSD will be for) I found that I still have the original Windows installation backed up on the same HDD... as ""windows.old" folder, and thats accounting for 344GB; and my ProgramFiles(x86) folder is accounting for 304GB...

So there is 648GB that I can move right there. I've already started transferring the "windows.old" folder over to somewhere else cause I never use it other then to poke in looking for some old files I need on rare occasions... It will pretty much take most of the afternoon to move it all at once, but I'm going out for part of the afternoon so I can just leave it going with its 'move' operation...

My only question now is this...

If I just up and move, the entire ProgramFiles(x86) folder, and all of its contents, won't that sort of mess up command lines, and things like Steam that are looking for those programs within a specific file path? Its not that difficult to just go and update a few command lines on some desktop icons, etc.... but would moving that entire folder cause any problems for Windows in the future?

I would not move that folder unless you do it with junctions/symbolic links in OOBE.

Basically, I don't recommend you move it.
Quote:

I see now why you say using a spare slave/backup drive will be a lot easier and quicker... I downloaded the easeus partition master free edition and it takes a while just to complete 1 operation of shrinking a partition!

yeah, it does take a while. lol

Also, there will always be the risk of data loss, so you should have your important stuff backed up.

 

[cjc75]

Managed to cut out a ton of non-essential data that I really don't need... most of it was from the "windows.old" folder... but also uninstalled a bunch of old programs that I don't use or haven't used in a long time. Things that can just be reinstalled another time if I ever want to use them again...

Bottom line, so far I got my primary C:/ partition with my main windows installation down to 337gb of total used space.

270gb of that is still used by the ProgramFiles (x86) folder... and about 186gb of that is my Steam folder. There is not much else that I can get rid of, move, copy or backup.... so, if I can find a way to perhaps move just the whole Steam folder over onto another partition, then the rest of the main partition would be good for a 256gb SSD with about 100GB of free space left on the SSD!

 

[cjc75]

I just remembered reading something in one of Sean's Guides about Steam...

Went and looked though Sean's Windows 7 Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs and found the answer I needed!

Section on "How to move steam to another drive:" and the section after it tells me exactly what I need to do. Looks like I can keep the Steam App itself on the SSD, but move most of its games into the HDD. Maybe keep 2 - 3 Steam Games that I play the most on the SSD and I would still have plenty of free space left on the SSD.

So now I just need to decide on which SSD that I want and see if I can find it at a good price!

 

[Lord Xeb]

SSD, no need to upgrade from Sandy.

 

[cjc75]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Xeb

SSD, no need to upgrade from Sandy.

Wasn't planning too.

The question was... upgrade an old WinXP system with an AM2+ Phenom II, to an i3....

Or dump the XP and upgrade that to Win7 64bit.... then add an SSD to my other Sandy system, which is what I've decided to do.

 

[Lord Xeb]

Oh, sorry. I misread your OP.