How easy is it to replace an SSD?

mickledore

mickledore

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I've been having problems with my PC doing funny things. I have just found that my SSD is full to the brim which can't be helping things.
It's only a 128 and now I see that the standard seems to be 256. How easy is it for someone with minimal computer expertise to swap them over and move programmes etc? I presume it's just a plug in to a slot, but then there's the wiring and set up which I'm clueless at.
I'd rather not do a complete reinstall of everything, because of the volume and my lack of knowledge!
Is it worth me trying, or do I try and find a reputable computer engineer?
Alternatively anyone near Liverpool want to earn some beer tokens?
 
It’s fairly easy mate. Screw the drive into a bay or leave it loose/flapping doesn’t matter. Connect up a data (data) cable from the motherboard to the ssd.

Connect a power cable from the psu to the ssd and bobs yer uncle.

Ok you’ll have to recognise the drive in windows disc manager and then you could simply clone your 128 onto your new drive using cloning software.

Format the 128 and use it for data.

You may need to point your bios to the new drive especially if it’s used for os.
 
if you can free up a bit of space, purchase your new SSD and install along side your current one, install some software called easeus todo backup free, this has a very good clone tool built in, clone your 128gb disk to your new one, power down your computer and remove the 128gb disk and power it backup, you machine should boot like nothing has changed, in my experience the licensing has not even been affected.
 
neil_g said:
128 should be plenty for os and programs. Where are you storing your files?
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Files are all on a HDD. That's 2TB with 916GB free. All that's on SSD are programmes. I've just done a mini clean up and am now just under the red line, with 15GB left, but everything that's on there I use more or less regularly. Not much I'd like to remove.

Thanks for the earlier suggestions. It's the cloning and BIOS bit that frightens me!
 
Just looking at my programmes again and I have CS5 installed. Then I bought an upgrade to CS6. Both are shown in there using nearly 3GB. I only use CS6 so would uninstalling CS5 cause problems? Is the upgrade dependant on the original still being present, or is it standalone?
 
More than likely your desk pc can take more than one drive. If you follow the existing drive cable back to the motherboard there might be another port empty beside it. Use that empty port and seperate power cable for the new SSD drive. When it shows on the screen just copy/paste from on to another. To get to bios, when powering up hold down the delete key and the bios info will come up on your screen. If you look around it you will see which drive to give priority too. Can say what part to look at and each computer can show bios up differently
 
mickledore said:
Just looking at my programmes again and I have CS5 installed. Then I bought an upgrade to CS6. Both are shown in there using nearly 3GB. I only use CS6 so would uninstalling CS5 cause problems? Is the upgrade dependant on the original still being present, or is it standalone?
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You should be OK to uninstalll the earlier version. Once the later version has started up and verified that you have a "previous" version it is redundant. Just make sure you keep a note of the serial number, just in case.
 
On my Asus mother board the boot page of Bios looks like this. You can see the boot options to start your computer with

9JZoc4B.jpg
 
realspeed said:
More than likely your desk pc can take more than one drive. If you follow the existing drive cable back to the motherboard there might be another port empty beside it. Use that empty port and seperate power cable for the new SSD drive. When it shows on the screen just copy/paste from on to another. To get to bios, when powering up hold down the delete key and the bios info will come up on your screen. If you look around it you will see which drive to give priority too. Can say what part to look at and each computer can show bios up differently
Click to expand...

Thanks. I did wonder about just installing a second drive. plenty cables floating around in there.

Stephen L said:
You should be OK to uninstalll the earlier version. Once the later version has started up and verified that you have a "previous" version it is redundant. Just make sure you keep a note of the serial number, just in case.
Click to expand...

Good. that will save some space. I have CS5 on disc so serial number is safe.

realspeed said:
On my Asus mother board the boot page of Bios looks like this. You can see the boot options to start your computer with

9JZoc4B.jpg
Click to expand...
So when that screen appears I just choose Option#2? Then it stays that way forever?
 
If you choose option2 to as the boot drive you will need than to put windows on it as it will be like a new computer. Thinking along a bit further, as you are not familiar with computers i think your best bet is just to add the new drive and and copy/paste what you want onto that.
If you arn't sure then stay well away from any Bios alterations as you are getting deep into the computer settings. Just do the cable follow thing i mentioned originally
 
Am i right in thinking that will give me to parallel drives? presumably the PC will pick up the programmes when I select them?
 
Thinking further on, if I can just add a second SSD could I leave everything as is on the existing one? Then when I add new stuff I direct PC to the new drive.
Would having two SSDs cause problems?
 
mickledore said:
Files are all on a HDD. That's 2TB with 916GB free. All that's on SSD are programmes. I've just done a mini clean up and am now just under the red line, with 15GB left, but everything that's on there I use more or less regularly. Not much I'd like to remove.

Thanks for the earlier suggestions. It's the cloning and BIOS bit that frightens me!
Click to expand...
Unless you have a lot of bloated apps that still seems a lot. Download something like spacemounger and see what's taking up all that space.
 
mickledore said:
Thinking further on, if I can just add a second SSD could I leave everything as is on the existing one? Then when I add new stuff I direct PC to the new drive.
Would having two SSDs cause problems?
Click to expand...

You can do that if your computer has the slots for it. I've got an m2 SSD and had a 1TB spinning HDD and swapped the 1TB for an SSD. I still have slots to add more m2s.
 
I'm guessing you are on Windows ...

I agree with Neil above, it still seems to be a lot of space just for progs and os ... mine is around 60Gb and that includes two full spec software development environments as well as LR, PS, mail, office etc, etc etc ...

Have you run the disk cleanup utility and did you choose "clean up system files"? if not maybe worth doing ... also where are your user libraries being stored (e.g. Documents, Downloads, Music etc )? These could be moved to the data drive which is easy to do.

Also check your downloads folder, I have a habit of leaving stuff in there that is no longer needed ...
 
You've probably got years of system restore points and windows update files you could get rid off.

I agree with Paul about using the disk cleanup or download ccleaner to remove your bloat.

I still use 128 Gb SSD and have 40 to 50gig free.
 
PaulButler said:
I'm guessing you are on Windows ...

I agree with Neil above, it still seems to be a lot of space just for progs and os ... mine is around 60Gb and that includes two full spec software development environments as well as LR, PS, mail, office etc, etc etc ...

Have you run the disk cleanup utility and did you choose "clean up system files"? if not maybe worth doing ... also where are your user libraries being stored (e.g. Documents, Downloads, Music etc )? These could be moved to the data drive which is easy to do.

Also check your downloads folder, I have a habit of leaving stuff in there that is no longer needed ...
Click to expand...

My m2 is about this size and I've only got about 10GB left on it. It's only progs and OS on it.Everything else is on my second drive.
 
OK. Thank you.
From what you all say there seems to be a lot of unwanted stuff lying in there.
I'll download the programmes suggested and see what I can get rid of.
User libraries are all on the HDD so shouldn't be affecting the SSD.
let's see what comes of all this.
Once again, many thanks. I'll probably be back!
 
Another thought ... and it may apply to Kris too, if you have a paging file (pagefile.sys) that is usually stored in the root of the C drive and depending on settings can get very large. Also if some some reason hibernation is set then you may have a similar sized hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) - you do not need hibernation (usually) on a desktop, switching it off will free up some space.

As for the pagefile, really depends on how much memory and how many apps you use as to whether you "need" one - you can also configure it's size too. To give an idea by default if you have say 16Gb of memory the pagefile is usually at least that size, though win10 tends to manage size a tad better than older versions. tbh with 16Gb or more the need for a paging file is much reduced so the size can be too.
 
Well I've just run CC Cleaner and found one thing that I could safely move to the HDD.
I have the whole set of OS Memory maps on the SSD. That's over 35GB of space.
I can't see that they need to be on SSD. Think they are self contained so I'll shift them to HDD.
That will give me close to 50GB free.
Can't see many restore points or other stuff to remove.
 
I was running out of space on my 256gb SSD and I found it was Adobe Premier Elements storing back-up copies of all the videos I'd edited (like gigabytes of the stuff)! I had to find them in the Adobe 'media cache files' folder and delete them. Once deleted I went from getting 'low disk space' warnings to having 152gb free! It was a right job tracking down the right folder to find the files in question though, so I wrote a 'route map' so I could find them again next time! Now I clear them out every time I've finished editing a video.

I wouldn't have minded, but I store my video files on my main 2Tb hard drive, so never thought Adobe would be saving back-up type files to my SSD drive. Maybe it's something like that that's filled your SSD drive up Mickledore?
 
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Mr Badger said:
I was running out of space on my 256gb SSD and I found it was Adobe Premier Elements storing back-up copies of all the videos I'd edited (like gigabytes of the stuff)! I had to find them in the Adobe 'media cache files' folder and delete them. Once deleted I went from getting 'low disk space' warnings to having 152gb free! It was a right job tracking down the right folder to find the files in question though, so I wrote a 'route map' so I could find them again next time! Now I clear them out every time I've finished editing a video.

Maybe it's something like that that's filled your SSD drive up Mickledore?
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It could well be something similar, but not videos, as I don't have any. I've found loads of sub folders for NIK software, but pictures are only taking up 2% of space so that's not worth worrying about.
Only one restore point, and that's from my weekly sytem maintenance this morning.
I'll have a loocal for Adobe folders - they could be anywhere.
 
Running windows? Got many previous versions on the drive (right click drive letter, previous versions)
 
Well that didn't work!
I removed 38GB of maps, and freed up zero space. God knows where everything was stored, but it doesn't look like it was on the SSD.
I've run CC Cleaner with no effect.
I ran disk Cleanup utility and free space went down by 1.2GB!!!
I've even run defrag, but that did nothing.
Biggest thing showing is Mozilla Thunderbird at 90.2MB followed by Microsoft.Net framework at 38.8MB. Nothing else bigger than 20MB.
Something is well hidden to be eating up all my space.
Downloads file is empty.
Nothing seems to be excessive, unless it's well hidden. And if it's that well hidden then I'm unlikely to find it.
 
Have you mapped your pictures folders etc to your spare hard drive? Have you made sure they’re all properly mapped? Do you have stuff on your desktop because stuff on the desktop by default will get stored on the C drive which I’d assume if your SSD. This is what happens to mine so I keep the Desktop free of anything.
 
Yup. Pictures are all securely on HDD. No connection to SSD that I can see.
Desk top only has a dozen or so shortcuts on it to either programmes or websites - such as this one.
Task bar has nothing pinned to it.
All very clean....I think
 
You’ll just have to do what I did then. Go into program files on the SSD and then just right-click on each folder and see the folder sizes to see where the files are stored. Also try this on all other folder levels like ‘Documents’ etc. Got iTunes on there? That’s the biggest one for me.
 
Did your machine come with the SSD already installed? Is it from a reputable supplier? I ask because it’s not beyond the bounds of reality that the disk could be a counterfeit. Same as some memory cards are.
 
Thanks.
Not got iTunes. Not got anything i. Found a few Apple folders which I've removed but they were empty.
Will work through your suggestions.
If I had any hair I'd be tearing it out!!!
 
Stephen L said:
Did your machine come with the SSD already installed? Is it from a reputable supplier? I ask because it’s not beyond the bounds of reality that the disk could be a counterfeit. Same as some memory cards are.
Click to expand...
Disc came with machine from Chillblast. Think it will be kosher.
 
YoshiK1 said:
You’ll just have to do what I did then. Go into program files on the SSD and then just right-click on each folder and see the folder sizes to see where the files are stored. Also try this on all other folder levels like ‘Documents’ etc. Got iTunes on there? That’s the biggest one for me.
Click to expand...
Done that. Everything shown on SSD adds up to 60GB. That's in line with what everyone^^^seems to think it should be. So what is eating the rest of the space?
Can't see anything linked through the back door.
It's approaching beer o'cock!
 
Brazo said:
Screw the drive into a bay or leave it loose/flapping doesn’t matter
Click to expand...
British workmanship at it its best lol
 
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