Replace Hard Drive with a SSD drive - or wipe drive and reinstall?

HereToday

Grumpysally said:

Oh dear, I didn't mean to cause an argument (I ought to know better, this  is the internet)😯
Hope you get sorted out OP. 🙂

There was no argument. Your misinterpretation of events. OP just got slightly muddled; it's nothing.

getmore4less

JohnB47 said:

............
Next, size of SSD. I'm currently using 324Gb of the 931Gb available on my hard drive and I've had the laptop for years. I'm thinking that I might actually get away with a 500Gb SSD. A 1Tb SSD might cost around £80, whereas a 500Gb would be around £50. Any thoughts on that?
Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

............

Picking up on this point as it has resulted in discussion.

Over the years one tool I have found very useful is a graphical representation of file systems.

There are quite a few about and the last update I used Wiztree to see what rubbish I had

Quickly identified the folders with stuff that did not need to be on the new SSD and quite a lot of junk.
Started clean and moved over stuff I wanted rapid access

The  rest ~150GB(after a partial clean up) stayed on the old disc and hardly ever spins up now..

The new install on 250GB SSD is up to 75GB and starting to collect some junk quite a lot in downloads that could be offloaded
rough split 50:50 system/progs and user. 

Just had another look and I have 2 copies of a 4Gb covid database I did some work on I think they can go

JohnB47

getmore4less said:

JohnB47 said:

............
Next, size of SSD. I'm currently using 324Gb of the 931Gb available on my hard drive and I've had the laptop for years. I'm thinking that I might actually get away with a 500Gb SSD. A 1Tb SSD might cost around £80, whereas a 500Gb would be around £50. Any thoughts on that?
Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

............

Picking up on this point as it has resulted in discussion.

Over the years one tool I have found very useful is a graphical representation of file systems.

There are quite a few about and the last update I used Wiztree to see what rubbish I had

Quickly identified the folders with stuff that did not need to be on the new SSD and quite a lot of junk.
Started clean and moved over stuff I wanted rapid access

The  rest ~150GB(after a partial clean up) stayed on the old disc and hardly ever spins up now..

The new install on 250GB SSD is up to 75GB and starting to collect some junk quite a lot in downloads that could be offloaded
rough split 50:50 system/progs and user. 

Just had another look and I have 2 copies of a 4Gb covid database I did some work on I think they can go

Thanks. I've just tried Wiztree and it's great. I've already identified quite a load of stuff I can get rid of. A high volume area is the recycle bin. I've never looked at that. I thought it got rid of stuff after X months or something. Loads of stuff in there to clean out. I wonder if there's a program that occasionally presents details of old files in the recycle bin and asks if I want to keep or delete?

HereToday

JohnB47 said:

getmore4less said:

JohnB47 said:

............
Next, size of SSD. I'm currently using 324Gb of the 931Gb available on my hard drive and I've had the laptop for years. I'm thinking that I might actually get away with a 500Gb SSD. A 1Tb SSD might cost around £80, whereas a 500Gb would be around £50. Any thoughts on that?
Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

............

Picking up on this point as it has resulted in discussion.

Over the years one tool I have found very useful is a graphical representation of file systems.

There are quite a few about and the last update I used Wiztree to see what rubbish I had

Quickly identified the folders with stuff that did not need to be on the new SSD and quite a lot of junk.
Started clean and moved over stuff I wanted rapid access

The  rest ~150GB(after a partial clean up) stayed on the old disc and hardly ever spins up now..

The new install on 250GB SSD is up to 75GB and starting to collect some junk quite a lot in downloads that could be offloaded
rough split 50:50 system/progs and user. 

Just had another look and I have 2 copies of a 4Gb covid database I did some work on I think they can go

Thanks. I've just tried Wiztree and it's great. I've already identified quite a load of stuff I can get rid of. A high volume area is the recycle bin. I've never looked at that. I thought it got rid of stuff after X months or something. Loads of stuff in there to clean out. I wonder if there's a program that occasionally presents details of old files in the recycle bin and asks if I want to keep or delete?

Why is there anything in your Recycle Bin?? It's only there for temporary storage in order for you to retrieve in case you accidentally delete something.

https://download.ccleaner.com/slim/ccsetup577_slim.exe cleans up your unneeded temporary files.

JohnB47

HereToday said:

JohnB47 said:

getmore4less said:

JohnB47 said:

............
Next, size of SSD. I'm currently using 324Gb of the 931Gb available on my hard drive and I've had the laptop for years. I'm thinking that I might actually get away with a 500Gb SSD. A 1Tb SSD might cost around £80, whereas a 500Gb would be around £50. Any thoughts on that?
Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

............

Picking up on this point as it has resulted in discussion.

Over the years one tool I have found very useful is a graphical representation of file systems.

There are quite a few about and the last update I used Wiztree to see what rubbish I had

Quickly identified the folders with stuff that did not need to be on the new SSD and quite a lot of junk.
Started clean and moved over stuff I wanted rapid access

The  rest ~150GB(after a partial clean up) stayed on the old disc and hardly ever spins up now..

The new install on 250GB SSD is up to 75GB and starting to collect some junk quite a lot in downloads that could be offloaded
rough split 50:50 system/progs and user. 

Just had another look and I have 2 copies of a 4Gb covid database I did some work on I think they can go

Thanks. I've just tried Wiztree and it's great. I've already identified quite a load of stuff I can get rid of. A high volume area is the recycle bin. I've never looked at that. I thought it got rid of stuff after X months or something. Loads of stuff in there to clean out. I wonder if there's a program that occasionally presents details of old files in the recycle bin and asks if I want to keep or delete?

Why is there anything in your Recycle Bin?? It's only there for temporary storage in order for you to retrieve in case you accidentally delete something.

https://download.ccleaner.com/slim/ccsetup577_slim.exe cleans up your unneeded temporary files.

Well, there's stuff in the recycle bin because it has never been removed! - either by me or the PC. Simple as that - I've just ignored it for years. Thanks for the link but I'm wondering if it's OK to provide a link to a direct download of something. I would prefer a link to a descriptive page with the option to download if I wanted.

HereToday

JohnB47 said:

HereToday said:

JohnB47 said:

getmore4less said:

JohnB47 said:

............
Next, size of SSD. I'm currently using 324Gb of the 931Gb available on my hard drive and I've had the laptop for years. I'm thinking that I might actually get away with a 500Gb SSD. A 1Tb SSD might cost around £80, whereas a 500Gb would be around £50. Any thoughts on that?
Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

............

Picking up on this point as it has resulted in discussion.

Over the years one tool I have found very useful is a graphical representation of file systems.

There are quite a few about and the last update I used Wiztree to see what rubbish I had

Quickly identified the folders with stuff that did not need to be on the new SSD and quite a lot of junk.
Started clean and moved over stuff I wanted rapid access

The  rest ~150GB(after a partial clean up) stayed on the old disc and hardly ever spins up now..

The new install on 250GB SSD is up to 75GB and starting to collect some junk quite a lot in downloads that could be offloaded
rough split 50:50 system/progs and user. 

Just had another look and I have 2 copies of a 4Gb covid database I did some work on I think they can go

Thanks. I've just tried Wiztree and it's great. I've already identified quite a load of stuff I can get rid of. A high volume area is the recycle bin. I've never looked at that. I thought it got rid of stuff after X months or something. Loads of stuff in there to clean out. I wonder if there's a program that occasionally presents details of old files in the recycle bin and asks if I want to keep or delete?

Why is there anything in your Recycle Bin?? It's only there for temporary storage in order for you to retrieve in case you accidentally delete something.

https://download.ccleaner.com/slim/ccsetup577_slim.exe cleans up your unneeded temporary files.

Well, there's stuff in the recycle bin because it has never been removed! - either by me or the PC. Simple as that - I've just ignored it for years. Thanks for the link but I'm wondering if it's OK to provide a link to a direct download of something. I would prefer a link to a descriptive page with the option to download if I wanted.

You might consider that it is rather bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth. Better that you research the program on your own quietly, rather than to act in such an obviously rude manner.
No different from stating "thank you for taking your time to help me again and again; but I don't really trust you". 

poppellerant

Sorry for my absence in this thread.  I've had much more pressing issues to deal with.  Without intending to be rude, but it it needed my immediate and direct attention or things would have been very bad.  I'm not going to expand any further than that in this thread, as I've already slightly derailed it by mentioning it.

Apologies if you thought I was arguing, but it was just what I prefer to call "a healthy discussion".  Although it may have seem heated, speaking for myself it really wasn't. 

I don't care how old articles are when I link to them.  The fact is, the principle within them remains to this very day - it's a bad idea to keep an SSD drive near full.  End of discussion.

I don't know who mentioned cloning drives, because I certainly didn't.  In fact I merely mentioned copying large amounts of data, such as archived pictures or music,to another drive - such as an external hard drive.  This did not and does not imply cloning of drives.

I'm not into nitpicking words of other posters to score cheap points.  I mean what I say.  That's the end of another discussion.

As the OP has highlighted likely wasted space on their drive, it does seem a 500GB SSD might be practical.  But continue investigating what else is using up the drive space and whether or not that data can be transferred to another drive.  You could perhaps use your old hard drive for this, if you bought a cheap USB SATA drive caddy.

Finally I do think the OP is right to question any and/or all suggestions put forward to them.  Although some may feel insulted about this, It will help them learn about what they are doing and how it might affect them.

HereToday

poppellerant said:

Sorry for my absence in this thread. 

Honestly, it really hasn't made a difference. You are only really having a discussion with yourself; especially when you continue to assert "end of discussion".
So you were just blurting out whatever you wanted to say and then refusing to listen to what anyone else had to say. That's not a discussion; that's just your opinion. Of which mine differs.
OP doesn't need fanciful theory. My cheap SSD has been 90%+ full for years now; I am not crying about it. Why should you?
The name of the program is clearly stated in the link; it's not a hidden link. Not difficult to simply Google the name, as opposed to just being rude.
There was clearly a reason why I produced the link and that was to stop the OP from utilising the standard installer.
Anyway, you carry on with your theories. I'll just use the ignore function. I think I have already given the OP clear advice. I won't do it again.