What should I upgrade? Best option for placing SSD?

[MartinMuller]

Hello,

I am thinking of buying a new part for my PC. My 4-year-old PC runs good, but sometimes it takes a while to load files.

PC specifications

• Windows 8.1  64bit
• Intel core I7-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz
• 16GB Ram (2x4GB plus 1x8GB), there is a slot left.
• AMD Radeon HD 8760 (graphic memory 5.862MB)
• 2 TB HDD (used for temporarily saving files, Most files are on an external hard drive)
• 12GB SSD (which is currently used for recovery files only) It seems like there is another slot left.

I was thinking about adding a larger SSD (250GB or 500 GB). but I'm not sure if this is the best investment right now.

If I am going for an SSD, I am not sure how to install it: Should I replace the HDD or the other 16 GB SSD? Or add it so I got 3 drives inside? Should I move Windows to the new SSD?

Any recommendations for upgrades are appreciated!

[WAWood]

@MartinMuller

My guess is that your PC is using the 16GB SSD as a "cache" and not actually running Windows from it.  This makes it one of the infamous Hybrid setups -- and I admit that I am not an expert where these are concerned.

Please open File Explorer and see which of your drives (SSD or HDD) contains the hidden "boot" folder and the "Windows" folder.  My guess is that it will be the HDD.

Additionally, with 16GB of system memory, you don't need an SSD cache, and that could actually be slowing down your PC as the RAM will be much faster than the SSD.

So, first thing I would do is remove the 16GB cache SSD and see if your PC will still boot -- it should.  If it boots and continues to work OK, then my suggestion would be to migrate Windows to a new 256GB SSD -- by no longer using the cache SSD and migrating the OS from the HDD to the SSD

But, you would need to tell me what partitions are on your HDD before we jump into doing that migration.

Do this by opening the Disk Management tool and reporting what it shows.

We can proceed when you provide the information.

Thanks

[MartinMuller]

@WAWood

Thanks for your reply. I had no chance to write yesterday, sorry for the delay.

My computer is indeed a hybrid system and the Windows and the Boot folder are located on the HDD. I thought the SSD only contains this 'Recovery' file from HP, which takes all the space of the SSD, but this isn't true.

I removed the SSD from the PC and started it. Everything works fine, but the disk station that I thought was the SSD is, in fact, some other part and had the recovery files. This means that I have never put something on the SSD, I don't even know where to access it. 

Now that we know the Windows and the Boot files are on the HDD should I buy the new SSD? Is 256GB enough to run Windows and some additional video editing programs? Or do you think I should go for 512GB? 

I saw that with the SSD a disk ships that contains a program to transfer windows to the SSD, should I use this or are there better ways?

The 2TB HDD can act as a separated storage for files that I do not need to use at the moment.

[WAWood]

@MartinMuller

As I said, I'm not familiar with the details of how these "hybrid" PCs operate, but I believe that the SSD is formatted to server as a cache for Windows, so there is nothing permanently stored there.

While this would be important if you had only 1GB or 2GB of system memory, with all the memory you have, this cache is simply a waste of time, and since the SSD is slower than system memory, it could actually be slowing down your performance.

With the extra HDD you have, I wouldn't waste the extra money on a 512GB SSD over a 250GB SSD -- the latter is more than large enough to hold Windows and other stuff.

I don't know about the program to "transfer Windows" -- but I did use a Paragon app a while back to do that myself, and all it really did was provide a way to shrink down the partitions to fit on the SSD.  You can actually do that yourself and use Macrium Reflect to do the Windows migration.

Good Luck