When my ssd arrives, I can use my old primary drive as a backup...

[Naer]

and don't necessarily need a external backup, right?

 

[KingFatty]

Yes.

Another neat thing you can do, is maintain the old windows on it and leave that untouched. So you'll get the SSD, and turn off your computer and disconnect the old HDD's SATA cable from the motherboard SATA port. Then, connect the SSD to a different SATA port, turn on the computer and install windows (don't leave the old HDD plugged into the motherboard during windows install, so windows will *only* affect the SSD and not mess with your old HDD). Then shut down and connect the old HDD too, so both are connected. While booting up, hit delete to go into bios. Look for the boot device priority. Set your SSD to be the first disk, and set the HDD to be the second (or disc 0 and disc 1, whatever). Now you'll boot to the windows on the SDD, and the old HDD will be accessible as a secondary drive, for storing backups etc. But, if you want to boot into your old windows, you can just shut down, change the drive designations in bios (or just disconnect the SATA cable of the SSD) so that you'll boot off the old HDD. Can be handy to test install software or access something you may have forgotten.

 

[Cerb]

If you leave the drive powered on, you will still need an external backup. The utility of a backup is much higher if it is not connected to AC when the PC it's a backup for goes *POW*. That *POW* can be quite literal, if you have a Raidmax PSU .

 

[Essence_of_War]

The utility of a backup is much higher if it is not connected to AC when the PC it's a backup for goes *POW*.

Or if the box it's inside sprouts wings and walks away

 

[Naer]

Yes.

Another neat thing you can do, is maintain the old windows on it and leave that untouched. So you'll get the SSD, and turn off your computer and disconnect the old HDD's SATA cable from the motherboard SATA port. Then, connect the SSD to a different SATA port, turn on the computer and install windows (don't leave the old HDD plugged into the motherboard during windows install, so windows will *only* affect the SSD and not mess with your old HDD). Then shut down and connect the old HDD too, so both are connected. While booting up, hit delete to go into bios. Look for the boot device priority. Set your SSD to be the first disk, and set the HDD to be the second (or disc 0 and disc 1, whatever). Now you'll boot to the windows on the SDD, and the old HDD will be accessible as a secondary drive, for storing backups etc. But, if you want to boot into your old windows, you can just shut down, change the drive designations in bios (or just disconnect the SATA cable of the SSD) so that you'll boot off the old HDD. Can be handy to test install software or access something you may have forgotten.

I'm gonna need clone ware to install Winona ssd without windows cd right?

 

[corkyg]

Yes. And get one that can create a bootable media to run it so you don't run from within Windows. That way is much more reliable, faster, and error free.

 

[Naer]

Yes. And get one that can create a bootable media to run it so you don't run from within Windows. That way is much more reliable, faster, and error free.

Not sure what I ordered. Ordered a ssd on Black Friday sale

 

[jimhsu]

Yes, you can. No, you still want (rather, need) an external, or better yet offsite backup solution. Fires, floods, lightning, thieves don't care whether your data is on an SSD or a hard drive.