Is buying an SSD for existing OS on HDD a viable option?

I've read that the best use of SSDs can be achieved by putting your OS on them as well as programs. What about those who already have a functioning laptop with OS and programs installed on a regular hard drive. Is it worth it to buy an SSD as a second internal drive?

V_ix

Posted 2013-12-18T22:38:54.490

Reputation: 113

I have yet to see any laptop that has more than a single hard drive connected internally. You can switch out your spinning drive with an SSD, but if you do not want to loose your data (music, documents, video, etc) you will have to clone your existing hard drive to the SSD. There are lots of applications out there that will allow you to clone one hard drive to another with little effort, but I suggest doing a full backup of your current setup before attempting to clone drives just in case something goes wrong. – Richie086 – 2013-12-18T22:56:03.510

And yes, it is well worth doing this if you can afford a decent sized SSD. Take a good look at how much space you are currently using on your spinning hard drive and it should give you an idea of how large of an SSD you need to purchase. I personally suggest at least a 240GB SSD, but I have seen people make due with 80 - 120GB SSDs just fine. – Richie086 – 2013-12-18T22:58:22.017

Answers

Yes, you would get the most benefit from the SSD if you installed your OS and programs on it. Then you could use you HDD as your secondary drive for storing your documents, music, etc, by using an HDD caddy as Carl B mentioned. Since it's a laptop you might be better off keeping the disk drive and getting a larger SSD, but it's up to you. There are many cloning utilities that you can use to copy your data to the new drive such as CloneZilla and Acronis True Image.