Laptop Question

[Julie Moriarty]

For a project I've been working on, I recently bought a new laptop. The internal drive has only 250GB of space and it's rapidly vanishing. What are the best options for adding a larger drive? I'd like to keep the existing drive.

If it matters, here are the laptop's specs:

17.3" Full HD (1920 x 1080 ) WLED IPS display, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q Design 6GB GDDR5 dedicated Graphics
8th Gen Intel Hexa-Core i7-8750H @ 2.20GHz (9 MB SmartCache, Max Turbo Frequency 4.10GHz)
32GB DDR4 SDRAM, 256GB Solid State Drive, No Optical Drive
802.11ac Wi-Fi featuring 2x2 MU-MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C (up to 5 Gbps): 1 x USB 3.0 (with Power-off Charging): 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack, Virtual Reality Ready, Two Built-in Stereo Speakers, HD Webcam

[Mike Circo]

"Adding" a drive? Almost no chance. Most laptops are designed so tightly that there is no additional space for expansion. You could replace the current SSD drive with a larger one and migrate to it, but that is not for the faint of heart.

The usual solution is to store as much of your data as you can on a "cloud" service. OneDrive, Dropbox, Amazon, Google, etc. Then the laptop SSD drive will be mostly for the OS and other software required to do the work.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was thinking along the lines of an external drive. The thing I don't like about the cloud is you always have to have access to it and at times that means connecting to an unsecured or security unknown WiFi.

[Lee Schierer]

I bought a 1 TB hard drive for storing files. It plugs in via the USB ports and has its own power supply.

[Mike Gresham]

What I did was get a USB3 Startech HDD Dock and a couple of HDD's. 1 TB HDD's are practically party favors now (sometimes < $50).

[Malcolm McLeod]

1. You can connect an external HD via USB (not blindingly fast, but acceptable). You can get an external case for an existing drive if you have the HD already - i.e. you could salvage the HD from an old PC(??).

2. I don't see it in your list of specs, but some laptops have a SATA port. Basically, a dedicated port for external storage. I'm sure it varies from device to device, but I have heard SATA offers nearly the same 'external' access times as you get on the PC's internal comm bus. (Edit: Much like USB storage devices, this is also just a small external 'box' with HD of your choice installed. It just uses SATA cable, not USB.)

3. You can get an external drive 'box' with Ethernet port, and allows storage access across your home LAN or other network. I installed 2 1TB HDs in a RAID 1 configuration (automatically copies same data to both drives). Other more robust RAID configurations are available, but RAID 1 gave my wife the redundancy she felt necessary. I did this when she was working on her thesis (loss of >2yrs of research data would have been brutal). It's not quite as conveniently portable as IT.1 & 2, but it can be moved. The unit we have is ~4"x5"x8" with it's own power supply, and you'd probably need to transport the Ethernet switch gear if you're mobile.

Your security requirements may be low, but my favorite comment about 'the cloud': "There is no 'cloud'. It is just someone else's computer."

[Jim Becker]

External drives are easy and pretty inexpensive these days....I have a bunch of them hanging of my computer for long term storage and backup purposes. You have USB ports, so it's pretty much "plug and play" to add external storage.

This Macbook Pro originally had a tiny 128GB SSD for internal storage, so I do understand your frustration. I did swap it out for a 480GB SSD a few years ago. (not something that can be done with current models anymore) But even 480GB has to be "maintained" and off-loaded. Hence, the external drives.

[Yathin Krishnappa]

Other more robust RAID configurations are available, but RAID 1 gave my wife the redundancy she felt necessary. I did this when she was working on her thesis (loss of >2yrs of research data would have been brutal).

Malcolm, as far as I can recall, RAIDs are almost on par to single hard drives when it comes to keeping data safe. My wife keeps her research data on multiple hard drives (full copies) in different locations. The Cloud (or someone else's computer ;-) is probably a much safer option for important data backups than RAID or multiple hard drives.

[Alan Rutherford]

USB 3 is quite fast although certainly not like an SSD. I'd get an external HDD dock as has been suggested and a couple of drives. "A couple" because one backup is never enough. In addition to using an external drive for overflow, back up the laptop contents to it. Then copy all of that to the second drive and keep that one somewhere else. 250gb is a lot of data. I'm happily running Linux in a 20gb partition in a multi-terabyte disk although I can't keep a lot of video files in the same space. You might have a lot of stuff that could be moved off your SSD to the external disk.

[Yathin Krishnappa]

I was thinking along the lines of an external drive. The thing I don't like about the cloud is you always have to have access to it and at times that means connecting to an unsecured or security unknown WiFi.

I often use a VPN service when I am connecting to the Internet from questionable networks, but that's another added cost if you don't always need it. Also, for really important things, I tend to encrypt them whether storing locally on a hard drive or on the cloud -- that is good enough for all except government-backed cracking (and I'm not worried about that as I have nothing to hide from them!). :-)

[Paul F Franklin]

Many newer laptops lack any kind of ability to expand the internal storage bulk storage.

An external USB drive is the simplest and since you have USB 3 ports performance will be pretty good. A solid state drive will give best performance, but rotating still gets you more storage per dollar. I favor the 2 to 4 terabyte western digital models myself, but there are other good ones. If you have multiple computers and would like access from all, then NAS (Network attached storage) would be worth considering. It has become pretty easy to set one up, and storage can be expanded at will. But not as easy to take along if you will want to have access while you travel.

Most of the concerns about using unsecured wifi can be addressed by using a VPN, so you could go the cloud route and use VPN software when on an unsecured network. But that combo can be pretty slow so if performance is important, local storage is the way to go.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Malcolm, as far as I can recall, RAIDs are almost on par to single hard drives when it comes to keeping data safe. My wife keeps her research data on multiple hard drives (full copies) in different locations. The Cloud (or someone else's computer ;-) is probably a much safer option for important data backups than RAID or multiple hard drives.

I agree the physical security (flood/fire/theft) of RAID is near equal to a single HD. But it does give you protection against any single unrecoverable HD crash. And it was what we could afford in our misspent youth.

[William Chain]

Does it happen to be an Acer? I googled the specs and it seems to match an Acer on amazon.

There's a how-to online on swapping its internal SSD for a larger unit. I've done this before, and simply cloned the internal drive onto the replacement (there are kits for this that will let you hook the new unit up via USB, software clones the drive), and then open the case and make the swap. A 1TB or 2TB SSD is not expensive. Go for it.

[David Bassett]

For a project I've been working on, I recently bought a new laptop. The internal drive has only 250GB of space and it's rapidly vanishing. What are the best options for adding a larger drive? I'd like to keep the existing drive. ...

You don't list internal ports in that list of specs. (Most ads don't, assuming the customer won't care to mess with the computer guts.) One clue would be if you had a choice of options / configurations. E.g. most laptops accept memory modules and will be offered with a range of memory. A few have all (no upgrade) or some (fixed minimum) built-in. The "hard-drive" options are even less obvious, but usually there is a selection and at least one connector internally so components can be swapped or even added. (E.g. my now year-old laptop has a "M2" connector and an internal disk bay. I ordered it with an M2 SSD card and then added a bigger drive-shaped SSD when I caught it on sale later.)

All previous computers I have pulled the factory HDD and replaced it with a bigger HDD or recently an SSD. In each case I bought an external case so the formerly internal drive could be mounted as an external USB drive. ("Just in case." I don't think I've ever actually gone back once the data was copied. BTW- I, and a former co-worker, have had good luck with the Sabrent line of external cases. There are other brands that are probably using the same electronics, if you find a feature set or price that works better for you.)

I can't help with the migration steps as I don't (voluntarily) do Windows, but it really is pretty easy these days in Linux and I've got to imagine there are similar data moving utilities for Windows available.

If you are really OK with an external drive for more than back ups, then you have a whole world of less complicated options. In general USB 3.0 should be compatible with most computers (should you need to share the data), USB-C should be faster, but not compatible with other older computers. So consider your goals and start shopping sales! :)

[Mike Henderson]

I've updated the storage on a number of laptops and have not found it to be all that difficult. In general, you need a set of small torx screwdrivers and access to the hardware service manual for your laptop - the laptop makers generally make those manuals available on the web.

Cloning a drive is pretty easy - the free Marcrium Reflect is good and if you buy Samsung, their cloning software is also good. For standard SATA drives get a USB3 SATA enclosure - you can use that with your old drive as an external disk drive after you do the replacement.

Put your new drive in the enclosure and run your cloning software. Shut off your laptop. Take it apart and change the drive. Boot from your new drive. Easy-peasy. [Note: for many laptops all you have to remove is the bottom to access the SSD.]

Advice: If going from a 256GB drive, go to a 1TB and you won't have to do it again. 1TB is not that expensive any more.

PCIe is a but more involved because the enclosures are expensive. There's a way to avoid buying a PCIe enclosure - if that's what you have, let me know. All laptops (that I've ever heard of) use replaceable "disk" storage. It's never soldered in. RAM is soldered but the bulk storage is not.

Mike

P.S. if you lived near me I'd do it for you.

[Wade Lippman]

You can get a 1TB for less than $100 now. Cloning it is pretty easy, with Macrium Reflex or others.

I don't know your computer, but the 4 I did it on were simple enough.

[Jerome Stanek]

You can get a 1TB for less than $100 now. Cloning it is pretty easy, with Macrium Reflex or others.

I don't know your computer, but the 4 I did it on were simple enough.

This tat way you will have a copy of what you have now

[Roy Petersen]

You can get a 1TB for less than $100 now.
Don't go cheap on SSD drives, as the ones that are 1TB and under $100 are "off" brands like Adata. One of those came with my desktop, and it failed horribly and without warning. Had a laptop with a cheap brand, same thing. Replaced both, years ago with Samsung, and they are super reliable. At $150 or so, worth it.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147673&ignorebbr=1

[Mike Henderson]

Don't go cheap on SSD drives, as the ones that are 1TB and under $100 are "off" brands like Adata. One of those came with my desktop, and it failed horribly and without warning. Had a laptop with a cheap brand, same thing. Replaced both, years ago with Samsung, and they are super reliable. At $150 or so, worth it.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147673&ignorebbr=1

I agree with Roy. Get a good ssd, such as Samsung or Crucial. Those cheap, off-brand ssds are reported to fail too quickly and when they do, you can lose a lot of data. Personally, I like the Samsung. A 1TB Samsung (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078DPCY3T?pf_rd_p=c2945051-950f-485c-b4df-15aac5223b10&pf_rd_r=MZEKS1B7G87R7G5FDYX0) is less than $150.

Mike

[Alan Caro]

Julie Moriarty,

Laptops are not as easy to upgrade as desktops/towers, but a laptop with a 17.3" screen - is it a Dell Precision? as there is a GTX 1060 present suggests that the system should accommodate a wide range of add-ons.

For a single drive system with reasonably good performance, consider a Samsung 860 EVO 1TB- $148

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147673&Description=Samsung%20860%20EVO%201TB&cm_re=Samsung_860_EVO_1TB-_-20-147-673-_-Product

OR>

As the system appears to be a current model and is likely to run NVMe memory, if disk performance must be at top rates (e.g. simulation, rendering), and there is a dedicated PCIe Gen 3 X4 connection/slot for M.2, consider a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB or 1TB as OS/Programs.DATA drive or is the systrem can accommodate an dM.2 _ 2.5: SATA, use a 250GB 970 EVO M.2 for OS/Programs and add the Samsung 860 EVO 500GB or 1TB SATA drive as data drive.

For either configuration, place the new drive in a USB 3.1 Type C external enclosure.

Transfer all the data from the orirignal drive to another, external drive or a desktop with a lot of stoarge for safekeeping.

Use Partition Master to setup the new drive with GPT partitions. > The OS partition must be the same or slightly larger then the original partition size.

Install the new drive in the place of the original drive. Windows 10 will have the NVMe drivers already or they can be added.

Place the original drive in a USB 3.1 Type C external enclosure, and use Partition Master to clone the original OS/Programs to the new drive.

Check the function of the new OS drive and when satisfied all is well, use Explorer or Partition Master to migrate the data to the the new data partition or to the second drive if configured.

The original drive in the external enclosure then becomes the backup drive and overflow data drive. As it's portable, it can be connected to a desktop for large size file transfers. I keep a 4TB SATA 3.5" HD in a USB 3.0 enclosure and only run it while backing up, thereby protecting it from hacking or viruses.

Set up an incremental backup scheme with Acronis True Image or similar and also create and keep a system recovery image in case of virus or drive failure.

The simplest solution is the 860 EVO 1TB, but if high performance is necessary, the M.2 + SATA could be very effective. This seems rather complex and it is time-consuming, requiring care and attention to details, but in the end, the configuration and storage space can be adequate for a long period. I ran out of space on the office second system recently and it created a domino effect of buying a drive and moving about 14TB of data over many hours. If I'd had a 4TB drive where a 3TB was, all that effort and expense could have been avoided.


Alan Caro

PS: HP z620_2 (2017) Xeon E5-1680 V2 8-core@ 4.3GHz / HP z420 liquid cooling / 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered / Quadro P2000 (5GB) + GTX 1070 Ti 8GB / HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB AHCI + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 500GB NVMe +HGST 7K6000 4TB > HP OEM Windows 7 Prof'l 64 bit > 2X Dell Ultrasharp 2560 X 1440 27"

> The Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe I'm using as a projects drive is astoundingly fast- 74GB transferred in under 3 minutes.

[Leo Graywacz]

For a project I've been working on, I recently bought a new laptop. The internal drive has only 250GB of space and it's rapidly vanishing. What are the best options for adding a larger drive? I'd like to keep the existing drive.

If it matters, here are the laptop's specs:

17.3" Full HD (1920 x 1080 ) WLED IPS display, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q Design 6GB GDDR5 dedicated Graphics
8th Gen Intel Hexa-Core i7-8750H @ 2.20GHz (9 MB SmartCache, Max Turbo Frequency 4.10GHz)
32GB DDR4 SDRAM, 256GB Solid State Drive, No Optical Drive
802.11ac Wi-Fi featuring 2x2 MU-MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C (up to 5 Gbps): 1 x USB 3.0 (with Power-off Charging): 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack, Virtual Reality Ready, Two Built-in Stereo Speakers, HD Webcam


All that information and we don't know what laptop you have. That's the main thing we need to know. I have a Dell Precision Workstation laptop and I can put 3 drives in it. If it new enough it's likely you can put a SATA drive and a M2 drive into it.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks for all the great information. I need to absorb all this. But I'm thinking maybe two external drives, the second being for backup.

Here's everything I can find on the laptop:
2019 Acer Aspire 717-72G Premium Flagship 17.3" FHD VR Ready Gaming Laptop Computer, 8th Gen Intel Hexa-Core i7-8750H, 32GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, GTX 1060 6GB, 2x2 AC WiFi, BT 4.1, Type C, HDMI, Backlit KB, Windows 10

CPU Type: Intel Core i7 8th Gen

CPU Speed: 8750H (2.20 GHz)

Number of Cores: 6-core Processor

Core Name: Coffee Lake

Turbo Frequency: Up to 4.1 GHz

CPU L3 Cache: 9 MB

Display Screen Size: 17.3"

Touchscreen: No

Wide Screen Support: Yes

Display Type: Full HD

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Panel: IPS

LCD Features: In-plane Switching (IPS) Technology

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

Graphics - GPU/VPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060

Video Memory: 6 GB

Graphic Type: Dedicated Card

Storage SSD: 256 GB

Memory: 32 GB

Memory Speed: DDR4 2400

Optical Drive Type: No

Communications - LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps

WLAN: 802.11ac Wi-Fi featuring 2x2 MU-MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1

Ports - USB: 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C (up to 5 Gbps): 1 x USB 3.0 (with Power-off Charging): 2 x USB 2.0

HDMI: 1 x HDMI 2.0

Audio Ports: 1 x Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack

Audio: Optimized Dolby Audio Premium sound enhancement: Acer TrueHarmony Sound System: Built-in Dual Digital Microphone

Speaker: Two Built-in Stereo Speakers

Output Device - Virtual Reality Ready: Yes

Input Device - Touchpad: Precision Touchpad (supporting Windows Modern Touchpad gestures)

Keyboard: Dedicated Numeric Keypad, Media Control Keys

Backlit Keyboard: Backlit

Webcam: HD Webcam (1280 x 720) supporting High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Card Reader: Secure Digital (SD) Card

[Mike Henderson]

It looks like (from the specifications I found on the web) that you have a slot for that 256GB ssd and it also has a SATA slot. If that's correct, all you have to do is get a 1TB SATA drive, such as the Samsung 860 for less than $150 and put it into that slot without touching the 256GB ssd.

If you want to go cheap, you can get a 1TB HDD SATA and plug it into the same slot. Either way, you'll have to take your laptop apart.

While you can do things with external drives, it's a lot more convenient to have all your storage in the unit. For backup, look at something like Carbonite (there are competitors that are excellent) and you'll be backed up to the cloud.

Mike

[Roy Petersen]

Here's everything I can find on the laptop:
2019 Acer Aspire 717-72G Premium Flagship 17.3"
Found one that seems to be similar, but comes with 2 drives included. 256 SSD and a 1 TB slow spinner (5400RPM) drive.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/507014/acer-aspire-7-a717-72g-76v1-173-gaming-laptop-computer---black

At the least, that suggests yours will allow a 2nd drive in it. If the 2nd drive is SSD as well, that would run a little cooler.

[Julie Moriarty]

It looks like (from the specifications I found on the web) that you have a slot for that 256GB ssd and it also has a SATA slot. If that's correct, all you have to do is get a 1TB SATA drive, such as the Samsung 860 for less than $150 and put it into that slot without touching the 256GB ssd.

If you want to go cheap, you can get a 1TB HDD SATA and plug it into the same slot. Either way, you'll have to take your laptop apart.

While you can do things with external drives, it's a lot more convenient to have all your storage in the unit. For backup, look at something like Carbonite (there are competitors that are excellent) and you'll be backed up to the cloud.

Mike

Thanks, Mike! I was looking for that. When I was shopping I kept reading about laptops with a 250GB SSD having another drive that was 1TB or so. But my main focus was a laptop that could handle graphic intensive software. I'll look for the SATA drive bay. That would be great if it has one.

Roy, I'll look into finding an SSD drive. I like the solid state running cooler thing.

[Julie Moriarty]

Yep! There's an empty drive space. Now, which drive to install?

I did some searches for a SATA SSD and WOW! They aren't cheap! A 1TB Samsung 850 runs in the $900 range. I found a Crucial MX300 2TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD for $400. It gets high ratings on Amazon. Acer used Crucial for the memory sticks. Any issues with Crucial?

I also found a Crucial 2TB MX500 2.5" Internal SSD for $280. It appears the difference is the above is SATA and has 3D NAND technology. Though I don't know if those things make the drive worth another $120.

[Leo Graywacz]

The speed difference between the spinner and the SSD is quite a bit. In my opinion worth the money. But if it's just for games it depends on how much of a gamer you are. If you have to have the best of the best to get those last FPS then go for the SSD.

I have M2 drives in my computer and they are faster than the SSD's. I love the 12 second boot.

[glenn bradley]

I was thinking along the lines of an external drive.

At work and at home I have a few Western Digital "Elements" drives (https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBU6Y0020BBK-WESN/dp/B06VVS7S94/ref=asc_df_B06W55K9N6/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309779531175&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5714201964263480076&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031505&hvtargid=pla-301232220719&ref=&adgrpid=62412137260&th=1). Over the years they have proven to be small, rugged, reliable, fast enough that they are undetectable from the internal drive and inexpensive. A 2TB Elements is about $60 on Amazon. I paid $100 for my first 1TB Elements a few years ago. I also have a small 1TB Toshiba that has worked flawlessly.

[Roy Petersen]

I did some searches for a SATA SSD and WOW! They aren't cheap! A 1TB Samsung 850 runs in the $900 range.
Don't know where you're shopping, but here's one at Amazon (860 EVO) that's under $150
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1546533369&sr=1-3&keywords=samsung+ssd&refinements=p_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A6797521011

[Leo Graywacz]

I think he's looking at the M2 drives which are essentially a circuit board with no case. Fits into a specialized PCI slot.

I just got one today, Samsung 970 PRO 512GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD. I waited a while and the price came down to $170.

[Mike Henderson]

Yep! There's an empty drive space. Now, which drive to install?

I did some searches for a SATA SSD and WOW! They aren't cheap! A 1TB Samsung 850 runs in the $900 range. I found a Crucial MX300 2TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD for $400. It gets high ratings on Amazon. Acer used Crucial for the memory sticks. Any issues with Crucial?

I also found a Crucial 2TB MX500 2.5" Internal SSD for $280. It appears the difference is the above is SATA and has 3D NAND technology. Though I don't know if those things make the drive worth another $120.
I think you're looking in the wrong place. A 1TB Samsung 860 SATA drive is under $150 on Amazon. The solid state drives (ssd) are more expensive than hard disk drives (hdd) but they're soooo much faster. I gave you a pointer to one in an earlier post and Roy gave a link in his post.

They design those laptops to be serviced, and those that have multiple disk drives often have simple ways of getting to the drive slot. If you can do electrician work and woodwork, you can put a disk drive into a laptop. Go to Acer's website and see if you can find the hardware maintenance manual for your laptop. They give step-by-step instructions in those manuals for how to do things like installing a disk drive.

Mike

Here's (https://za.answers.acer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/50934/~/hard-drive-installation-instructions-for-aspire-7-%28a717-71g%29)some instructions for a computer which may be close to yours.

I also found some YouTube videos but I don't know if they address your specific model.

[Julie Moriarty]

The Samsung 850 is the pricey one. The 860 is more reasonable but neither may work in my laptop. So I ended up going with the Crucial, which I know works.

Thanks all for your help!

[Curt Harms]

The Samsung 850 is the pricey one. The 860 is more reasonable but neither may work in my laptop. So I ended up going with the Crucial, which I know works.

Thanks all for your help!

Crucial is part of Micron, a HUGE flash memory (and other solid state stuff) producer. You did well.

[Julie Moriarty]

Got the new drive installed the other day but didn't get the chance to boot up until today. The new drive wasn't recognized. Finally figured out how to get it recognized and started moving My Documents to the new 2TB drive. But they remained on the original drive (C:), too. :confused: Before I go and manually delete them from C: drive, is there something I need to know?

[Leo Graywacz]

The easiest way to do what you wanted was to clone your drive. Macrium Reflect does a perfect job and it's got a free 30 day trial. So you can download it, clone the drive and be on your way. All you have to do is to swap boot drives in the BIOS and you should be good to go. You may still want to do that even though you have transferred your files already.

It'll make an exact copy of the drive so you won't have to learn where you moved stuff. However, if you wanted to do a fresh clean install of your OS then cloning isn't what you want to do.

I just swapped out for a new drive. My M2 SSD 256GB was at 10% remaining and the price of a M2 512GB was to hard to resist. Took 22 min 25 seconds to clone one to the other. But my OS was in good shape and there was no need to put in a fresh copy.

Unless you need that old drive for something, I'd just leave those files on it until you have a specific reason to delete them. Always nice to have a copy of those important files.

[Gary Ragatz]

Malcolm, as far as I can recall, RAIDs are almost on par to single hard drives when it comes to keeping data safe. My wife keeps her research data on multiple hard drives (full copies) in different locations. The Cloud (or someone else's computer ;-) is probably a much safer option for important data backups than RAID or multiple hard drives.

Depending on the nature of your wife's data, there may be institutional policy against using cloud storage. Many universities prohibit faculty from storing confidential research data on cloud services unless there is a special contract in place with the service provider that ensures I higher than standard level of protection for the data.

[Curt Harms]

I agree with Roy. Get a good ssd, such as Samsung or Crucial. Those cheap, off-brand ssds are reported to fail too quickly and when they do, you can lose a lot of data. Personally, I like the Samsung. A 1TB Samsung (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078DPCY3T?pf_rd_p=c2945051-950f-485c-b4df-15aac5223b10&pf_rd_r=MZEKS1B7G87R7G5FDYX0) is less than $150.

Mike

I think that's a problem with SSDs in general. Spinny HDs usually give some indication they're about to fail, SSDs don't, they just quit.

[Julie Moriarty]

The easiest way to do what you wanted was to clone your drive.
Crucial provides very detailed instructions on how to clone a drive when swapping out but in my case I added a drive. The laptop came with a 250GB SSD that was quickly gobbled up. I bought a 2TB SSD and installed it in an empty bay. I've read about using the 250TGB drive and dedicate it to handle the OS but I can't find that article again or how to do that.

I thought I could move My Documents to the 2TB drive but all it did was copy the files. The fact it did that makes me think the My Documents folders are critical to Win 10 and shouldn't be deleted.

[Jim Becker]

Relocation of a resource like "My Documents" isn't going to be a simple move...I suspect something in the OS needs to be reconfigured to allow the change to the underlying default location. I'm no longer a Windows "guru" so I can't tell you what you need to do. But this theory also explains why you can copy, but not move that particular resource. You can certainly change the default save locations for applications to the new place, but that doesn't fix the default in Windows.

[Derek Meyer]

You can change the location of where the folders are located in Windows 10 by opening up File Explorer, right-clicking on the folder in the quick access list on the left and choosing Properties. Click the Location tab and specify the new location of the folder.

The most important (and likely largest) folders will be your Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads and Desktop. Create these folders on your new drive, copy the files there and then change the Location to point to them on the new drive. Then you can delete the files from the old drive.

[Lee DeRaud]

Relocation of a resource like "My Documents" isn't going to be a simple move...I suspect something in the OS needs to be reconfigured to allow the change to the underlying default location. I'm no longer a Windows "guru" so I can't tell you what you need to do. But this theory also explains why you can copy, but not move that particular resource. You can certainly change the default save locations for applications to the new place, but that doesn't fix the default in Windows.Easier than I expected, actually: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html
As Derek notes, it's even easier in Win10, probably because the "Homegroup" stuff went away.
FYI, I found that one by starting here: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html