Brand new hard drive + Windows installation?

[dela4220]

I plan on getting a 500gb SSD in the future for my laptop running Windows 8 (basically replacing the HDD with windows 8 with the New SSD in the box), my question or I guess I need clarification on using a System build of Windows 8 to intall windows 8 correclty on the SSD...... then installing all the drivers and programs from the Computers manu. for my laptop..... is this the correct way of doing such a project?

 

[PP Mguire]

Why do you need such a large SSD?

You need a copy of Windows and need to do a fresh install from the DVD. You need to download the drivers and put them on a flash drive before doing the fresh install.

 

[dela4220]

Im a big gamer and have plenty of videos/music and photos, so I plan to go big so I can have it for a while. So the correct way of doing this is by Using a System Build version of Win 8 since the sdd would be bare and having all the drivers on a flash usb drive for intallation purposes?

 

[PP Mguire]

You can make your current 500 an external storage drive so you don't have all that on your SSD. I'm a huge gamer too and have been using a 120GB for over a year now, and just ordered a 120 to replace it. If you have a large Steam folder you can keep that on the external HDD. I'm guessing you have a rather decent laptop, and if so just get a USB3 external enclosure (if you have USB 3 ports) and you wont see any speed difference between the mounted HDD and external. You will save a ton of cash by not spending so much money on such a large SSD.

 

[dela4220]

I see where your coming from and like the idea but I just want to have a large capacity SSD so I can take my games with me without using any external drives, I also want to cut my loading times on the entire system, so is the system build and a flash drive with all the drivers the way to go on installing a new SSD?

 

[PP Mguire]

No not the system build. You need a Windows installation disc. You need to boot to it to do a fresh install.

 

[veedubfreak]

I just installed a 480gb Intel 520 SSD, and by god is it fast. The nice thing about windows 8 is that it will probably already include 99% of the drivers you'll need. I don't think I had to manually install anything when I installed 8 earlier this week, and my motherboard is a z77 so it's fairly new.

I went big SSD for 2 reasons, price per GB was cheaper than just buying a 240, and now I only need 2 drives. I have a 1tb drive for the huge stuff, and can now put everything else on the SSD without having to deal with multiple drives.

When you say "system build" are you referring to a recovery disk or what?

 

[PP Mguire]

I just installed a 480gb Intel 520 SSD, and by god is it fast. The nice thing about windows 8 is that it will probably already include 99% of the drivers you'll need. I don't think I had to manually install anything when I installed 8 earlier this week, and my motherboard is a z77 so it's fairly new.

I went big SSD for 2 reasons, price per GB was cheaper than just buying a 240, and now I only need 2 drives. I have a 1tb drive for the huge stuff, and can now put everything else on the SSD without having to deal with multiple drives.

When you say "system build" are you referring to a recovery disk or what?

What? It's more expensive. A good 240 will cost less than $1/GB where as a 480 or bigger costs more than $1/GB.

219 for 240GB
Corsair Force Series GS CSSD-F240GBGS-BK Solid State Drive - Newegg.com

489 for 480GB
Intel 520 Series SSDSC2CW480A310 - Newegg.com

You could actually get 2 of the Corsair drives, have the same amount of space, RAID them, and have a much faster SSD setup and still be cheaper.

 

[veedubfreak]

Yes, but then I wouldn't have an intel SSD I was referring to the intel 240 vs the intel 480.

 

[Yevrag35]

Yes, but then I wouldn't have an intel SSD I was referring to the intel 240 vs the intel 480.

Why do you only want intel ssd's, curiously?