Migrating from Samsung 250 GB to Crucial 1 TB - pros and cons

Hello everybody!

For quite a long time now I am running a multiboot setup on two separate SSDs:

• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB SATA 2.5" -> Windows 10 Pro 21H2 64-bit
• Crucial MX500 1 TB SATA 2.5" -> Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit

First I thought I'll be using Win7 most of the time and only run Win10 from time to time, but now its the other way around.

So I have two questions now:

1. Which SSD is "better" for Win10* regarding overall performance?
2. What precautions should I take if I would swap the SSDs (put Win10 on the Crucial and Win7 on the Samsung)?
   (I currently have Acronis Drive Director Suite which has some tools to clone or migrate hard drives)

note: I do still need Win7 for some legacy tools and no, I'm not thinking of Win11.

Kind regards

__________
*) Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 21H2 build 19044.1826

Doubtful you would notice any difference.

I forgot to mention the capacity factor.

Here's a screenshot of my drives' capacity and consumption:


My primary (Win10) SSD has only 40 GB left.

If I would swap the SSDs then there needs to be a big clean-up on the Win7 drive in order to fit.

Just move all files that are in your Libraries to a offline drive that can be accessed by both.

Your windows 7 drive currently using 254GB of space. as it is it will not fit on your 250 GB Drive.

The 250 GB drive should be plenty for Windows 10

Is it only Windows on the 250 GB SSD and all other apps / data on one of the other drives?

1. If it is only Windows delete all restore points and run Disk cleanup utility to recover space on the 250 GB drive. The create a new restore point, see how much space it took and adjust you restore point data amounts as you feel comfortable, as it is now the restore points disk amount is probably 2 - 3% which is most likely to high. When you create a new restore point, see how much space it took and adjust you restore point data amounts as you feel comfortable

2. If it has other data than windows is on the 250 GB move that data off to your data drive, then run delete all restore points and run disk cleanup on the 250 GB, and do the same as above for the restore points.

If you are set on swapping the 2 OS drive. Do the above steps on both drives first to ensure Win 7 fit on the 250 GB drive.

Majulook said:

The 250 GB drive should be plenty for Windows 10

I'm not sure about that.

Majulook said:

Is it only Windows on the 250 GB SSD and all other apps / data on one of the other drives?

Nope. It's Windows, Apps and Data on my OneDrive folders (other data is located on my internal HDDs).

Majulook said:

If it is only Windows delete all restore points

None present. I have this feature turned off, since I back up my data with Acronis True Image.

Majulook said:

run Disk cleanup utility to recover space on the 250 GB drive

Done. System files included. Saved about 6 GB

Majulook said:

If it has other data than windows is on the 250 GB move that data off to your data drive

This point will be interesting...
I have the OS files (System/Windows files) along with my installed programs which I'd like to keep on that drive, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea. Moving the program files is not so easy since they are linked in the Registry. I would have to uninstall them all and reinstall on another drive. But some programs don't work well if they're not put on the System drive. I have experienced that.

Another point is ... I have 64 GB of RAM (4x16GB) and a Paging file of about 10 GB on my system drive (which is automatically managed by Windows).
Is this a good setup? Or should I set it manually to a fixed size? Or maybe disable it?

Then I have the hiberfil.sys with a file size of about 25 GB (I have hibernation enabled, because I use a lot of programs and starting them all after reboot takes way too much time).
I don't know if this file can be managed manually at all.

Well, this is it.
Do you have any advise?

I f it was me, I would...

Get a new 1TB or larger SSD (M.2 if you can) drive for Windows 10 and all programs and data you want installed on it.

If you really need Windows 7, figure out drive size need for OS and all programs and data it will use.

Use the current 250 GB SSD for as a shared Data drive / temp holding area.

SSD's are fairly cheap, 1TB M.2 drive are currently running $100 or less depending on sales.

If it was me I would not partition the drives.

Your C: drive is using ~194GB, of which 35 are accounted for by the PF and hiberfil.sys. It would be worth checking (say, with Wiztree, blazingly fast when scanning a whole drive letter) what else is using the balance of ~160GB. Windows will be a large part, and I agree that moving programs is either impossible or more hassle than it's worth, but how much of that 160GB is data that could be stored elsewhere?