Hey everyone, I'm getting ready to upgrade from my old HDD to a new NVMe SSD, which is already installed in my M.2 slot. I was thinking of cloning my HDD to the new SSD so I can boot from it as my main drive. But I've heard some people say that doing a clean install might be better for performance. I'm really concerned about losing my game files—I've invested so much time into them and don't want to risk corrupting or losing my save data. I'm still a bit of a novice with PCs, so I'd love to hear what you all think is the best option here!
5 Answers
Don’t forget to make a complete backup of your old drive before anything! If you run into issues with the fresh install, you can always revert back to your original setup.
Cloning your HDD could work just fine, but make sure your new SSD has enough space! If your old HDD is larger, make sure you account for that when cloning. Additionally, it’s worth checking if your games’ save files are backed up in the cloud to avoid any disasters.
I recommend doing a clean install. Just keep the game files on your old HDD for now and move them over after you set everything up. It can be a pain to reinstall all the apps, but it’s worth it in terms of system performance. Also, many platforms like Steam automatically back up your save files, so you might not lose anything.
I used Clonezilla for my upgrade and it worked perfectly for me. Just take it slow and follow the guides available online—cloning doesn’t have to be complicated!
I'd say go ahead and clone it first. If you find that it’s not working well, you can always do a clean install later. Just remember that a clean install could give you better performance since it won't carry over any bloat. But honestly, if you’re nervous about losing game progress, cloning is a safe bet to start with.
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