How to Use SSD and HDD Together?

I. What are solid-state drives and mechanical hard drives?

Solid state drives (SSDs) are computer storage devices made of integrated circuits. They consist of a control unit and storage unit. The lifespan of an SSD depends on the number of erasing and writing operations, which vary with different NAND flash memory units. To view the summary of erasing and writing times for different flash memory types, click here. Common SSD interfaces include SATA and M.2. SSDs using the SATA interface have a similar shape to mechanical hard disks, while those using the M.2 interface are smaller, resembling a card.

SSDs are more durable, quieter, and offer faster access speeds and lower latency compared to mechanical hard disks. They are ideal for system or application installations, ensuring smoother performance.

Mechanical hard disk (HDD) is a non-volatile memory used in computers. It consists of magnetic heads, disks, motors, control chips, and cables. HDDs come in 3.5-inch (desktop) and 2.5-inch (laptop) form factors, connected to systems via standard interface cables like PATA, SATA, USB, or SAS.

The price of mechanical hard disk is lower and it offers higher cost performance compared to solid-state hard disk. It is ideal for computer data storage.

Solid-state hard disks and mechanical hard disks can be used together in the same computer to take advantage of their respective strengths. Solid-state hard disks are ideal for installing systems and applications, while mechanical hard disks are better suited for storing data such as files, videos, audios, and pictures. By combining these two types of hard disks, you can significantly enhance your computer’s performance and accommodate a larger amount of file data without incurring high costs.

II. How to use SSD and HDD together? What are the precautions?

1. Check the interface type on the motherboard and the number of hard disks that can be installed

If the motherboard only has a SATA interface, choose SSD or HDD with SATA interface for installation. SATA has gone through updates including SATA1.0, SATA2.0, and SATA3.0. SATA 1.0 has a transmission rate of 150MB/s, SATA 2.0 has 300MB/s, and SATA 3.0 has 600MB/s. If the motherboard has only one SATA 3.0 interface, it is recommended to use SSD first.

If the motherboard has both a SATA interface and an M.2 interface, you can choose an M.2 interface SSD and a SATA interface HDD. Determine the number of hard disks to be installed based on the number of hard disk interfaces provided on the motherboard. Click here and you can check the steps to install the solid-state hard disk with SATA interface and M.2 interface. The installation steps of HDD with SATA interface are similar to SSD, but the volume of SSD will be smaller.

2. After installing the hard disk, initialize the hard disk in Disk Management

After installing the SSD and HDD, follow these steps to initialize the hard disk:

• Turn on the computer.
• Right-click the start menu and select “Disk Management“.
• In Disk Management, locate the disk labeled as “not initialized”.
• Right-click the disk and select “Initialize“.
• Choose the partition style (MBR or GPT) by referring to this link: MBR or GPT.
• Once the disk status changes to “Online”, right-click on the unallocated space.
• Select “New Simple Volume” and configure the partition settings as prompted, including partition size, drive letter, and file system.
• For a visual guide on the initialization steps, click here.
• If the newly installed HDD and SSD are not displayed in the disk management interface, refer to this link: Click here for a workaround.

3. Make sure the SSD is 4K aligned

The read and write operations of mechanical hard disks are sector-based. Traditional hard disks have a sector size of 512 bytes, while NAND flash memory-based SSDs typically have a sector size of 4KB.

4K alignment refers to the alignment between physical sectors and data clusters. Without 4K alignment, read and write operations can cause offset between sectors and clusters. This leads to longer access time and slower read and write speed. On the other hand, SSDs with 4K alignment demonstrate improved read and write speed. To ensure 4K alignment after installing and initializing an SSD, follow these steps:

Step 1: Right-click on the Start menu and select (Run).

Step 2: Enter (msinfo32) and click (OK).

Step 3: In the system information interface, go to Component-Storage-Disk. Find the corresponding SSD and check the value in the Partition Start Offset column. If the value is divisible by 4096, it indicates that the hard disk is 4K aligned. For example, 1048576/4096 = 256, indicating 4K alignment.

If you partition or format the hard disk using Windows 7 or later tools, 4K alignment is done automatically. For system installation, use third-party software like Disk Genius.

4. Select the appropriate tool to migrate hard disk data

To replace the mechanical hard disk with a solid-state hard disk without reinstalling the system or losing data, use the reliable hard disk cloning tool, Renee Becca.

Renee Becca is a tool for system/hard disk data backup and restoration. It backs up and restores important computer data, including programs, system configuration, emails, photos, videos, documents, bookmarks, etc. It uses incremental/differential backup technology to save time and disk space. It also supports system migration, partition backup, hard disk backup, file backup, and disk cloning to meet different needs.

① Migrating the system through Renee Becca

When the old HDD contains many trivial and unnecessary files, you can only migrate the system from the HDD to SSD, and then replace the mechanical hard disk with SSD after migration.

Step 1: Connect the SSD to the computer. Download, install, and run Renee Becca on the computer. Select the (System Redeploy) option in the main interface.

Step 2: Select the new SSD in (Destination) and click (Redeploy) to execute the system migration command. Wait until the system migration progress bar reaches 100% for successful migration. Remove the old hard disk, install the new SSD, set it as the first boot device in BIOS, save, and restart to start the system from the SSD.

② Use Renee Becca to clone HDD data to SSD

This method can clone the entire HDD data (including the operating system, applications and user data) to SSD. The specific steps are as follows:

Step 1: Download, install, and run Renee Becca. Select the option (Hard Disk Clone/Clone System Disk) in the main interface.

Step 2: Select the original disk and pre-replaced SSD in the source and destination in the “Disk Clone” pop-up window.

You can adjust the partition size in the virtual view and select the option to make the target disk bootable. Then, click the Clone button to execute the command and clone the hard disk. Remember to backup your files before proceeding, as cloning will overwrite data on the target disk. If you want to boot Windows from the new hard disk, set the SSD as the first boot device in the BIOS.