Best Strategy of Using SSD for OS and HDD for Storage on Windows

Advantages of using SSD for OS and HDD for storage

Recently, the topic of "using SSD for OS and HDD for storage" has caused a heated discussion among users of Superuser.com. Someone pointed out one of the advantages of installing an OS on an SSD: SSD make computers run faster. It's a fact that faster operation can be counted as the biggest advantage of SSD over HDD. However, you may not be aware of the other benefits of SSD.

Compared with traditional hard disks, SSD has the characteristics of high shock resistance, low power consumption standby, noiseless operation, and low operating temperature, providing a deeper level of protection for your operating system in the event of an accident. That's why SSD for OS only. In addition, the capacity of HDD at the same price as SSD is larger, which is one of the reasons for using HDD to store data.

How to use SSD for OS and HDD for storage easily and safely

To use SSD for OS and HDD for storage, you may need AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional (supports Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista based PC). This is OS migration and hard drive formatting software that can help you achieve SSD for OS and HDD for storage.

It's very powerful. You can use the "Migrate OS to SSD" feature to move the OS from HDD to SSD without losing data, and then wipe all data on the HDD, so you can use it as a data disk. And, It will automatically align the partition on the SSD during the OS migration process, which makes the SSD run faster. Please download the demo version to try it out.

Steps of using SSD as OS drive and HDD as storage

Next, I will show you how to set SSD as OS drive and HDD for storage easily with AOMEI Partition Assistant in two parts.

▶ Part 1. Migrate OS to SSD and boot from it

Step 1. Install the SSD to the PC properly and make sure it can be recognized by Windows. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click “Clone” from the top toolbar, and select “Migrate OS” from the menu. Then select the positive option in the next pop-up window.

Step 2. Select the new SSD that you will use for OS directly and click Next. 

Step 3. You have options to resize the system partition on SSD and change the drive letter if you wish. Type-specific partition size into boxes is also available.

Step 4. This Note might be helpful and read it in mind and click Finish.

Step 5. Finally, click Apply and then Proceed to execute the pending operation.

After that, to boot the computer successfully from the target SSD, you have to go to the BIOS and change the boot order of the SSD to the first place.

▶ Part 2. Wipe the HDD for storage

After completing the Part 1, I believe you can successfully boot your computer from the SSD. Now, you can wipe the data from the old HDD and use it as a data disk. 

Step 1. Download, install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant and right-click on the hard disk drive you want to wipe, and select "Wipe Hard Drive" option.

Step 2. Tick "Fill sectors with Zero" and click "OK". And you can upgrade to Professional edition to choose the 3 other options.

Step 3. After all the above operations about wipe hard drive, click "Apply" in the top toolbar to commit them to your physical disk.

After the Wipe is done, your old HDD has become unallocated space. You can create partitions to store the data you need.

Conclusion

Using SSD for OS and HDD for storage is probably the best arrangement for desktops, which makes full use of the preponderance of each type of disks. Luckily, all complicated operations can be easily managed when you turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant. If you want to do this in Windows Server, you should upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.