T60 SSD installation with secondary HDD

[vagrawal]

I have a 5yr old T60 which is going strong. Was looking to get an SSD within a budget and finally bought a 32GB SSD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820220580

I am looking to install SSD as my primary drive while still keeping my 60GB HDD as the secondary drive. I found quite a few links showing how to replace HDD with SDD, but didn't find any info on how to install two drives. Is that even possible? If so, any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Being a noob, I thought I might simply be able to replace the optical drive with SDD, but turns out they have different connectors.

[ZaZ]

You can have a second drive, but you need to get the modular caddy to replace the optical drive.

[Radioguy]

Yes, you need FRU #40Y8725 2nd SATA HDD Adapter for Ultrabay Slim.

There's plenty on eBay, but most are non-oem of varying qualities and some don't have the FRU associated with the item.

[vagrawal]

Thanks a lot ZaZ and Radioguy. That was helpful, and seems pretty straightforward now.

In hindsight, getting a bigger SDD probably would have been a better option, but too late for that I guess.

[ZaZ]

32GB is fine for XP. My Windows 7 install is about 16GB. 32GB is probably doable, but there won't be much extra space.

[Johan]

... just a thing which I recall reading, related to operating two HDD's (or, I guess, one SSD and one HDD) in the same computer, and both disks holding Windows XP; in the thread How to boot from Multibay and more precisely in this post:

You can boot from the Ultra Bay with no problem. Just set the boot order in the BIOS.

A word to the wise however. Beginning with SP2 for Windows XP, you cannot boot the same version of Windows XP from either drive. One of them will screw up. So to do what you want with the Ultra Bay, you need two licenses.

I don'r know if this is still a problem with XP/SP3, but beware of the above, and check before continuing.

Also, the thread Moving Windows xp from Hard Drive to SSD, aligned partition may be of interest.

Johan

[TuuS]

I'd recommend updating your OS, Either Vista or Seven have native SSD support. If you want to run winXP on an SSD, then make sure you do some reading first, and don't let it defrag your drive, windows XP will attempt this even though an SSD can't be effected by fragmentation and allowing the system to do regular defrags will reduce the service life of the drive.

[vagrawal]

Thanks for all the info guys. I have read about the defrag problem at other places too, and my understanding is all I'll need to do is to disable the defrag. In fact it is currently disabled in my HDD too (not the best thing to do, I know).

I was just thinking on keeping on 1 OS on the SSD, but now when it has been mentioned, I'd look into about keeping XP on my HDD and Win7 on my SSD. A lot of reading to do, before I proceed.

[ZaZ]

I would suggest making the install partition with a Vista a Windows 7 disc. They'll align the partition properly. They you can install XP. 32GB is plenty for XP.

[Radioguy]

A Windows 7 repair disk would do as well.

[vagrawal]

Using Vista or Win7 is a great tip.

I have always made an install partition on bigger HDDs. Would it make sense to make a partition on this small SDD though?