Maximum PC

I bought a new 240GB Kingston SSD. Going to migrate my OS (Win 7 Pro) to it, but should I partition it first? I've Googled several opinions on this, and can't seem to find a consistent answer. 50% of the people say don't do it - doesn't make any difference on an SSD and the other 50% say go for it, keep your OS files separate from data files.

Any SSD experts out there or someone with experience have an opinion to offer?

Thanks for the quick response, kleinkinstein!

You mention constructing a smart file system manager. Any suggestions on that?

98% of the people are new to SSD's, 54% of the people know how to use them once purchased, 21% even bother to ask how to set them up, 67% just purchase them because Apple now have them, 43% know that periwinkle is not a ghey term but yet an awesome color that is underused...

And 100% use percentages ignorantly. If it's a current drive, just smoothly install windows onto it,install programs...and pause there. Migrating any OS is known as a Frankenstein. You're transplanting a working brain, not just moving organs and thinking it'll all just work.

10520% of me (that loves math and this impossibility) says: Don't do it! So does the non sarcastic side. Start new, transfer files later, ask more questions (why?). Not sure if this is your 1st SSD at all or just another in the line, but the OS installs like Win7 will treat spindles and SSD's completely different. It's an actually smart OS for smart people. Not to be confused with iOS.

speaking of which............ my Curcial M4 512GB SSD drive arrived today (my first ssd drive).. been waiting to get an SSD drive for over 2 years ! and now the price is right ($350).

back to the topic... my gamer PC was sported with 500GB HDD with 2 partitions (win7-64 bit and game data). HDTach registers average read of 59mbs

I simply plugged the new SSD drive on the sata3 port and used a bootable PartitionMagic linux on thumbdrive to run the G4L (Ghost 4 Linux). Then I reboot and boot to PartitionMagic the 2nd time to run Gparted and resized my gamedata partition to include the remaning 12GB (since my original is 500GB and this SSD drive is 512GB).

Booted up to win7-64 bit in 6 seconds compared to 2 minutes on my Hitachi 7200RPM sata3 hdd. Tried all the games with a big smile ! Clicking shutdown completely powered down the PC in just 3 seconds ! And the HDTach registers average speed of 585mbs !!!!!!!!!!!!

Kleinkinstein has a thread where we post scores. Just saying, it'd be nice to have your Crucial M4 in that thread with your build in order to see non-reviewer scores. Something I've found is that the best rated SSD out there can suck balls in some builds and could have gone cheaper in the SSD market. The M4 had it's day and would just nice to see how us users (not reviewers) score by just plugging them into machines and running a bench. They all still highs and lows, but is very interesting over all to see them in the wild. SSD's after all, is a zoo.