The Easy Way and The Hard Way. Many current Linux users switched over from windows simply because they were sick of using a machine so sluggish that it was barely able run its native OS sick of spending time watching an hour glass icon waiting for somethinganythingto happen. And many found this simple act to be a type of upgrade since Linux systems always were far more efficient in their use of resources. Likewise, you could also upgrade your ram or your graphics card. If you do all three, youll get tangible though probably only an incremental improvement. How can I get even more performance out of my system As technology changes so do the choke points in your system. These days whats usually gumming up the works is a spinning metal disc your hard disc drive. Over the years, Ive tweaked lots of systems, but nothing Ive ever done has produced such spectacular results as installing a solid state hard drive. Suddenly every things faster boot ups take a 15th to a 16th of the time and programs pop into action. This isnt incremental change its a radical change. Initially, I was skeptical Id heard stories about random bit flips and I already knew that SSDs were expensive. These days SSDs are now just as reliable as their ancestors, and though cheaper than before, still a lot more than HDDs by about 5x to 1. In other words, a 1. T SSD can cost up to 1,0. US. So the first question to ask is how big does my hard drive really needs to beAbove is a screen shot of my system. Notice that Im only using about 12 my main drive. And I still have space for a second 1. G partition. So to answer my own question No, I dont need a terra byte. On this computer, I installed a 2. G SSD which cost me about 7. US. And since the system and all my programs are running off a big hunk of semiconductor, suddenly its the fastest system Ive ever had. We are a freeware download site without ads or fake download buttons. You will find freeware software programs, video games, retro games and antimalware tools. This. Page 1 of 8 Create a bootable WinPE 4. 0 USB drive posted in Tutorials Before I begin with the guide, Id like to mention that the information here has been. The recipies for changing ones login screen in 14. 04 EDIT or in 15. 04, 15. 10 dont work in 16. 04. The custom background shows for a split second and then fades. Last week I published an article that demonstrated for the first time on how to netboot an ESXi installation onto Apple Mac Hardware. As you can imagine, this was. Another thing you may have noticed is while the data on my main drive is a svelte 7. G, the data on the other is a waddling 3. G. There are two reasons for this. First, I never throw anything away. Second, Ive read the words but first back up your home folder so many times that I stopped putting stuff there in the first place. Its a habit that another advantage Ill get to later. Upgrading your system to SSD The easier way. It turns outlike so many things Linuxthat the easiest way is also the best way. Backup your home folder. Remove the old HDD. Replace it with your sparkling new SSD. If you have a desktop computer remember youll need an adapter bracket with SSDs its one size fits all. And dont worry about the tiny four pronged wire. Its there to power the motor that SSDs dont have since they dont spinRe install your favorite Linux distro from CD, DVD or flash drive. One of the beauties of Linux is that there are hundreds of flavors to choose from and many are free. So starting from scratch wont break the bank. MacBook Pros come with some very nice hardware, but some people want more. Some people want Linux. Upgrading To Solid State Drive in Linux The Easy Way and The Hard Way. Last updated December 16, 2016 By Abhishek Prakash 5 Comments. Those instructions have helped people install Ubuntu since 12. 04 but now with the introduction of Ubuntu 14. 04 and many Windows users upgrading to Windows 8. 1 there. Brief This guide shows you how to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows 10 and enjoy both Linux and Windows together in one system. So you have decided to switch to Linux. And, a clean installation ensures that your OS will be finely tuned to all your hardware, including your new SSD. Besides, configuring a new system can be lots of fun when you dont have to watch a spinning wheel all the time. Finally, dont throw out your old HDD. If your machine has extra drive bays you can re install them and use them as storage media. If not, you can get the same result by purchasing a drive enclosure. And whyyou might askwould I store all my files on my old slow drive Because for your computer opening files is fast and easy anyway, so you dont really gain much. Furthermore, on my laptopwhich has a second drive bayI use the old HHD as a home folder. That way each of the three OSs I installed on the SSD have access to exactly the same files, and theyre always in perfect synchrony. There is a much harder way of doing this cloning your old disc to the new one.  We are going to see it in the next section. Upgrading your system to SSD The harder way. So, youre convinced that upgrading to an SSD is a good idea, but you are adamant about keeping your current OS. Dont worry, it can be done, but remember youre choosing the hard way. This means a lot more preparation, time and some extra software and hardware besides. What were talking about here is cloning. Fortunately, there are lots of open source options. They all seem to operate on the same principle they make an image of the partition you want to clone and store it as a single file or series of files. Think of them as bit for bit photocopies of your hard drive. This has two important consequences. First, if your partition is 2. G, it will photocopy all 2. G of iteven the unused space. Second, the empty destination partitionon your new SSDusually must be bigger than the source. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Before starting, make sure you have the following A bootable disc with your clone ware. A bootable grub rescue disc. A bootable version of G parted. A 2. 12 drive enclosure. A big fat external HDD like the one you are about to backup your home folder on. Your sparkling new SSD. USB sockets. Before Cloning Create a live G parted disc. G parted is a simple and powerful partition editor, but if youve never used it before take the time to read about it especially shrink partition and create partition. You can find the manual here. And if you remember nothing else remember that no changes are made until you click apply all operations, and that after re sizing sda, it must be re bootedperhaps for the last time. This to ensure that errorsif there are anycan be immediately corrected. It also ensures that you wont be spending the next few hours cloning a buggy drive. After putting your SSD into an enclosure, unmount all unnecessary USB devices and boot into G parted. When G parted eventually boots it will show your main drive as sda. Right clicking on it gets you to re sizemove option, where you can graphically shrink your partition. This ensures your target drive is bigger than the source and it prevents you from wasting a lot of time copying unused space. Next, plug in your SSDit should appear as sdb and unallocatedand create a bootable primary partition formatted to ext. Dont worry about labels or UUIDs all the particulars will be in the image youre about to clone onto it. All we want to do here is create a target partition that the clone ware can easily find and write to. Then, tidy up your external HDD. This is where youll store your image you want to make it easy for your clone ware to find it when its time to restore. If youre lazy like me and your external HDD is a mess like mine its easiest to just grab it all and nest it in all in one file for the time being. Also, make sure you have loads of space if youre imaging a 1. G partition its not going to fit onto a 3. G flash drive. Finally, youre going to have to pick out some clone ware. For an excellent overview see this. Once youve made up your mind download and create live CD or flash drive. Cloning I ended up using Clonezilla, but they all do the same sorts of things in the same sorts of ways. In a two step process they first image your system to your external HDD, then restore from your HDD to your target drive. They are all bootable media, meaning patience is required. For an excellent overview of Clonezilla see here. The only thing I did differently is I stuck with partition cloning, so I used the saveparts and restoreparts commands. Once you boot into Clonezilla youre going to have lots of time to kill.