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Increase capacity of my C drive
I understand that Support Services ended several years ago, but my Dell Inspiron is still working. Can you just tell me how I can increase the capacity of my C drive. In Storage under Settings, it shows
OS (C:) - 225 208 GB used 17.1 GB free.
I've eliminated apps and dumped my Recycle Bin and have Storage Sense on, but my free space isn't improving. Is there a device I can add to my laptop to increase my C drive Free space?
Hey, I'm 89 years old, and would like to hang on to my old trusty Inspiron 5379 for a while longer!
Thanks,
Mark
Kflash08
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April 12th, 2024 17:28
You will need to either replace the M.2 SSD with a higher capacity, or add a 2.5" SATA drive.
If you add a 2.5" SATA drive, you can simply move your personal files over to it and use it as secondary storage, assuming that your personal files total up to at least several gigabytes in size.
If you replace the M.2 SSD with one of a larger capacity, you will need to either reinstall Windows, your programs and your personal files from a backup, or use a specialized program to clone all the contents from the existing SSD over to the new one. The former requires additional hardware in order to connect both the new and old drives at the same time, one being connected to a USB to be used temporarily for the clone.
Seeing that your system doesn't support M.2 NVMe and is SATA only, you can simply drop in a higher capacity 2.5" SSD and clone the contents over to that drive. When the clone completes, power down the computer and remove the M.2 drive. This will allow the computer to reconfigure itself and boot off the 2.5" SSD instead.