Acer Aspire R7-571 disk partition help

I installed Windows 10 and simply installed in on the C: drive. All partitions are still the same as it came from the factory two years ago. Now I am trying to figure out which partitions are still in use and for what exactly.

The approx 24 GB mSATA SSD drive (Drive 1), is that still used by Windows 10? I think it was under WIndows 8/8.1, but what for exactly I do not know. Was it for the factory WIndows 8 recovery partition, which was obsolete once Windows 8.1 came out?

Basically I am trying to figure out what is still used, and what I can get rid of.

Also, can the SSD mSATA in Drive 1 be replaced with a larger SSD drive and used as a new C: Drive running Windows 10? If so, I might then used the 500 GB drive (Drive 0) as a data drive (D Smiley Happy . Or do I have to use Drive 0 as the C: drive for the OS?

I'm not making any drastic changes, just planning a possible upgrade at the end of the year.

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IronFly

on HDD

C: is the OS partition and the bigger one

EFI partition is used to boot

then you have 3 recovery partitions

the bigger is the Acer erecovery that's used to create Acer erecovery USB or disks

one is from windows 8 and one from windows 10

on SSD there are 2 primary partition and it looks strange since normally is used as a cache drive not for installation due to its size.

rufaz

i am not sure about r7-571 internals. i think they're the same with r7-572?? i dont know, really. (apparently, they are similar, check youtube vid below)

i am on r7-572g. (i5 4200u & gt750m). it came without SSD, only with 1tb HDD. however, there is an empty MSATA slot. i put in 128gb msata and perform windows recovery installation on the SSD. now, SSD is the main drive, C:

there are 2 ways to do it, cloning, or recovery method. i chose the recovery one. below is the simple guide to recovery method. not detailed.

1. make recovery USB drive

2. install in MSATA SSD, remove HDD for a while (apparently, i had an issue, it will boot up to HDD eventho SSD is there, hence, i removed it for a while)

3. do the recovery thing (installation of windows into the SSD)

4. done installation, shut down, reinstall HDD.

5. done. all up & running. ready to move the files from HDD to new SSD.

anyway, since your r7 571 has an MSATA SSD in it, 24gb, serving as a cache.... upgrading to full fledge SSD as main drive, will not make much change in term of performance. the 24gb ssd cache keeps your frequently used data in it. hence, access speed on your current device would be almost similar to full fledge SSD. however, your upgrade plan is always more superior than your current setup.