Accessing old sata drive from Optiplex GX520

Question

Trying to help out a local dance studio that some friends are running.  Catch is they have some software specific to their business that is only installed on this old GX520.  As you can imagine, it is really sluggish overworking to try to run this dance studio software on top of Windows 10.  If they want to install onto another machine they will have to pay a chunk of change to get the software as they only offer an upgraded version of it.  I know enough about re-installing OS's and configuring software but I am trying to find a way to use the existing SATA hard drive from the Optiplex and boot from that on a significantly newer machine.  Is this kind of thing possible externally?  If I could boot it, would the bottleneck of the external pathway make for just as bad of performance then just using the old desktop?  Is there another way to deliver what I am looking for without a significant cost?  Thanks in advance for any help

redxps630 · Answer

Re: I am trying to find a way to use the existing SATA hard drive from the Optiplex and boot from that on a significantly newer machine.

If the OS on the old Optiplex is Win 10 which sounds like it is, it is possible to boot from it in modern pc as an internal boot drive.

not sure if you want boot from the old drive in new pc as an external HDD in a docking enclosure.

if OS is older like 7,8 or XP, very likely to crash on new pc

Re: Is there another way to deliver what I am looking for without a significant cost?

I would suggest use a 2.5 ssd to clone the hdd in Optiplex, then boot from the ssd in newer pc. 2.5 ssd is quite cheap.

bradthetechnut · Answer

I definitely suggest SSD for Win10 as red suggested. Restarts and updates are painfully slow on an HDD. Overall responsiveness is better on an SSD.

First boot in a new PC might be a little slower at first as Win10 gets adjusted.

Optiplex Desktops

Accessing old sata drive from Optiplex GX520

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