Need advice transfering system to new computer build

[Old Man]

I couldn't find what I was looking for in a search, or perhaps just used the wrong search terms. I am building a new SFF computer and installing LMDE 12 x64 as soon as Update 4 is out in ISO, and dual booting with Windows7x64.

First - info on my Old computer. Dual boot with Kubuntu 11.10 x64 on hardrive 1 (@ 1TB - formatted ext4) and Windows 7x64 on harddrive 2 (@ 500GB formatted NTFS).

Second - New Computer - two new 60GB SSD to dual boot and hold system files for LMDE x64 (SSD1) and Windows 7x64 (SSD2). I want to reuse the harddrive 1 (1TB) as the data drive on the new computer, putting /home and swap partition for LMDE on it, and swap file and data for Windows 7. Windows 7 will only be used here for games.

Since I use my computer for my work, I want to keep downtown to as little as possible. I can install LMDE and Win7 on the two SSD to test to make sure everything is running prior to transferring the 1TB harddrive to the new computer. But can I move the /home and swap files to this drive afterwards and get rid of Kubuntu files without destroying the data already on it? Can I (and how to) use a partition manager to create an NTFS partition for Win7 on the 1TB drive? How big should these partitions be?

I also have two 320GB USB drives that I can use to backup and transfer files. I'm just trying to avoid hours and hours of downtime by reformatting everything if there is an easier way to do this.

What info did I forget to mention?

Thanks

[wayne128]

Well, each person has his own way of managing resources and backup their system and data.

I cannot say my method is suitable for you, because I have some habits and old experience on hard disk crash, lost of data, OS crash and so on.

Here is what I would do if I were in that situation.

1. Old computer, I shall dual boot or multi boot on one drive, 500G drive.
500G is a lot, really.. Linux just need 10G-30G to run well .
Afterall it can access Windows file also and thus I would let Linux access data partition used by windows.

2. New computer,
1TB to be simply a data drive, format with ntfs, Windows and Linux both can access.
Win OS stays with its SSD, move data to 1TB drive

I shall not bother to use /home on 1TB.
Insteads I just let root and home within SSD and data to be at 1TB drive. Save me some works.

Linux OS stays with its own SSD, it can access 1TB data also.

Then , the two USB drives shall be used for
3. one USB drive used for backup Linux OS or clone Linux OS , so that is something is wrong, I can reinstall Linux OS from clone.
As Linux OSes are less than 60G, just allocate 60.xG partition to clone Linux OSes,
the rest I shall use for back up data in ntfs format

4. another USB drive used for backup all data, also, I would clone the win OS 's SSD .

As I say it is just my way of thinking , for reference only.

[Old Man]

Thanks for the reply wayne128.

Interesting and I hadn't considered using one drive for all data without separate partisions for Windows and Linux. With your method of formating the 1TB drive using NTFS, do I have to worry about defragging the hard drive? If I do, is there any danger defragging with Win7 utilites?