7 + 2 Steps to add a SSHD to your existing (HDD) storage.

So I have a 3 year old gaming rig. It had an HDD which was getting slower and slower the more it filled and the older it got. My boot up was getting too slow for comfort. Since I didn't have a budget to buy an SSD and also since I needed more storage, I came across an SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive). For those people who aren't aware of the hybrid drive can click on this link for more details.

https://www.lifewire.com/solid-state-hybrid-drive-83345

This is basically a guide to install an SSHD to your existing setup. I haven't found many guides for SSHDs so I thought I could share this here

1. Remember your cables - So first, you need to make sure you have spare SATA and power cables which match the ports on your SSHD. I went for a Seagate 2 TB 3.5" Firecuda. It has the same ports as a normal HDD.
2. Connect cables properly - Connect the SATA and power ports to the motherboard and PSU respectively. The SATA port is usually the shorter one next to the longer power port. You can reference your current hard drive ports to accurately find out the same. A diagram is attached to this article to help you with the ports.
3. BIOS Identifying the SSHD - Once the ports are attached, you start the computer and enter BIOS which is usually by pressing F12 at the motherboard logo screen that pops up as soon as your computer boots. Here you can check whether the new SSHD has been recognized by the system or not. It might happen immediately and you may have to reboot to make the system identify the hybrid drive.
4. Boot options - You will have the options of booting up the SSHD over the HDD in your system which, in my opinion, is a good practice as hybrid drive would only get faster with usage. To do that there's an option named 'Hard Disk Drives BBS Priorities'. Select Boot #1 as your SSHD and Boot #2 as your HDD once inside the option.
5. Disk Management - Then reboot and start Windows as normal. From your start menu, type disk management and click on it to go to the Disk Management window. There you will be able to see unallocated SSHD as a drive. You may have to initiate the drive and then you will right click and select New Simple Volume and the hard drive will eb active.
6. Migrating OS to SSHD (Optional) - This next step is optional but recommended. Since OS will boot up faster on SSHD than a HDD, you cn migrate your OS to SSHD. Now you download a free software named EaseUS. The link is- https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/migrate-os-to-ssd.html. Note that you need to migrate the whole HDD to the new SSHD (which will need the SSHD storage to be larger than the current HDD storage) and not just one partition since that didn't migrate the OS in my case. Just follow the steps given in the link and wait patiently as this may take time but it is eventually worth it.
7. Booting Up from SSHD (Optional) - Once migration is done, switch off your computer and unplug your old HDD and use the same ports to plug into the new SSHD. Start the computer once again and if the migration was done correctly, the OS will boot up from the SSHD. If not, then repeat the migration process once more. It will boot up as long as you migrated the whole HDD and not just one partition.
8. Use HDD as Secondary Storage - These last two steps are actually tips rather than guides hence the '7+2 steps'. Now if you did migrate the OS to your faster SSHD, you can format the HDD and use it as a secondary storage device which will simply add to your storage rather than simply discarding the HDD.
9. Don't Partition the SSHD - Last but not the least, try not to partition the SSHD since the SSD in it is of small capacity and will not function optimally if it had to process programs through partitions.

I hope this helps someone like me who had to watch numerous videos before self installing the SSHD to my gaming rig. I am very happy with the new SSHD and although it is not as good as an expensive SSD, it still comes quite close performance wise on repeated applications and gives you a ton more storage.

Good luck with your setups.