y500p Replacing HDD with SSD

I bought the y510p with 1 TB HDD and 24 GB SSD Express Cache. I plan on replacing the 1 TB HDD with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD 512 GB. I also plan on reinstalling windows 8 (requesting disks from Lenovo) versus cloning my HDD to SSD. My question is what should I do with the 24 GB SSD? Based on the options below, what would you do and why?

1. Remove 24 SSD completely (losing 24 GB is not that big of deal to me). If I do that, after my reinstall, do I want to remove Express Cache Program and do I need to disable Intel Rapid Storage? Anything else I should do?

2. Keep the 24 SSD but use as storage only. If I do that, after my reinstall, do I want to remove the Express Cache Program and do I need to disable Intel Rapid Storage? Also,would I format the SDD prior to OS install to get rid of express cache setup?

3. Keep the 24 SSD running as express cache? Any considerations I need to take into account during reinstall of the OS.

My goal is to make it as clean as possible, trying to minimize potential issues during the HDD to SSD replacement and reinstall.

I appreciate your input. By the way, meant to say y510p in the title of the post.

 

I replaced the 1TB drive with a 500GB Samsung 840 (not the Pro) SSD. I cloned the drive using Acronis 2013 and it worked perfectly. I re-partitioned the 24GB drive and used it to install a couple of Steam games just to use the space.

I didn't do anything with any caching software, assuming without the 24GB SSD to access it wouldn't do anything. The system boots in under 10 seconds and has been stable to since I purchased it. It's a gaming only PC so I just play the 4-5 games I play and that's it. So I don't worry about battery life and a bunch of tweaking. As long as the games I play work, that's all I care about.

Cheers,

 

Thanks Panzer06 - I have read a few posts that align to your approach. A few questions -

Do you think express cache is running in the background "trying" to cache to your 24GB, or do you think repartitioning the SSD disabled the service.
Did you repartition and format the 24 SSD?
Any reason you did not use the Samsung version (Samsung Data Migration) for cloning?

 

I just checked and the service is running. I stopped it and disabled it to see if it makes any difference. (So far I don't see a change but I'll watch it for a few days)

I did repartition the 24GB SSD drive and formatted it NTFS

I already own Acronis and am familiar with it and more importantly I didn't even know the Samsung drive came with any software.

Cheers,