I have a very excellent SSD which I removed from that system because I am certain that the Windows installer would fuck it up, and I did not want the hassle of trying to fix it. So I pulled it out of the box to keep it from harm, and the only media I had at hand at that moment was a WD SATA HDD. I thought it would be slow, not kill-me-now slow.

I do not "use an HDD" of course. It was improvisational.