SSD Drive upgrade

[TrevorW]

I recently was told that if you want a signifcant improvement in PC performance simply replace your boot HD drive (c;) with a SSD (solid state drive)

As these drives are now relatively cheap 250gb for around $150 I was wondering has anyone replaced their existing hard drives with SSD and if so was it difficult to do

:question::thanx:

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Trevor,

My work computer was running like a slug on the standard HDD.

I put a 128GB SSD in it and EVERYTHING runs like a new computer now.

Reboots for example, used to take 10 mins or more previously, now they take 35 secs.

DO IT!

Cheers

Chris

[iceman]

Definitely one of the best upgrades to my laptop, too.

Combined with a re-install of Win 7 and 8GB RAM my laptop feels like new! Just wish I had more disk space.

[alistairsam]

I do have friends who have upgraded to SSD's and have seen very noticeable improvement.
Another friend upgraded the HDD of 6 Mac's of all his family and friends and they're all heaps faster. I'm sure others have done the same here.
Biggest factor with hard disks are seek times, if there is heavy paging or a lot of disk I/O, 7200rpm or higher and hard disks with low seek times make a huge difference, so SSD's with much lower seek times would make application response faster.

[bojan]

Hmm
I have Dell D540, and it is quite slow to boot.
But I want to keep XP on it...
Would copying of HD image to new SSD be adequate?

[Tandum]

Yes you can image it but ssd drives are sata only. If your laptop is so old that it has an ide drive, toss it out. Also XP does not know about trim functions on an ssd drive but I have had an ssd drive in an xp machine at Yellow cabs for a year or more without an issue.

My tests show they are no faster when transferring large files. They work best when accessing lots of small files as an operating system does. So maybe a small ssd for the C: drive and a big old traditional drive for long term storage, if your using a desktop that is or your laptop takes 2 drives.

[multiweb]

Are there any overheating issues with SSD vs. standard HD?

[mithrandir]

Disk space is why I haven't done it. This laptop has a 500G and a 700G disk. To replace them is over $1K of SSDs.

[Tandum]

As far as I can see they run cooler and draw less juice.

[multiweb]

Cool - ideal for a laptop then.

[alistairsam]

I found this IDE SSD that should work for old laptops that use IDE drives. Was thinking of getting it for a HP laptop that I have
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160884014386?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX: IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_500wt_ 1204
There could be others.

[MrB]

I have two laptops now with SSD drives in them, Work & Home. My Netbook will get one soon too. I love it when computers boot in tens of seconds rather than minutes.

My work laptop has two drives, one 256GB SSD for the OS and working files, plus a 1TB platter drive for storage. With 16GB RAM and a 3rd gen i7, this thing is a bullet.

My home laptop has a 160GB SSD, this was my first SSD. With only 4GB RAM and an ageing Core2Duo, the SSD made a huge improvement.

My Netbook has 8GB RAM and a 7200 rpm HDD, so it's not too bad, but I will soon upgrade the home laptop to a 256GB, the Netbook will get the orphaned 160GB.
I also plan to pull the useless optical drive from my home laptop and put a decent sized platter storage drive in it's place.

[tlgerdes]

My lappy has a 250G SSD as primary and 500G hybrid for secondary. The hybrid has both SSD (4GB) and spinning disk (500G), the ssd part acts as large cache.

[Tandum]

Never seen one of them before, my suppliers certainly don't have them. I wonder how fast they would be when pata has a max burst speed of 133mbs compared to 6gbs with sata 3?

[TrevorW]

Apart from the drive anything else needed or does it simply fit the existing HDD connecter

[Tandum]

Whats the make and model of your laptop? And is it win7 or xp?

[TrevorW]

PC not laptop Win7

[steve000]

Its easy as pie, just reinstall windows afterwards. Recommend Win7, as XP is funny at times with SSD's Seriously do it.

Not that long ago you would raid 4 drives together to get around 200mbs read speed, this would make windows very snappy.... Well a sata 2 SSD easily hits 200mb or more, sata 3 SSD's (for brand new systems) hit 550mbs...

The speed difference is verrry noticeable.

I own an EEEPC, these things are slow, with mechanical hdd windows took around 1 min to load, with SSD im browsing the net from a cold start in under 30 seconds.

[steve000]

Also, most makers provide a bracket to fit standard pc cases, the cables are the same. good brands are Intel, Corsair and OCZ however I have had an OCZ fail.

[PCH]

Hey Steve,

are you able to comment on the overall reliability of SSDs? I'd never really considered them, but having read this thread they may well be the answer to my prayers for my slow home pc.

Generally, conventional HDDs have been extremely reliable, with failures quite rare. Are SSDs less than, the same as, or more, reliable than regular HDDs in your opinion?

All the best,

[TrevorW]

Hi Paul

Being solid state (ie: no moving parts) you'd hope they'd be as reliable

here is an article about them

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

[troypiggo]

Been going thru this recently for server upgrade. Recommended brands were Intel/Crucial, and was given a huge "steer clear" of OCX brand.

[MrB]

Too true Troy. After reading lots of reviews and feedback on forums etc, I also went with Intel. OCX seems to have (had? it was a while ago) a pretty high failure rate.

[chrisp9au]

I replaced my laptop hard drive with a 120GB SSD about 6 months ago, it made a big difference to boot times and program start up times. Mind you, a fresh installation of Windows also helped I'm sure.

At the same time I replaced the laptop DVD drive with the old 250GB HDD. That now holds all my documents. Bought the SATA adapter on ebay. I now have my DVD drive as a USB connected external drive that I hook up when needed, which isn't very often. Again, I bought the external DVD case on ebay.

Windows 7 Home 64bit operating system and all programs are kept on the SSD, and all documents, downloads etc. are kept on the HDD It all works very well, the only problem that occurs infrequently seems to be associated with viewing video clips online. Youtube clips seem to have some sort of caching issue with the SSD and cause the system to hang requiring a restart. I suspect it's some kind of caching issue, but it's not a huge problem for me.

The 2nd huge improvement for my laptop setup was to connect a 2nd monitor, a 19" flat panel, setup in portrait mode. The monitor had been sitting in the shed unloved since I exchanged my desktop for the laptop. I initially wanted to use it for documents in MS Word and for reading ebooks in portrait mode, but I find I use it for practically everything these days. I use a program called DisplayFusion Pro V4.1 to manage multiple monitors. Love it! Laptop screens are OK, but the wide screen effect isn't the best for browsing the internet etc. Just having two applications working side by side without having to tab between them is great.

Cheers :thumbsup:

Chris

[Tandum]

Chris, If I read this right, you found a carrier to plug a hard drive into the DVD slot on a laptop. Is that right?

[MrB]

Robin, as mentioned in an earlier post, I will be getting one too.
Here is a link picked at random only as an example, I have not used this exact product from this seller, please shop around.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SATA-2nd-HDD-HD-Hard-Driver-Caddy-12-7mm-Universal-CD-DVD-ROM-Optical-Bay-/300677757750?pt=US_Drive_Bay_Caddie s&hash=item4601ca7b36

[chrisp9au]

That's right Robin, just do a search for a hard drive caddy for your model of laptop, I seem to remember there were plenty around. A quick search on ebay reveals there are currently over 5,000 of them up for grabs!

Cheers :thumbsup:

Chris

[rogerg]

Trevor,

Regarding your question of how easy it is.

I bought a 512GB Crucial M4 with data transfer kit (cable). I did not reinstall windows, the cable and associated program simply cloned my old HDD contents to the new SSD. Highly recommended approach unless you have need to spend the time re-installing and reconfiguring operating system. For my 320GB HDD it took about 3 hours to clone, I then switched the drives over (15 minute procedure for my laptop), and it's worked fine since.

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-Solid-Transfer-CT256M4SSD2CCA/dp/B004W2JL84/ref=pd_cp_pc_2

I see Crucial have desktop PC kits that include a mounting bracket and cable, and they have the transfer cable available separately I think.

Regards,
Roger.

[tlgerdes]

I did the same.

If you dont want to buy from eBay, I had a good experience with these guys in the US. Took about 2 weeks for delivery.

http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2&zenid=b6cf2b2d96cb6bd0389f39ca115b7 000

[SkyViking]

I've had an SSD as my boot drive with Win7 on for around 3-4 years now. It's an OCZ and is lightning fast and I never had any issues.

Interestingly, Win7 still boots as fast as the first time, about 30s. With disk drives I always found it got slower and slower...

Just do it, you'll never look back.

[icytailmark]

only problem with SSD drives is when the drive gets over half full the performance drops a massive amount. Make sure you only put your OS and not much else on it.

[g__day]

I'm on my fourth SSD in a year - the last three failed! OCZ and Kingston.

So my thoughts:

1. They are very fast - especially if you have a SATA3 port ~ 500MB/sec or 210 for a SATA2 motherboard port.
2. Don't save critical data to them that you can't afford to lose; all my mail and critical business data and home photos etc goes on normal HDDs
3. Buy from a supplier with a great returns policy. My last SSD drive died and no issues to get money back, which was enough to get a Samsung 260GB SSD which has a 3 year warranty, was larger than the failed 120GB Kingston Enterprise class drive (which had only a one year warranty) and was $45 cheaper :)

They do bring a lot of spark to a 2-3 year old system; just store programs there - have backups and retain critical data on HDDs.

[TrevorW]

Purchased a Intel 120gb SSD HD 2 yr warranty

now all I need to do is sort out where a noise is coming from replaced the CPU fan as well but still noisy

[fauxpas]

Just bought a cheap Asus 14" notebook... As an entry level notebook I threw a 120GB Patriot SSD and 2 x 4GB RAM in it... Boot time without Asus bloatware is 45sec... With all the software I want on it the boot time is 55sec... With antivirus it pushes the boot time to over a minute...

Still very good considering those entry level notebooks take so long to boot you go make a cup of coffee while you're waiting...

Playing video files is super quick, no delay from clicking the file to the player playing the video... Previously there would be a 5+sec delay with the timer going while the HDD churns away...

There's no noise because there's no moving parts and it runs cool. So expect better battery performance...

MSY is the best place for components... I got a Sata III drive just to future proof it... Sata II 128GB drives are $60 - Insane!

A $60 SSD and an increase of RAM to 4 or 8 GB will do your lappie wonders...

SSD Drives http://msy.com.au/default.jsp?category=15

Laptop RAM http://msy.com.au/default.jsp?category=5