Posted on 11/30/2018 11:36:57 AM PST by dennisw
Two things to look at when it comes to SSDs:
1) Cycle life
2) Refresh rate
HDDs are cheap and have exponentially longer storage life. SSDs are fast, but the data has to be refreshed (refresh rate). Otherwise it is lost. SSDs also have a limited number of times that a memory location can be written (cycle life). Granted SSDs are larger then advertised to hide some of this and both refresh rates and cycle lifes are increasing. They still can not go long term without being powered-up, or left in service indefinably. The best solution is a hybrid of both HDD and SSD in a single drive. HDDs are going to be around for a long, long time.
This statement sounded much crazier 20 years ago but doesn't sound so crazy now.
8 terabyte drives are now $138.
Just now purchased a 2TB Seagate at Staples for $59.
I really do have one of these. My dad passed it down to me many years ago and it was way out of date then. One day I hope to find a museum that will want it.
BTW; I too like Newegg. I find the prices to be better than Tigerdirect.com.
Lol. Can you surf the Net with it?
I concur with the laws of probability. So far, I’m lucky. My next one will be WD regardless of the Amazon reviews. Been thinking about Samsung too because it’s cheap.
That’s pretty big for a tip calculator. I bet Bob Saccamano could get you a deal on a smaller one.
2TB? I can hardly download enough porn and malware to fill up 500gb.
Amazing increases in HD and SSD storage capacity but then what gets written to them gets larger and larger such as movies.
There are some deals at The Exchange for active duty and veterans.
https://www.shopmyexchange.com/s?Dy=1&Nty=1&Ntt=hard+drive
SSDs are getting cheaper.
You might be interested in my recent adventures.
Have a 120GB Intel SSD w/ Win 7 Pro as my system disk.
Bought a 512GB Intel SSD from Newegg. Physically installed drive in system. Initialized and formatted drive.
Used Todo cloning software (free) to copy 120GB disk to 512GB disk.
Reset BIOS so that 512GB drive was first in boot order.
Booted system. Haven't looked back. Have tons and tons of free space on 512GB system drive.
good cloning software takes care of all of those issues.
there’s quite a few free ones, but i’ve always used Acronis True Image, and it’s never failed me. cloning is actually kind of complicated, so i prefer a professional piece of software to do it, rather than freebees.
generally, you’ll want to install Acronis True Image (https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/) and make a standalone bootable CD and then uninstall Acronis True Image, because ATI is a gigantic piece of bloatware if you leave it. You might be able to get away with the 30-day free version if it’ll let you make the bootable CD ...
you’ll also need a USB-SATA adapter cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E4VHSYG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
you’ll first want to format the new drive using the adapter cable as an NTFS partition before you do anything else. use the Disk Manager’s defaults.
leave the formatted disk plugged in, insert the bootable ATI CD and boot your PC from the CD ... different models have different ways of doing that
once standalone ATI is running, go to utilities section and start the clone function ... whatever you do, DO not use the Automatic Cloning method: it will destroy your original drive ... instead, use only Manual cloning mode.
You SHOULD see two drives in the list when you do that: your original drive and the new USB one ... the new one will be empty and the original will have data in it ... select the original drive as the source drive ... then select the new drive as the destination drive ... be triply CERTAIN you get this part right or you’ll destroy your original drive!!!
next step is to select the cloning method. For a novice, it’s best to the select Proportional method, though this will waste a bit of the new drive by unnecessarily slightly expanding any of the other partitions (like the restore partition and the diagnostics partition) that might be on the original drive
at this point, you’re ready to start the clone operation. this can take quite a while ... make sure your PC is plugged into to a power source
when the clone is done, shutdown the PC and unplug the cloned drive
at this point, swap the cloned drive for the original one ... if you have a desktop, you’ll need to buy a mechanical adapter because desktops used 3.5” drives, and SSDs come only in the 2.5” laptop form factor ...
after swapping, your PC SHOULD boot up and all will be well ...
btw, not only will your PC have more drive space with a 500GB SSD, but it will be lightening fast with an SSD compared to a mechanical HD ... in fact, cloning an HD onto an SSD is by FAR the best way to speed up your PC (second best way is to add more RAM)
about 30yrs ago, a 1GB 8” drive from Sun Microsystems went for $10K though weighed 150 pounds including the power supply and was mounted on wheels.
I’ll look into that, and I appreciate it. Lenovo laptop, nice piece overall, but lenovo is bios unfriendly in general. Don’t want you removing their secret chinese spyware or something. Will check it out.
It’s a thinkpad 530, upgraded by computer king through amazon prior to delivery. Better drives, more memory, same warantee. $2k 5yrs ago, for business. Have docking station and 3 monitors via displayport. Overall good investment, but 5yo ssd is full and I don’t trust it much longer, though the diags say it’s ok...
Thank you for the great detailed instructions. I know it’s an easy thing to completely screw up lol, and I could do just that. The details are great. Appreciate it!
Where can they be purchased. Haven’t found it
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