Best SSD for Boot Drive

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cpugeek21

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Jun 22, 2012
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I have a 128GB Intel 520 SSD (almost 5 years old) as my boot drive, and it's been running out of space recently, to the extent that my computer has been lagging slightly (roughly 6GB left).

I'm on the market looking for a reasonably priced SSD, that will not break the bank. Most importantly, it has to be reliable. I know SSDs are generally much more reliable than HDDs, but the reason I went for an Intel one in the first place was because their reliability (at the time, anyway, not sure about now) was among the best. And true to their promise, this SSD did not give me any trouble at all.

The capacity I'm looking for should be 500 / 512GB, and a plus would be if it has Data Migration Tools (i.e a OS cloner), like the Data Migration tool that Samsung has? Not too sure about this. An alternative would be a recommendation for a free OS cloner. Have heard about such software, but I'm not too sure if it's free or not. I don't want to go through the process halfway before it stops me and prompts me for payment.

Faster speeds would be great, of course, but since SSDs are generally faster than HDDs, and I'm not a pro gamer or hacker whiz, I don't mind mid-range ones, so I'm guessing those newer PCIe (NVMe / M.2) SSDs should be out of the question (Again, correct me if I'm wrong)

So, to sum it up, here are my requirements in order of decreasing importance:

1) Reliability (can't stress this enough)

2) Ease of migration (I'm willing to pay a bit more if there is a fuss-free process to migrate / clone all the data)

3) Price

Thanks, and I look forward to all your recommendations.
 
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How old is your computer or more precisely what chipset is on the motherboard?
If its Z97 and later you should be able to use NVMe ssds as boot drives.

Samsung EVO ssds are famous for their reliability, performance and low prices.

Newegg is selling the Samsung 860 EVO 500gb (SATA) for 114 USD
and Samsung 970 EVO 500gb (NVMe) for around 200 USD

the bundled migration software with samsung ssds is easy to use
 
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Crucial MX 500, Samsung 850 or 860 EVO
250GB or 500GB.

Cloning is free and easy.
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe as necessary.
Delete the 450MB Recovery Partition, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 
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Wow, thanks so much. You just saved me a whole lot of unnecessary stress. I would have beat myself up if I bought an NVMe SSD, cause I'm running the Z77 chipset.

Hmm...the samsung one sounds good. Are Intel SSDs still as good and reliable as in the past? Or Samsung SSDs are better in terms of value?
 
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Thanks for the step-by-step instructions, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Do you mind explaining a little more in detail what this 450MB recovery partition is about? I read the link but I can't really make sense of it.
 
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I believe the only reason why you should consider Intel is when you need something even faster than the NVMe but Intel Optane is also much more expensive and needs much newer chipsets than your Z77

So yeah, for many years now Samsung is pretty much the best choice but I've heard WD has also released some really good and cheap 3D Nand ssds.
Like the WD Blue 3D Nand 500 GB SATA which is 119 USD on Newegg


Samsung 860 EVO vs WD Blue in this review:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3253630/storage/samsung-860-evo-review-tlc-nand-ssd.html
 
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I see, I've been looking around and I realised that I'm confused. M.2 is the form factor, and NVME is the technology. This might be slightly unrelated to my questions, but I hope you can answer them nonetheless.

1) As you pointed out, my chipset does not support NVME. However, would it support M.2 in general?

2) I see that there are M.2 SATA drives, as well as NVME M.2 drives. What's the point of M.2 SATA when the bottleneck itself is SATA? Wouldn't people just choose to go for the normal 2.5 inches SATA drives instead?
 
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Price and performance are the same between a 2.5" SATA III SSD and the m.2 SATA III SSD.
The m.2 SATA drive leaves out the cables, for a somewhat cleaner look.

And, some motherboards may have 2x m.2 ports, but only 1 is NVMe capable and the other is SATA capable.
 
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it's funny that you are asking me about m.2 slots because I recently created a thread on here asking if I could use Samsung 970 EVO (which is a NVMe M.2 ssd) on my Asus Z87-K motherboard as a secondary drive and the answer was no but it could work with adapter. I also found an old thread about this:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2839021/ssd-pci-adapter-worth.html

It seems it really depends on what pci-e slots you have available on your motherboard. for the z87-k its:

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1

which means the 970 EVO wouldn't be able to read/write at it's maximum speeds

So i guess the answer to your question (and my own question) is that you should forget about m.2 ssds and even if you use an adapter it would probably have the same performance as SATA ssds.
 
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