Question SSD Hard Drive Questions

[dwaindebathtub]

Ok, I'm thinking about migrating my desktop and laptop to the SSD drive and I have a few questions.

1) After doing some research I've noticed that most SSD drives are SATA III. Will there be a significant performance loss or data bottleneck if I attach this to a SATA II system?

2) I've also noticed, after trying to find out about these drives, there seems to be a rather high rate of pre-mature disk failure. After reading many retailer's web sites comment sections and complaints, it seems these thing are failing quite often at around 5 to 8 months after installation and it doesn't seem to be limited just to the cheaper drives. It seems to be happening across the board. Is this as common as it seems? If so then I'm not sure I want to give up reliability for speed.

3) Which is the best SSD drive that isn't the most expensive. I've also noticed there is a huge market availability for "used" SSD drives as well. Is there any reason I should not consider a used as opposed to new drive. Is a used SSD drive less reliable for some reason? Just curious because used drives are quite a bit less expensive than new ones.

Lastly, what is the best freeware program available for cloning a hard drive to migrate to the new SSD?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

What is your specific motherboard? (and the rest of your components)

A typical SATA III SSD in a SATA II port is somewhat slower than if it were in a SATA III port. But still substantially faster than whatever HDD you're currently using.

"pre-mature disk failure " ? No. SSD's are generally better than HDD's. As long as you don't buy a bottom of the barrel drive.


We'll get into the cloning thing and procedures later.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

1) Using a sata 3 6gb/s ssd in a sata 2 3gb/s system will limit your transfer speed to 3gb/s. It will still be much faster than a sata hdd using a sata 2 interface.
2)what drives are you looking at?
3) I would reccomend a kingston sa400 drive for cheap. You can get a 240gb sa400 for $29. A nother option is an 850 evo or crucial mx500 for a little more money. All of the ssds listed are very fast at sata 3 or sata 2 speeds.
4)i would use macrium reflect for cloning a drive.

 

[dwaindebathtub]

I'm leaning toward the Crucial MX500 because from what I've been able to ascertain this drive has the best overall reliability rating that I can find but yes it's a bit more expensive than others. I am thinking of a 500GB drive for the laptop because it only has 1 drive and a 128GB drive for the primary in my HP Elite 8000 SFF desktop because I also have a 1TB storage drive as a secondary. My Acer laptop has been upgraded from an Intel P6200 2 core @1.8 GHz and 4GB of RAM to an Intel i5 480M @ 2.66GHz 4 core processor and 8GB of RAM. I honestly don't see much performance improvements on the laptop even after all those upgrades. I was quite disappointed. The HP 8000 has been maxed out with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.0GHz which is the fastest processor the system can use, 16GB of 1333MHz RAM, EVGA GT730 with 2GB of VRAM, a USB 3.0 add on card and running 5G WIFI adapter and a 32" 1080 TV as a monitor. The desktop is blazing fast but the 500GB mechanical drive is the only thing holding this system down.

 

[USAFRet]

The Crucial MX500 is a top rank drive. I have one.

Cloning procedures - slightly different for the desktop and laptop.


For the laptop...do you have an external drive that can hold the entirety of the current laptop drive?

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect

2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"

3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage

4. When done, power OFF.

5. Swap the 2 drives

6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.

7. Recover, and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2

8. Go, and wait until it finishes.

9. That's all...this should work.

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For the desktop:

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Specific steps for a successful clone operation:

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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:

Can't delete extra "Healthy (Recovery Partition)"s and "Healthy (EFI System Partition)" social.technet.microsoft.com

Ask questions if anything is unclear.

-----------------------------

 

[USAFRet]

And for your earlier question regarding used drives?
Don't. You have no idea how much it was used or abused.

 

[dwaindebathtub]

Yes I have a 1TB WD MyPassport external drive. Thanks for the info. Will reference this when I make the conversion.

Got it on the used drives!

What size USB drive will I need for the rescue drive?

 

[USAFRet]

Yes I have a 1TB WD MyPassport external drive. Thanks for the info. Will reference this when I make the conversion.

Got it on the used drives!

What size USB drive will I need for the rescue drive?

Pretty much any USB stick you'll buy today will work.
8GB min, just to be safe and for future use.

 

[dwaindebathtub]

OK so I ran the Macrium free program. It made the drive image but now it wont restore it? I cant find a file anywhere with the .mrimg extension?

It's showing me C:
cd drive d:
USB drive e:
PQservice f:
new volume g:
system reserved h:
boot x:

what the hell am I supposed to do now????

 

[USAFRet]

OK so I ran the Macrium free program. It made the drive image but now it wont restore it? I cant find a file anywhere with the .mrimg extension?

It's showing me C:
cd drive d:
USB drive e:
PQservice f:
new volume g:
system reserved h:
boot x:

what the hell am I supposed to do now????

You'll have to show me a screencap of what you're seeing.

Did you make a "clone" or an "Image"?