SanDisk Ultra II SSD 960 GB Sata £159

Gator

down from 230

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Sata-inch-Internal/dp/B00M8ABHVQ?ie=UTF8&ref_=gbps_img_s-3_8407_618f6acd&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

The_Conductor

Gator wrote: »

down from 230

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Sata-inch-Internal/dp/B00M8ABHVQ?ie=UTF8&ref_=gbps_img_s-3_8407_618f6acd&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

£174 for me- is that the VAT pushing it up?
Still remarkable value for a terrabit SSD.........

Atlantic Dawn

I'm seeing it as £159.99, it's only valid until midnight, must be a deal of the day special.

Wez

I've a 500GB SSD sitting on the hall table, yet to be used. And I've bought this one too.. Damn BA!

Slydice

Also seeing 159.

Stared at that webpage for a while before convincing myself I don't need that drive ... yet.

pah

got this for similar price during cyber Monday deals. cant fault it at all.

bogman

£199.24 this morning...

The_Conductor

Wez wrote: »

I've a 500GB SSD sitting on the hall table, yet to be used. And I've bought this one too.. Damn BA!

Any interest in selling the 500Gb- and if so- at what price?

IrlJidel

Price dropped today to £149.99

UsedToWait

IrlJidel wrote: »

Price dropped today to £149.99

Well spotted - have been waiting for a bargain SSD..

The 480gb is down to 74.99 from around 92
I had it in my basket and only noticed because of your post IrlJidel..

(That's for the 480 MB/sec rather than the 550MB version of the SanDisk Ultra 2, which is still 99)

dodzy

UsedToWait wrote: »

Well spotted - have been waiting for a bargain SSD..

The 480gb is down to 74.99 from around 92
I had it in my basket and only noticed because of your post IrlJidel..

(That's for the 480 MB/sec rather than the 550MB version of the SanDisk Ultra 2, which is still 99)

Not detracting from your post UTW but for anyone thinking about upgrading from a regular HDD, the former will still result in a massive difference.

UsedToWait

dodzy wrote: »

Not detracting from your post UTW but for anyone thinking about upgrading from a regular HDD, the former will still result in a massive difference.

Oh fo' sho' - I was waiting on the 480gb to drop below 80, and would have bought it today had the deal on the 960 not tempted me to splash the extra cash..

As it happens, the computer I'll be installing it on only has SATA 2, so I'll not get the full benefit of this SSD in any case, but the drive can come with me to the next laptop, so it's future-proofed a bit..

GBX

Before I take the plunge on an SSD, how do I know if it would be A: Work in my laptop or B: Be worth it as its a few years old?

Its an Acer Aspire 5332

Alanstrainor

GBX wrote: »

Before I take the plunge on an SSD, how do I know if it would be A: Work in my laptop or B: Be worth it as its a few years old?

Its an Acer Aspire 5332

That laptop has a SATA disk in it, so this will work. It will make it blazing fast. Even if it's old, it's still worth it. You can remove the SSD when the laptop dies.

The only slight issue might be that your new laptop (whenever you buy that...) might not even have a SATA drive in it. But this isn't a huge concern tbh.

UsedToWait

Alanstrainor wrote: »

That laptop has a SATA disk in it, so this will work. It will make it blazing fast. Even if it's old, it's still worth it. You can remove the SSD when the laptop dies.

The only slight issue might be that your new laptop (whenever you buy that...) might not even have a SATA drive in it. But this isn't a huge concern tbh.

If this was the case, you could repurpose the SSD into an superfast external hard drive in an enclosure, so everything wouldn't be lost..

rustledjimmies

GBX wrote: »

Before I take the plunge on an SSD, how do I know if it would be A: Work in my laptop or B: Be worth it as its a few years old?

Its an Acer Aspire 5332

You could almost give yourself a new laptop by upgrading the CPU too for super-cheap. Like this for ~€17:

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-2-Duo-T9600-SLG9F-2-80GHz-6MB-Cache-1066MHz-CPU-Processor-/311510558686?hash=item488779e7de:g:AOoAAOSw1S9WesBP

GBX

rustledjimmies wrote: »

You could almost give yourself a new laptop by upgrading the CPU too for super-cheap. Like this for ~€17:

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-2-Duo-T9600-SLG9F-2-80GHz-6MB-Cache-1066MHz-CPU-Processor-/311510558686?hash=item488779e7de:g:AOoAAOSw1S9WesBP

Cheers for the replies folks. Is this an easy fit/swap out?

The_Conductor

GBX wrote: »

Cheers for the replies folks. Is this an easy fit/swap out?

Depends entirely on the laptop- but I've changed processors in a bunch of HP Elitebooks and a Lenovo Z570 and G570s this week. The longest job took less than ten minutes- the fastest- around 2 minutes. No BIOS or other updates needed.

I actually found it faster to change the processor than the hard-drive (wholly ignoring ghosting the SSDs etc).

rustledjimmies

GBX wrote: »

Cheers for the replies folks. Is this an easy fit/swap out?

You'd have to look up your exact model's tech specs for ensure you're buying a supported CPU (the one I linked might potentially not be compatible). Latest BIOS would need to be on there too.

Then there's the physical layout to consider. The last laptop I upgraded the CPU was an easy-peasy job where I just removed the back panel, a few screws to remove the heatpipes and half a twist to free CPU. 2-3 minute job...

And sometimes you have to practically disassemble the whole bloody lot and just don't bother

The_Conductor

The Lenovo the OP has- is pretty straight forward.
One tip- be careful you're taking the screws holding the fan (and heatsinks) out- and not the screws holding the fan together. If you're not careful you could actually disassemble the fan, rather than taking it out........

Other tip- use the smallest amount of thermal grease possible- it really is the case that less is more......

Alanstrainor

The_Conductor wrote: »

The Lenovo the OP has- is pretty straight forward.
One tip- be careful you're taking the screws holding the fan (and heatsinks) out- and not the screws holding the fan together. If you're not careful you could actually disassemble the fan, rather than taking it out........

Other tip- use the smallest amount of thermal grease possible- it really is the case that less is more......

The fella you're responding too has an old Acer.

I would be reluctant to do the processor upgrade tbh. The SSD will speed things up a lot, but the CPU upgrade probably wont make a whole lot of difference for basic day to day tasks. Unless you're rendering video or doing processor intensive tasks I wouldn't bother.

It is relatively easy, but there are risks doing this on a laptop.

GBX

Thanks for the replies.

Capt'n Midnight

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I would be reluctant to do the processor upgrade tbh. The SSD will speed things up a lot, but the CPU upgrade probably wont make a whole lot of difference for basic day to day tasks. Unless you're rendering video or doing processor intensive tasks I wouldn't bother.

It is relatively easy, but there are risks doing this on a laptop.

+1

do the research. some laptops it's just one screw to expose the CPU / memory and then 4 to take the fan off. Other laptops you have to take the whole base off.

It's worth upgrading the CPU if it's a step change.
Like getting extra cores, or more than 25% clock speed or features you really want like better virtualization or improved graphics.


consider swapping the DVD for a hard drive bay, that way you can keep both drives in the laptop

The_Conductor

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

consider swapping the DVD for a hard drive bay, that way you can keep both drives in the laptop

If you're doing this- make the SSD the boot device- its pretty much a pointless upgrade otherwise.

ibFoxer

The_Conductor wrote: »

Depends entirely on the laptop- but I've changed processors in a bunch of HP Elitebooks and a Lenovo Z570 and G570s this week. The longest job took less than ten minutes- the fastest- around 2 minutes. No BIOS or other updates needed.

I actually found it faster to change the processor than the hard-drive (wholly ignoring ghosting the SSDs etc).

I don't like ruining the thread, I was just wondering if a CPU can be changed on a Lenovo Z5070 or is an SSD the only speed boost option outside of EAM

The_Conductor

ibFoxer wrote: »

I don't like ruining the thread, I was just wondering if a CPU can be changed on a Lenovo Z5070 or is an SSD the only speed boost option outside of EAM

I take it you mean a Z570?
If so- it certainly can be changed- rapidly- it takes less than 5 mins to do.
Careful taking off the fan and heatsink- this model normally has dedicated graphics (which isn't upgradeable- unless you like soldering)- so you're effectively taking off two heatsinks, not one.

ibFoxer

The_Conductor wrote: »

I take it you mean a Z570?
If so- it certainly can be changed- rapidly- it takes less than 5 mins to do.
Careful taking off the fan and heatsink- this model normally has dedicated graphics (which isn't upgradeable- unless you like soldering)- so you're effectively taking off two heatsinks, not one.

No, definitely Z50-70. I think the CPU is soldered, although I'm not sure. But anyways, not the place for it. Cheers

The_Conductor

ibFoxer wrote: »

No, definitely Z50-70. I think the CPU is soldered, although I'm not sure. But anyways, not the place for it. Cheers

Ah- gotcha. The Z50-70 came with one of the following processors- i3-4030u, i5-4201u or i7-4510u (i.e. socket FCBGA1168). In all 3 cases- they are soldered to the motherboard- and not removable. It was a popular laptop in PC World here in Ireland- where they made a song and a dance about its dedicated nVidia GT 840m graphics chip (which also can't be upgraded).

You can put up to 16Gb RAM and an SSD in this- if you're so inclined- however, in the absence of an upgrade path for the processor- its an expensive upgrade- you could reasonably expect to get more bang for your buck by selling the laptop and putting the cost of the upgrade, alongside the component cost- towards a more uptodate second hand machine.

If your budget is limited- you could pick up a HP 8560p on ebay for 150-200- which you can even upgrade the graphics on if you so choose- it uses a range of ATi and nVidia cards on an MXM card- and even a reasonable second gen mobile quad core i7 processor- can be got for around a hundred quid.

ablelocks

£145.99 - deal of the day

wotzgoingon

ablelocks wrote: »

145.99 - deal of the day

Picked one up last night as soon as the deal went live. I was watching this SSD for a while.

GekkePrutser

It's deal of the day again, £139.99 this time!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00M8ABHVQ

Just ordered one myself, was looking for a big SSD and I kept missing the deals on these. Glad it went on offer again.

Mizu_Ger

I'll probably order one too. Does anyone know if this is suitable for an early 2011 15" MacBook Pro? I think Macs can be a bit picky with these upgrades.

jayjbe

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

I'll probably order one too. Does anyone know if this is suitable for an early 2011 15" MacBook Pro? I think Macs can be a bit picky with these upgrades.

Just installed and cloned in a Late 2011 17" Macbook pro. Super fast.

Note: The disk will not run off the optical drive SATA cable if you have converted this to a disk bay. Something to do with not supporting 6mb.

Talisman

jayjbe wrote: »

Just installed and cloned in a Late 2011 17" Macbook pro. Super fast.

Note: The disk will not run off the optical drive SATA cable if you have converted this to a disk bay. Something to do with not supporting 6mb.

With the MBP it's always best to stick the traditional hard drive in the optical bay and place the SSD in the hard drive slot.

GekkePrutser

jayjbe wrote: »

Just installed and cloned in a Late 2011 17" Macbook pro. Super fast.

Note: The disk will not run off the optical drive SATA cable if you have converted this to a disk bay. Something to do with not supporting 6mb.

Oh really, does the Sandisk absolutely require SATA-III (6Gb)? Most SATA-III drives just fall back to slower speeds. I even thougthe th SATA-III standard requires drives to support older standards too (they just won't reach their maximum speed of course but those are only peak values with sustained transfers)

Reason I'm asking is that I've just ordered it to use it in an Alienware X51 R1 which had only SATA-II (3Gbit). That would be awful of it didn't work. I checked online but couldn't find much about it.

I previously had issues with an 850Evo on this system as well but I'm pretty sure that SSD was just faulty as it did the same in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.

loki7777

Should work without any problems.

Mizu_Ger

Talisman wrote: »

With the MBP it's always best to stick the traditional hard drive in the optical bay and place the SSD in the hard drive slot.

I should have ordered an optical bay adapter for the old hard drive along with the SSD. I'll get one later.

Talisman

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

I should have ordered an optical bay adapter for the old hard drive along with the SSD. I'll get one later.

I got the cheapest one available on eBay last year - it cost €4 including free delivery from China. Delivery took 14 days and its the same product that is sold for £10-15 on Amazon.

Search eBay for "Universal Apple Macbook Pro optical bay caddy".

GekkePrutser

GekkePrutser wrote: »

Oh really, does the Sandisk absolutely require SATA-III (6Gb)? Most SATA-III drives just fall back to slower speeds. I even thougthe th SATA-III standard requires drives to support older standards too (they just won't reach their maximum speed of course but those are only peak values with sustained transfers)

Reason I'm asking is that I've just ordered it to use it in an Alienware X51 R1 which had only SATA-II (3Gbit). That would be awful of it didn't work. I checked online but couldn't find much about it.

I previously had issues with an 850Evo on this system as well but I'm pretty sure that SSD was just faulty as it did the same in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.

Update on this: I received it, installed it, and it works totally fine. So the SATA-II connection is not a problem.

Of course it will limit the maximum speed to 3 gigabit. But that doesn't really matter that much as the drive won't reach that kind of speed under normal usage anyway (with random access in small chunks). The "550MB/s" speeds are only reached in really specific scenarios with continuous access and for a short duration only.

In any case it's a huge upgrade over my WD blue drive!