SSD options - various sizes + prices

vicwatson

The Continental Op wrote: »

Some people format others hang on to the disc at least for while as it's a full backup.

Is it as simple as plugging in the usb and “format”?

loki7777

vicwatson wrote: »

Is it as simple as plugging in the usb and “format”?

Yes.

The Continental Op

loki7777 wrote: »

Yes.

Normally. But worth looking at the disk in Windows Disk Manager first and checking if there are any system or repair partitions that can be deleted to give you more disk space.

vicwatson

Thanks great advice

The Continental Op

Another small bargain with added potential. This time a cable I can recommend for upgrading your HDD to SSD or upgrading to a larger/faster SSD.

The great thing here is that the cable allows you to use a free version of Acronis True Image so you can use the cable to clone your old drive to any new drive. Crucial drives also have a free version of Acronis True Image that only works with Crucial drives so this cable allows you freedom to use any combination of drives and the software.

Sabrent USB 3.0 to SSD / 2.5-Inch SATA I/II/III Hard Drive Adapter (EC-SSHD) £5.24

I paid £8.99 for the same cable 3 years ago.

Johnny Storm

The Continental Op wrote: »

The option in the software to use is to Clone the drive.

That way anything on one physical drive is copied to the other. If you have windows 10 you will have a hidden system partition needed to boot the computer and Cloning copies all that.

The drives don't need to be the same size you can clone from a larger drive to a smaller one provided the amount of data on the larger disk is less than the size of the smaller disk.

Even if it fails (very rare) you still have the original drive you can put back.

Thanks to The Continental Op for the very helpful info.
Just for other people who might be trying the same thing's info it is not always 100% smooth sailing.
I ran into a problem which seems to be that my original HDD is "dynamic" and that Acronis free software wont clone it.
I'll probably do a clean install of Windows (more thanks to The Continental Op for instructions!). I think the only downside to that might be missing some OEM drivers - I'm sure I can then those from the OEM website.

The Continental Op

Johnny Storm wrote: »

Thanks to The Continental Op for the very helpful info.
Just for other people who might be trying the same thing's info it is not always 100% smooth sailing.
I ran into a problem which seems to be that my original HDD is "dynamic" and that Acronis free software wont clone it.
I'll probably do a clean install of Windows (more thanks to The Continental Op for instructions!). I think the only downside to that might be missing some OEM drivers - I'm sure I can then those from the OEM website.

Unfortunetly you are correct about not being able to clone Dynminic disks. Worthwhile people checking in Disk Manager if the disk they want to clone is a Basic Disk or Dynamic Disk

From Acronis website https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634



Almost all the upgrades I have done have been from slower mechanical HDD's on old laptops to SSD's and I've not yet seen a Dynamic disk in that senario.

I did spend many hours on one machine I was giving away to someone which failed to boot after cloning (tried iirc about 6 times) turned out to be a driver issue. The problem was that the original HDD didn't need the SSD driver to boot as there was no SSD drive. When I eventually installed the latest motherboard software before cloning everything went smoothly.

Edit> Aomei backuppper claims to do dynamic disks. The free trail version has the Clone function disabled but I have seen fully functional offers occasinally. I've just tried the key at https://www.techno360.in/aomei-backupper-pro-free/#gsc.tab=0 which while out of date enables my trial version - seems legit and not a pirate site?

Mango Joe

Thanks for this OP.

Does anyone know why these are capped at 2 per Customer?

Seems to be a new think Amazon are doing... It's very annoying.....

Wouldn't you think a retailer of this size would be happier to sell 10 of these at roughly the same shipping cost?

It's confusing and irritating!

ozmo

There is a new type of bitcoin that uses ssd space rather than cpu power- that is hoovering up all the drives- so its good amazon limit to two drives.

For cloning - cloning from a harddrive to ssd is easiest- but may result in a not as fast pc. Last time i looked at it there were two issues…

One is the fact that ssd sectors are slightly off from old harddrives so you could end up requesting two sectors to get one sector of data.

second is that not all services are needed anymore(like disc defrag and various prefetching ) a fresh install of windows will detect this and not enable them.

The Continental Op

There are no issues I have come across from cloning except failures due to my own stupidity (needed motherboard driver installed to get SSD driver installed). Windows 10 recognises a SSD drive as soon as you connect it and the Defragment option switches to the Trim option. If that doesn't happen you can still change it manually https://www.systoolsgroup.com/how-to/disable-enable-ssd-trim-function-windows/

The Continental Op

Just keeping the thread going with...

PNY CS900 960GB Internal SSD Series 2.5 SATA III £71.73 Delivered

(note link may take you away from this thread, sorry).

Good price from a decent make but still just a bargain basement SSD with average performance. Note no cloning software licence with it.

Noticed there is still a limit on number you can buy this time its 3.

dubmick

Anyone ever use an enclosure with FireWire and an SSD for an extra drive? I presume using with usb 2.0 would be a waste as speeds would be throttled.

The Continental Op

Assume you don't have USB 3 or anyway to add USB 3 and we are talking about an Apple or maybe a Sony laptop?

Should be fast enough if you have one of the newer Firewire 800 or 900 connections but an older Firewire 400 would be about the same as USB 2.

dubmick

Actually it’s thunderbolt 2 not Firewire and actually do have USB 3 on my iMac. I thought it was only 2.0 but just looked up the specs.

The Continental Op

If you can find a suitable adapter then Thunderbolt 2 is supposed to go at 3 times the speed of USB 2 so worth a try.

I've read a few reviews of the one adapter I can find and users are reporting problems with iMac and speeds no better than USB 2 to so perhaps not 😟

ozmo

If its an older laptop you can get a replacement dvd drive that is actually an empty shell that you can put the ssd drive into. I had one - and it was ok..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DEEPFOX-Enclosure-Mounting-Bracket-Compatible/dp/B07VYPY6WP/ref=asc_df_B07VYPY6WP

If its a desktop - For best performance - esata is the best - usb is terrible for small files but a cheap 5euro esternal esata port added to a desktop pc runs at top speed.