Recommended SSDs around 500GB capacity

TG. said:
Ok thanks Paul, look forward to your update :)
Click to expand...
Well ... that was easy!

I have Acronis true image installed which I use for managing backups and such so used this to do the cloning and am currently running Windows 7 Ultimate.

The steps were as follows:
1) Power down PC and physically install new SSD, you may need a 3.5" to 2.5" caddy, but you will need to have a free SATA port and lead and a power SATA lead (you can get Molex to SATA converters if needed).
2) Power up the PC up, Windows found the disk and installed the drivers.
3) I had to go into Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management in order to initialise the disk - it has to set the MBR. NOTE: I did not format the disk, though I suspect you could have done if you wish.
4) Open Acronis and go to Tools | Clone Disk, I chose manual, clicked Next and picked the Source Disk, i.e. the disk to clone from. Then Next again to pick the Destination Disk (this is your new one ;)) then Next again to choose the move method, I used proportional as there is only one partition to be moved. Clicked Next and then clicked Proceed. Acronis prompts to restart, if you don't restart it cancels (at this stage nothing has changed or moved). Clicking restart causes Acronis to copy a few files to the current C: and then restart the PC.
5) On restart it shows an Acronis boot environment and proceeds to clone the old C disk to the new disk. Once complete it shuts the PC down. The good thing here is that once completed both disks will be bootable and the old disk is unchanged, the new disk has an exact mirror of the old.
6) When restarting the PC go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from new disk and disabled booting from the old disk (this is easy, usually press the Del key when booting, but can sometimes be F2, F10 or F12 ...usually the Del key though ime). Find the boot options and tweak to suit. Save changes and let the PC start. NOTE if your old disk is an HDD then you will be in for a surprise with the SSD as it will boot mighty fast!
7) Once started confirm you are on the new disk by opening Explorer, right click on C: and choose properties, it should show the new disk size ...
8) Once you are happy everything is working as before you can format and re-use the old disk if required.

Took me longer to type this than do the clone btw ;)

ETA: I should add that I backed up the C: drive first and have a recovery disk - just in case. As it happens everything went smoothly without any issues at all, but better safe than sorry :)
 
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TG. said:
Also interested to know this, as I read somewhere it's not good to clone programs over to an SSD, and a fresh install is best, however I am using a windows 7 PC, so that may be different, got to be honest that's what's putting me off getting an SSD, as I have a quite few programs I would need to reinstall, and not sure how big an SSD I would need, I'm wondering if a 500gb would be enough, bit of a technophobe when it comes to this, any thoughts please :)
Click to expand...

I recently cloned my (Win 7) HDD with Macrium Reflect Free and loaded it onto my new SSD without any problems at all ... no lengthy re-installs and was able to take up where I left off instantly and also subsequently had a virtually faultless upgrade to Win 10.
 
gramps said:
I recently cloned my (Win 7) HDD with Macrium Reflect Free and loaded it onto my new SSD without any problems at all ... no lengthy re-installs and was able to take up where I left off instantly and also subsequently had a virtually faultless upgrade to Win 10.
Click to expand...
Upgrade to Win 10 is next on the list - it's sat there waiting for me now ...
 
PaulButler said:
Well ... that was easy!

I have Acronis true image installed which I use for managing backups and such so used this to do the cloning and am currently running Windows 7 Ultimate.

The steps were as follows:
1) Power down PC and physically install new SSD, you may need a 3.5" to 2.5" caddy, but you will need to have a free SATA port and lead and a power SATA lead (you can get Molex to SATA converters if needed).
2) Power up the PC up, Windows found the disk and installed the drivers.
3) I had to go into Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management in order to initialise the disk - it has to set the MBR. NOTE: I did not format the disk, though I suspect you could have done if you wish.
4) Open Acronis and go to Tools | Clone Disk, I chose manual, clicked Next and picked the Source Disk, i.e. the disk to clone from. Then Next again to pick the Destination Disk (this is your new one ;)) then Next again to choose the move method, I used proportional as there is only one partition to be moved. Clicked Next and then clicked Proceed. Acronis prompts to restart, if you don't restart it cancels (at this stage nothing has changed or moved). Clicking restart causes Acronis to copy a few files to the current C: and then restart the PC.
5) On restart it shows an Acronis boot environment and proceeds to clone the old C disk to the new disk. Once complete it shuts the PC down. The good thing here is that once completed both disks will be bootable and the old disk is unchanged, the new disk has an exact mirror of the old.
6) When restarting the PC go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from new disk and disabled booting from the old disk (this is easy, usually press the Del key when booting, but can sometimes be F2, F10 or F12 ...usually the Del key though ime). Find the boot options and tweak to suit. Save changes and let the PC start. NOTE if your old disk is an HDD then you will be in for a surprise with the SSD as it will boot mighty fast!
7) Once started confirm you are on the new disk by opening Explorer, right click on C: and choose properties, it should show the new disk size ...
8) Once you are happy everything is working as before you can format and re-use the old disk if required.

Took me longer to type this than do the clone btw ;)

ETA: I should add that I backed up the C: drive first and have a recovery disk - just in case. As it happens everything went smoothly without any issues at all, but better safe than sorry :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul that's great, very informative, I'm planning on doing this within the next couple of months, so any future updates from how the drive is performing please let us know, (I'm assuming you purchased the Samsung referred to earlier ? ) just one other thing as I mentioned before, did you find out if you could just do a fresh install on the OS and clone all other programs ? although from what your saying this is probably unnecessary if everything continues to run hunky dory :)
 
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My Startech USB to SATA docking station has arrived from Amazon so I'll maybe try the cloning and installation to my MBP this weekend. Think I'd rather keep my optical drive and just switch the hard drive over.
 
Lemaildetom said:
Just bought a Samsung EVO 850 500GB to put my OS on my laptop, only costed 120£ on ebay.
So also decided to had another one and just bought a 1TB of the same model for 220£ on ebay too.
I checked the speed that the constructor put on the box with a benchmark tool and it seems to be reel value, if i remember well around 500bit/s read and 450bit/s write or something close!
Click to expand...
+1for the Samsung Drive - improved my iMac makedly
 
I've used 2 Crucial SSD's in MBP's, a 256GB in my wife's and a 512GB in mine. In mine I took out the ODD replacing it with a carrier and a 1TB 7200 rpm storage drive. It works very well. With current SSD prices it's a no brainer. I always install a new OS, currently 10.10.5, then reinstall my applications and re setup my imap email accounts. All my browser favourites, calendar data and address book data all drops back into place when I log into iCloud. I also run Win 7 on a boot camp partition, but use only use to control an SDR transceiver, so it resides on an old 2008 MBP where it's quite snappy for my use.
 
Have tried crucials and oz had them both fail now trying the new samung after friends gave rave reports
 
TG. said:
Thanks Paul that's great, very informative, I'm planning on doing this within the next couple of months, so any future updates from how the drive is performing please let us know, (I'm assuming you purchased the Samsung referred to earlier ? ) just one other thing as I mentioned before, did you find out if you could just do a fresh install on the OS and clone all other programs ? although from what your saying this is probably unnecessary if everything continues to run hunky dory :)
Click to expand...
Sorry for the delay ... I did have a look, but could only see how to clone various folders.
 
Anyone know how big the difference is in the Samsung Evo, and Evo pro is in real terms ? as their is about a £54 difference for the 500gb Evo pro on Amazon
 
Another Vote for the Samsung Evo's, had 4 or 5 of them and all been perfect, where as the SanDisk ones i've had have all failed.

Currently running 3 Evo 120gbs across a few machines and they are all flawless.
 
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