Recommended SSDs around 500GB capacity

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Pretty much as the title. I'm looking for a new SSD of around 500GB and ideally under £175 so recommendations appreciated thanks :) Also where would be the best place to buy one from, Amazon, Overclockers, eBuyers, novataech or some other place?

TIA.
 
Crucial. ct500bx. Delivered £134:39. Just fitted one into ageing Macbook. Transformed it..
 
use their tool/app to confirm which

if in doubt you will find a Utube vid on how to install it …… OK on MBP but gets tricky on iMac

buy a caddy from amazon if needed, (MBP - replaces super drive)
 
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use their tool/app to confirm which

if in doubt you will find a Utube vid on how to install it …… OK on MBP but gets tricky on iMac

buy a caddy from amazon if needed

That's right. For my imac I had my local mac repair guys fit it after I cloned my HDD. Only charged £50
 
use their tool/app to confirm which

if in doubt you will find a Utube vid on how to install it …… OK on MBP but gets tricky on iMac

buy a caddy from amazon if needed
Cheers Bill, I should have said I'm using a pc currently with win 7. I'm ok at installing kit too, just not up to date with what's current and what's not. :)
 
Cheers Bill, I should have said I'm using a pc currently with win 7. I'm ok at installing kit too, just not up to date with what's current and what's not. :)

They seem really good value for money these days and has been said, transform the older machines
 
As a matter of interest how do you guys use the SSD and existing hard drive set up

1). SSD - Obviously for the OS
2). SSD - everything and use the original HD just for back up
3). OS plus selective apps, say LR and CS

did you just clone the existing HD or start with a fresh install of the OS etc.,

or what?
 
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They seem really good value for money these days and has been said, transform the older machines
They have come down in price and gone up significantly in capacity since I last installed my current one. Technology never slows down, but I do :(

As a matter of interest how do you guys use the SSD and existing hard drive set up

1). SSD - Obviously for the OS
2). SSD - everything and use the original HD just for back up
3). OS plus selective apps, say LR and CS

did you just clone the existing HD or start with a fresh install of the OS etc.,

or what?
Currently use mine as OS and apps - data is on other drives. Once I get a new SSD I'll use Acronis to clone the OS and apps to that and use the old SSD as scratch disk.
 
Samsung have just released a 16TB SSD. Whilst this is an enterprise-grade part which will be unlikely to cost much less than £5,000, it will have the effect of bringing down SSD costs across the board.

The only reason I haven't switched away from the rotating rust volumes in my PC (the OS and apps are on the aforementioned Crucial MX200) is cost.

The sooner I can be rid of moving storage, the better.
 
I just bought a Samsung Ultra II 480GB SSD for my MBP. Thought (naively perhaps) that it would come with cable for cloning drive but it didn't. Waiting patiently for a cheap dock to arrive from Amazon. I've found a couple of tutorials online and SuperDuper seems to be recommended for the cloning process - anyone got experience of using this or something else? Happy to listen to any tips etc. Thanks.
 
I just bought a Samsung Ultra II 480GB SSD for my MBP. Thought (naively perhaps) that it would come with cable for cloning drive but it didn't. Waiting patiently for a cheap dock to arrive from Amazon. I've found a couple of tutorials online and SuperDuper seems to be recommended for the cloning process - anyone got experience of using this or something else? Happy to listen to any tips etc. Thanks.

Brian, Isn't there a migration tool in the Apple OS - I will ask my son-in-law what he used and get back to the thread
Google the problem
 
Thanks Bill. I was going to follow this guide which recommends the SuperDuper software and I had this one bookmarked too (also recommends SuperDuper) for the detailed pics!
 
SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are both good, depends on your budget/feature needs.
 
did you just clone the existing HD or start with a fresh install of the OS etc.,

or what?

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 :)
 
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 :)

I hadn't read that Tel, so you now have me suitably concerned also! My MBP is just a portable/backup machine that i use when away from home. All my serious editing and storage is on my iMac, backed up via Time Machine. My MBP HD capacity is 750GB but I'm only using just over 200GB of that, so I reckoned the 480GB drive would be ample for my purposes.
 
Thanks Brian, I probably should add, when I mean It is not good to clone, I think it just meant it's not as effective, I doubt it could do any harm to the drive, just probably doesn't work as efficient as a fresh install, but like I say just things I've read, it may just all be BS :)
 
When I had a PC I always found a noticeable speed increase with a fresh install, even after reinstalling all the previous programs. I suppose it was a case of all the extraneous crap being taken off plus more efficient use of available drive space. I've no doubt the iMac will go the same way eventually but it's currently running fine. As I've said, the MacBook doesn't get used nearly as much and so there's not much crap on it. I think I'll try the cloning method first and see how it goes. It will be a lot less hassle.
 
I used a raided SSD system for my OS, app and most used storage. And use my networked HDD for total storage and a large HDD for total back up and a 1TB HDD for pc backup (raided SSD)

I am paranoid with data loss. And also I hate slow speeds. Raid 1 gives me twice read speed. And I top it up with 32GB ram so I am good for those hungry pano stiches or multi layer edits.

Backup/clone there are plenty out there that are free. I used Amoi backupper, completely free and flawless. Though I also use a partitioning aoftwar e along that also.
 
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!
 
I bought a crucial 500gb SSD a few years ago for my old Dell Inspiron. The difference is truly amazing, startup from shutdown is about 15seconds, programs load very quickly...you probably guessed, I like it.
Best upgrade for a computer in my opinion. If I bought a new computer and it didn't have an SSD, that would be my first upgrade.
 
As a matter of interest how do you guys use the SSD and existing hard drive set up

1). SSD - Obviously for the OS
2). SSD - everything and use the original HD just for back up
3). OS plus selective apps, say LR and CS

did you just clone the existing HD or start with a fresh install of the OS etc.,

or what?

Cloned my existing drive using Disk Utility. Made sure it booted from it, then replaced HDD.
 
so cloning is OK, fine, no problem, but a fresh install of the OS is better

maybe I'll try to fit an SSD to my iMac - but your have to take the "glass" screen off to get access, the screen is held on by magnetic strips and you have to pull it off with "suckers"
 
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so cloning is OK, fine, no problem, but a fresh install of the OS is better

maybe I'll try to fit an SSD to my iMac - but your have to take the "glass" screen off to get access, the screen is held on by magnetic strips and you have to pull it off with "suckers"

Yeah. That's exactly why I took mine to the repair shop and have them install it. Way too scary for a klutz like me.
 
so cloning is OK, fine, no problem, but a fresh install of the OS is better


Could I just do a fresh/new install of the OS onto a new SSD, then just migrate/clone all my other programs ( PS. LR. ONONE e.t.c ) to the SSD with the new OS install ? that way everything could be tested first before knowing if I need fresh installs of everything, presumably then the OS and other programs could stay on the old hard drive till I was happy that everything is working correctly on the new SSD, or am I talking crap, lol :)
 
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Could I just do a fresh/new install of the OS onto a new SSD, then just migrate/clone all my other programs ( PS. LR. ONONE e.t.c ) to the SSD with the new OS install ? that way everything could be tested first before knowing if I need fresh installs of everything, presumably then the OS and other programs could stay on the old hard drive till I was happy that everything is working correctly on the new SSD, or am I talking crap, lol :)
Tel, I'll be using Acronis to clone mine. It will clone from the old to the new and leave the old as it is, i.e. if the poop hits the fan you still have your working original HDD (or SSD). I would expect most other cloning software to work the same way. Acronis does offer some choices when cloning but as I haven't done this yet, I'm not sure exactly what they are.

Reading the link provided by David (@Pookeyhead ) it seems the Samsung Evo is the one to go for, hopefully new drives now will come with the firmware fix for the performance drop issue ....
 
I would still prefer a fresh install on the OS though, just looked at that Samsung EVO 850 on Amazon, it has 882 five star reviews, and is only £132.50 for a 500gb, so yes it does look good :)
 
I'm likely to be swapping drives this week so if you want to wait I can see if the Acronis s/w allows moving of apps only, though I will be cloning the OS too.

I've been looking at my data usage and am now thinking 500GB for OS and apps will be too much so may go with 250GB or so. I have other drives for data and will use the old SSD as a scratch disk ... just read this review of the Samsung pro http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2014/07/01/samsung-ssd-850-pro-256gb-review/9 and amazon have them at £103 so ...
 
I'm likely to be swapping drives this week so if you want to wait I can see if the Acronis s/w allows moving of apps only, though I will be cloning the OS too.

I've been looking at my data usage and am now thinking 500GB for OS and apps will be too much so may go with 250GB or so. I have other drives for data and will use the old SSD as a scratch disk ... just read this review of the Samsung pro http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2014/07/01/samsung-ssd-850-pro-256gb-review/9 and amazon have them at £103 so ...

Yes please do keep us updated Paul, 250gb would probably be enough for me, but for the extra 30 quid I think I would just go for the 500gb.
 
When I've istalled both my SSDs I've just cloned the boot drive and swapped over. Yes, a fresh install will speed things up fractionally. But how many times would I need to save 0.2s to compensate for the 6 hours it would take to reinstall all my software?

In the early days doing a clone may have caused problems with partition aligment. I believe that decent clone tools allow for this. And Paragon do an alignment tool if there are problems.
 
So just to clarify all of this, you clone your OS and all of your programs from your existing hard drive to the new SSD drive, then you format your old hard drive (after backup), and just use it for other folders i.e. pictures videos and documents downloads etc, but no other programs, assuming this is correct, whenever you download a new program it goes straight to the new SSD along with the rest, so how does your PC differentiate between both hard drives ?
 
It has been a while since I last cloned a C drive, and from the documentation with Acronis it still works as I remember. Basically when the cloning process is finished the PC shuts down. This allows you to remove the original drive so the new one which is or should be bootable is the only bootable disk available. Restart the PC and it should come up as the C drive, only it is the new disk not the old one ... once you are happy that all is well you can re-use the old drive. You would put it back in and format it - on the old HDDs there used to be jumpers and such but I don't think they use them now. I'll note the steps when I do mine, which will probably be later this week.
 
I'm likely to be swapping drives this week so if you want to wait I can see if the Acronis s/w allows moving of apps only, though I will be cloning the OS too.

I've been looking at my data usage and am now thinking 500GB for OS and apps will be too much so may go with 250GB or so. I have other drives for data and will use the old SSD as a scratch disk ... just read this review of the Samsung pro http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2014/07/01/samsung-ssd-850-pro-256gb-review/9 and amazon have them at £103 so ...

Hi I did the same thing a year ago cloned to a samsung 256 gb
I have almost filled it tho and would advise going for a larger one
I'm about to swap over to a 1tb one
 
It is quite straightforward when we did my MBP

the most difficult thing was removing and replacing 4 or 5 small screws that secure the CD drive and then the new SSD - just very fiddly
also be careful when disconnecting the connectors
You should really disconnect the battery .. but I didn't

when all is done - use Disk Utility to clone the existing hard disk to the new SSD ...... can take a few hours to copy all the stuff over

then set the new SSD as your start up disk and see how everything works before deciding what to keep on which disk

you should see an immediate increase in speed ..... it is very noticeable ...... well it was with my mid 2010 MBP

I bought a caddy from amazon so that I could use the CD drive that I took out ...... it connect to the MBP with a USB cable that is supplied with the kit

If I can do it anyone can
 
So just to clarify all of this, you clone your OS and all of your programs from your existing hard drive to the new SSD drive, then you format your old hard drive (after backup), and just use it for other folders i.e. pictures videos and documents downloads etc, but no other programs, assuming this is correct, whenever you download a new program it goes straight to the new SSD along with the rest, so how does your PC differentiate between both hard drives ?
When I did this, I replaced my system volume (i.e. C: drive). Acronis TrueImage (the software I got with the SSD) cloned my existing system volume onto the SSD and marked the SSD as bootable.

On restarting the system, which was now booting off the SSD, the old disk was still visible, but instead of being drive C: it was drive G: (or whatever). Although it had "Windows", "Program Files" and "Users" directories, on it, these directories no longer had any special meaning to Windows, so I could just delete them or reformat the disk. As it turns out, my old disk was knackered and out of warranty, so I chucked it away.

Long story short, Windows doesn't identify disks by name (or even drive letter); these are labels used by people and the file system, respectively. As far as Windows is concerned, they have an invisible (to you) identifier instead.
 
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