SSD in my laptop - wow!

RogRog Posts: 1,780
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Got hold of a Toshiba 128GB SSD, cloned my old hard drive using the free Toshiba copy software. Put the SSD in and all worked first time. My laptop is 4 years old and only SATA 2, however it now flies. The improvement is astonishing and I would recommend an SSD upgrade to anyone.
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  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    it's the seek times that offer the real speed improvement more than the transfer speeds so even on the slower bus you get 90%+ of the performance increase.

    have you enabled trim? you need to enable trim if you have cloned an installation from an HDD.
  • RogRog Posts: 1,780
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    flagpole wrote: »
    it's the seek times that offer the real speed improvement more than the transfer speeds so even on the slower bus you get 90%+ of the performance increase.

    have you enabled trim? you need to enable trim if you have cloned an installation from an HDD.

    I think I need to learn about trim and maybe you can help! I read on the web that I should change the BIOS from ATA mode to AHCI. I did this but got the Blue Screen of Death, so changed back to ATA mode. Further reading indicates that, if you do a clean install, then you can enable AHCI before the install process, however if you clone an old drive then it is not possible to successfully enable AHCI, as the content of the drive was made in ATA mode. Any thoughts?
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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  • fmradiotuner1fmradiotuner1 Posts: 20,476
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    I have one in my PC and takes less than 10 sec to come on so it does save a lot of time.
  • RogRog Posts: 1,780
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    noise747 wrote: »

    Thanks for that - I'll give it a try soon
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    The time that SSDs become standard, this will probably be the equivalent of people seeing full high definition for the first time.
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    Rog wrote: »
    Got hold of a Toshiba 128GB SSD, cloned my old hard drive using the free Toshiba copy software. Put the SSD in and all worked first time. My laptop is 4 years old and only SATA 2, however it now flies. The improvement is astonishing and I would recommend an SSD upgrade to anyone.

    When the prices come down enough I will.
  • RogRog Posts: 1,780
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    zx50 wrote: »
    When the prices come down enough I will.

    I thought it was £65 well spent!
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    Rog wrote: »
    I thought it was £65 well spent!

    How much storage do you get for that? I'd be after a 250 or 500GB one. £40 would be better. £65 isn't that bad though.
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    Rog wrote: »
    I think I need to learn about trim and maybe you can help! I read on the web that I should change the BIOS from ATA mode to AHCI. I did this but got the Blue Screen of Death, so changed back to ATA mode. Further reading indicates that, if you do a clean install, then you can enable AHCI before the install process, however if you clone an old drive then it is not possible to successfully enable AHCI, as the content of the drive was made in ATA mode. Any thoughts?

    you can certainly enable AHCI after you've installed windows. you just need to make a quick change before you do.

    it doesn't massively mater if you **** up because you can switch it back.

    there is a fix it here:
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

    manually or with the fix it make the change to windows, then in the bios.

    you can then google how to enable trim.
  • RogRog Posts: 1,780
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    flagpole wrote: »
    you can certainly enable AHCI after you've installed windows. you just need to make a quick change before you do.

    it doesn't massively mater if you **** up because you can switch it back.

    there is a fix it here:
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

    manually or with the fix it make the change to windows, then in the bios.

    you can then google how to enable trim.

    Thanks - will try the easy method first:)
  • RogRog Posts: 1,780
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    zx50 wrote: »
    How much storage do you get for that? I'd be after a 250 or 500GB one. £40 would be better. £65 isn't that bad though.

    128GB. If you want 500GB, then you are looking at serious money:(
  • neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    Rog wrote: »
    128GB. If you want 500GB, then you are looking at serious money:(

    About the £250 mark for a 500gb SSD drive and the price is falling.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    While I do like my SSD, I am a bit worried about reliability, I did have problems when I first had it and a firmware update was suppose to fix it, but that failed. I sent it back to Corsair who sent me a new one with the update and i have had no problems with it since then. But having a 120Gb which just got the Os and a few bits of software on is a bit different to larger drive with more important data on.


    I do have a couple of mechanical drives in my computer and apart from a Seagate I once had, I have never lost any info from one.

    Sure backing up is important, but I think I will wait for a while before I would get a larger SSD.

    I am going to put my Linux onto the SSD and windows onto the other drive at some point. Saying that Linux works faster on a normal drive than windows does on a SSD.
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    Rog wrote: »
    128GB. If you want 500GB, then you are looking at serious money:(

    Hmm... The least I'd want is 250GBs. I'll just have to wait.
  • jzeejzee Posts: 25,498
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    I'm not seeing the improvement in start up times some claim, on my machine you have to wait for USB to be enabled in order to logon.
  • OrbitalzoneOrbitalzone Posts: 12,627
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    Having had SSD's for over a year in two desktops at home, I now find reloading Win7 on a mechanical hard drive desktop (parents pc) so labourious to install, wait, whirrr, wait, click, whiirrr, etc

    The sooner mechanical drives are binned the better, sure some people hate to see them go (non SSD owners) but like VHS, we'll all be glad to see the back of them when they finally go to hardware heaven.
  • s2ks2k Posts: 7,410
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    jzee wrote: »
    I'm not seeing the improvement in start up times some claim, on my machine you have to wait for USB to be enabled in order to logon.
    Might be worth updating the drive firmware and your motherboard BIOS (make sure you do a backup beforehand). Also check that it is set to use AHCI and that it is plugged into the fastest SATA port type on the board.

    With my Crucial M4 I get to the logon box in just a couple of seconds. Originally it was so quick the Windows 7 logo animation wouldnt appear at all but it briefly shows up now as I added an extra mechanical hard disk for backups.
  • alan1302alan1302 Posts: 6,336
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    The sooner mechanical drives are binned the better, sure some people hate to see them go (non SSD owners) but like VHS, we'll all be glad to see the back of them when they finally go to hardware heaven.

    I'd be more than happy to have one but they are very expensive for a decent sized one and I can't justify the cost.
  • emptyboxemptybox Posts: 13,917
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    I'm not sure they're mature enough technology yet?
    Having to worry about updating firmware on a hard drive is ridiculous. They should just work.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    Having had SSD's for over a year in two desktops at home, I now find reloading Win7 on a mechanical hard drive desktop (parents pc) so labourious to install, wait, whirrr, wait, click, whiirrr, etc

    The sooner mechanical drives are binned the better, sure some people hate to see them go (non SSD owners) but like VHS, we'll all be glad to see the back of them when they finally go to hardware heaven.

    Mechanical drives will be with us for a while yet, the cheapest way to store large amount of information. i don't see what difference it makes to you, if your parents computer is that bad, then they either got old machine or a old hard drive.

    There is a go between, a hybrid, a mechanical drive with a SSD bolted on, I have got a seagate one which have got my Linux on at the moment. It works ok, not as fast a SSD, but faster than a standard drive.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    emptybox wrote: »
    I'm not sure they're mature enough technology yet?
    Having to worry about updating firmware on a hard drive is ridiculous. They should just work.

    It is not just SSD drives that had to have firmware updated, Seagate drives went through it a couple of years back or so.
    A lot of the updates for SSD units are for performance issues, a mate got a crucial a while back and with out the update it would have ran slower, since the update it have been fine, the same with my corsair.

    Another mate just got a corsair and no update needed, so things are improving.
  • jzeejzee Posts: 25,498
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    s2k wrote: »
    Might be worth updating the drive firmware and your motherboard BIOS (make sure you do a backup beforehand). Also check that it is set to use AHCI and that it is plugged into the fastest SATA port type on the board.

    With my Crucial M4 I get to the logon box in just a couple of seconds. Originally it was so quick the Windows 7 logo animation wouldnt appear at all but it briefly shows up now as I added an extra mechanical hard disk for backups.
    Nowhere near as fast that on mine, my USB also powers off as the Windows logo comes up then takes 6 seconds to come back on so I can enter the login passcode.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    jzee wrote: »
    Nowhere near as fast that on mine, my USB also powers off as the Windows logo comes up then takes 6 seconds to come back on so I can enter the login passcode.

    Very strange, I can use the keyboard to log in as soon as the screen came up, not that I log into windows now, it boots straight into windows.
  • OrbitalzoneOrbitalzone Posts: 12,627
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    No firmware issues with my Samsungs, the technology isn't exactly brand new and untested but sure it's early days compared to mechanical hard drives that have been around for many decades.

    I still use mechanical drives for storage but for boot drives there's no excuse to not have an SSD (other than if a laptop with only 1 drive space)

    The point I was making about my parents PC with traditional hard drive is that it is very obvious when loading Win7 fresh onto it compared to doing the same task with an SSD computer, install is much slower, updates take much longer to do, it's not a slow PC but it's slow compared to my SSD equivilent desktops by a long shot. It's identical to another of my desktops so I can easily compare SSD against non SSD and the difference is massive in so many more ways than just boot times.

    When you think how most other electronics has gone, ie away from mechanical to electronic, the hard drive and the DVD/Blu ray are really the exception to the rule but those days are numbered for sure. There's a tipping point that we're very close to where it won't be cost effective to make mechanical drives when an SSD is just stamped out of a PCB making machine. Once development costs are reduced down to pennies per device it'll almost certainly cost more to make a hard drive with motor and platters, materials wise.

    This is not a dig at anyone but you can tell who owns SSD's and who don't :P
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