Replacing HDD with SSD

shaun_from_Africa

I have a PC that is mainly used for web surfing, and although it's not the fastest in the world, the spec is more that good enough for its intended purpose.
However, I think that the HDD is on the way out (it's about 5 years old) as it occasionally make a humming noise (bearings possibly?), so I'm going to replace it.

As the price of SSD has dropped greatly in the past few years, I was thinking of getting one of these to go in there as the computer does take a fair while to start up. The HDD is 150GB but only about 40GB is used and there are no partitions on the drive.

I can get a 120GB SSD for about £70 but I was wondering about cloning the HDD that is fitted.
I read somewhere that when cloning a drive, it is best if the replacement drive is the same size as the original and I was wondering if someone could let me know if I should expect any problems with what I intend doing.

As only about 40GB is currently used, I can't see why there would be a problem, but I just wanted to make sure before I go ahead and order it.

The PC in question is running XP pro with a 2 core 2.66Ghz processor and 4GB of RAM.

Johnmcl7

There shouldn't be any issue cloning to a different sized drive as long as it has the capacity for the amount of data you want to transfer, the software should handle the partition resizing as needed when restoring to the SSD.

I'm assuming the hard drive is sata so you shouldn't have any issues with drivers either.

John

jblackmore

I'm no expert, but I thought there were issues with XP and SSD, basically SSD's can 'wear out' through frequent rewrites, and XP uses lots of temporary files.
May not be an issue for normal use, and newer SSD's are good for many more 'cycles' and have better warranty, but something to look into.

closed

a reinstall should cure the slow boot, lots of things hum, it could last another 50 years - £70 goes someway towards a new machine.

prowla

Get Macrium Reflect free.

Install it on your hard disk, attach you SSD (either using an internal SATA connection in your PC or via an esternal SATA-USB interface), and clone it. Swap the SSD for the HDD and keep the HDD in case it goes wrong.

I had an OCZ SSD fail on me quickly, but the Crucial one this PC is running has been going for a while.

Johnmcl7

jblackmore wrote: »

I'm no expert, but I thought there were issues with XP and SSD, basically SSD's can 'wear out' through frequent rewrites, and XP uses lots of temporary files.
May not be an issue for normal use, and newer SSD's are good for many more 'cycles' and have better warranty, but something to look into.

XP doesn't support TRIM so you have to rely on the SSD's own garbage collection methods which aren't usually as good and can mean the OS will slow down over time. There are various changes that can be made to XP to reduce disk use when it's not needed. I've run non-trim SSD's and XP installs with SSD's and it's not been a big issue particularly given the low cost of SSD's now (the first XP SSD I was using was a 1.8in 32GB SSD which I think had an rrp of £800 at the time).

John

shaun_from_Africa

a reinstall should cure the slow boot, lots of things hum,

The humming is definitely coming from the HDD as I've taken the side panel of the PC case and it's then very clearly the drive making the noise.
It only started a couple of weeks ago and it does seem to be getting worse over time.

I did a complete reinstall a short while ago and whilst it did improve the startup time, it still takes a good 2 two and a half minutes from pressing the power button to having the PC fully up and running and on the internet.
At that time I followed the advice found on this forum about speeding up computers (disabling many of the startup prog's, running ccleaner and malwarebytes etc).

poppellerant

Consider upgrading to Windows 7 - I'm sure that laptop will run it with ease, but make sure you install the 64-bit version of Windows so you get the full use of your 4GB of memory.

Besides, updates for Windows XP will cease in April 2014 - and you don't want to be browsing when you could be open to potential security threats, especially if you do online banking.

closed

bootup and on the web on any machine should be under a minute, 35-40 seconds is achievable,. XP with 4GB ram should fly after a reinstall.

post a hijackthis log, run chkdsk c: /F

humming, could just be the how it's attached to the case, tighten the screws, I doubt it's a sign of imminent failure, but if you backup using macrium reflect free it's not going to be much of an issue if it does die.

thor

Starting the PC with the HD unplugged should rule out whether it is the cause of the hum. If it is still making the noise then unplugging fans and other drives one by one will probably identify the culprit.

Weird_Nev

Normal Drives do make a humming/spinning noise, it can be very noticeable on 7,200rpm drives, but still audible on 5,900rpm drives.

If the bearings were on their way out, they would have failed already by now. The first warning you get of a hard drive failing, is the hard drive failing.
Back up and don't worry about it. They either work or they don't!