Recommend SSD to speed up my PC

CoastingHatbox

neilmcl said:

GDB2222 said:

I would not get too hung up about this. The difference between an SSD and HDD is like the difference between walking and having a car. Which car is less important. 

But if you had 2 cars that were very similarly priced surely you'd opt for the one with the full leather seats, climate control and upgraded stereo 😉

This analogy is broken. Some people buy cars with fewer features because there is less to go wrong. We aren't talking extra features here.




So, lots of recommendations for Crucial MX500 disks.
There is a firmware bug with these which means, if you monitor the SMART data, the disk will often incorrectly report 1 unreadable pending sector.

Also, the note on not buying SSDs < 500GB. I think it depends on the user. I don't have any SSDs filled to more than 20GB or 30GB because (a) I don't run Windows and (b) I don't store anything important on my desktops/laptops. 250GB will be more than enough for a lot of people. A larger SSD may last longer with wear levelling etc.. but I've seen very few SSDs actually reach that stage where they are considerably worn, they usually die before they get there.

Most common SSD failure mode I have seen has been for them to completely stop working without any warning whatsoever.

Spinning disks can also stop working without any warning, but it is less common.

Whether using SSDs or spinning disks, you should still either store your important data somewhere it gets backed up (ideally regularly snapshotted or versioned) or, you should have automated backups to more than one location.

Larger SSDs inevitably lead to larger backups as people don't tend to delete anything until the drives are getting full anyway.

In terms of recommedations, if you can afford it go Intel or Samsung. Avoid Transcend. Make sure you are buying an SSD with 3d NAND and not single layer NAND. Single layer NAND TLC SSDs have been in reality very slow, sometimes as slow as HDD for random read/write when there's been enough I/O to saturate the faster NAND/DRAM caches SSDs have, which tend to be much smaller on the cheaper drives.

Jumblebumble

misterthrifty said:

Hi, my PC is getting older and slower so I want to add a SSD and transfer the OS over so it will be quicker to startup. As the PC is not recent I think it will need a SATA SSD, I have checked the size of the existing drive and it looks like the contents will fit on a 250gb drive.
I'm a bit bit out of my depth in choosing a suitable drive, there just seem to be lots of numbers! Can anybody recommend any good deals at the moment on a SSD that will do the trick?

TIA

Do not buy from Crucial direct as you may be waiting  weeks  for it to show up with their customer support falsely maintaining that Royal mail lost it when it fact it was in transit from Czech Republic.
Reseller on amazon was fine

jamesd

misterthrifty said:

Hi, my PC is getting older and slower so I want to add a SSD and transfer the OS over so it will be quicker to startup

Here are some free or cheap and very easy things you can do to improve startup times. SSD is still better than them but free is a good starting point.

1. Free. Install MyDefrag and run the system disk optimisation option. https://filehippo.com/download_mydefrag/  When booting Windows makes a list of the files it uses and defragmenters like this one use that list to place those files together on the fastest part of a spinning hard disk.

2. Free. Use hibernate or hybrid sleep (sleep backed up by hibernate in case of power loss) instead of powering off and doing a full restart. Waking from sleep should take a fraction of a second and only a few seconds plus BIOS start time of a few more seconds from hibernate.

3. Free if you have one, else cheap and easy. Use the Windows ReadyBoost feature with a CompactFlash, SD card or USB drive. Windows will only let you use a drive for this if it looks likely to be faster. If buying one look for one with either an A1 or A2 rating, no A number means much less good A0.

None of these will match the overall benefit of an SSD but free has value too.

misterthrifty

Thanks for all of the advice, I have ordered the Crucial MX500 SSD. 
It looks like it doesn't come with any fittings so I think I have to buy a fitting kit with a SATA cable too?
I have made a full copy of my system on an external drive. I have to fit the SSD then migrate all of the information from the HDD to the SSD, then change the order the PC boots to the SSD...then hope it all works.

Again any tips appreciated.

J_B

misterthrifty said:

Again any tips appreciated.

A clean/fresh install of W10 is *always* better than copying everything over.

getmore4less

Don't need fixing kits for PC that does not get moved much.



I just stick them somewhere they won't move and tape them in 

Velcro sticky pads work or tie wraps
In a spare bay any single screw  will do they have no weight.