Should I buy SSDs for my desktops?

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mattRSK

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Reply # 643778 20-Jun-2012 13:34
Please allow me to ask a stupid question. If I were to replace the sole hard drive in my laptop with a SSD, would it be a simple case of inserting the new drive and then booting the laptop with the windows install cd? or is there something more to it? This is assuming I didn't want to keep any of the data on my current hard drive.

timmmay

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Reply # 643793 20-Jun-2012 13:41
mattRSK: Please allow me to ask a stupid question. If I were to replace the sole hard drive in my laptop with a SSD, would it be a simple case of inserting the new drive and then booting the laptop with the windows install cd? or is there something more to it? This is assuming I didn't want to keep any of the data on my current hard drive. Yes pretty much. Take the old one out, put the new one in, put the windows install disk in, go. If you need to get data off the old drive put it in an enclosure or copy to a DVD or another computer in advance. Or create a system image, I generally uninstall as much software as possible before I do that. Asus eee pad transformer iPod 2G Windows 7 PC Lots and lots of Nikon camera gear

mattRSK

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Reply # 643796 20-Jun-2012 13:47
Cheers for that.

mattwnz

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Reply # 643804 20-Jun-2012 14:02
timmmay: mattRSK: Please allow me to ask a stupid question. If I were to replace the sole hard drive in my laptop with a SSD, would it be a simple case of inserting the new drive and then booting the laptop with the windows install cd? or is there something more to it? This is assuming I didn't want to keep any of the data on my current hard drive. Yes pretty much. Take the old one out, put the new one in, put the windows install disk in, go. If you need to get data off the old drive put it in an enclosure or copy to a DVD or another computer in advance. Or create a system image, I generally uninstall as much software as possible before I do that. Don't you have to do something in the BIOS with SSDs, something to do with 'trim' or something.

timmmay

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Reply # 643808 20-Jun-2012 14:05
No, TRIM is an operating system function. Asus eee pad transformer iPod 2G Windows 7 PC Lots and lots of Nikon camera gear

Elpie

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Reply # 644715 22-Jun-2012 13:05
timmmay: If you do a fresh install on an SSD don't be surprised if the install hangs near the start for up to 30 minutes, before you even get to do much. I don't know why, but it's widespread. So if it appears to hang, leave it alone for an hour. That would certainly cause alarm if it happened on install. Fortunately, I've never experienced it with the install of either of my SSD's.

Elpie

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Reply # 644731 22-Jun-2012 13:28
mattwnz: timmmay: mattRSK: Please allow me to ask a stupid question. If I were to replace the sole hard drive in my laptop with a SSD, would it be a simple case of inserting the new drive and then booting the laptop with the windows install cd? or is there something more to it? This is assuming I didn't want to keep any of the data on my current hard drive. Yes pretty much. Take the old one out, put the new one in, put the windows install disk in, go. If you need to get data off the old drive put it in an enclosure or copy to a DVD or another computer in advance. Or create a system image, I generally uninstall as much software as possible before I do that. Don't you have to do something in the BIOS with SSDs, something to do with 'trim' or something. TRIM is operating system level and is the default when you do a clean install of Windows on the SSD if the SSD supports it and if you have switched the SATA mode to AHCI or RAID in the BIOS/UEFI. Essentially, all you need to get an SSD property installed is to change to AHCI, connect the SSD, and run a clean install of Windows. Changing to AHCI requires drivers to be loaded. In newer PC's, they are most likely there already. More info can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976/en *How do I know if TRIM is working in Windows 7?* Go to the Command Prompt and type: fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled) DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled) This sounds more complicated than it is. It really only takes a couple of minutes to change to AHCI (if your system isn't already using it) and, once done, any SSD that supports TRIM (which is almost all newish SSD's now) will work with it once the OS is clean installed. For an explanation of what TRIM does see: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/10

Elpie

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Reply # 644736 22-Jun-2012 13:33
mattRSK: Please allow me to ask a stupid question. If I were to replace the sole hard drive in my laptop with a SSD, would it be a simple case of inserting the new drive and then booting the laptop with the windows install cd? or is there something more to it? This is assuming I didn't want to keep any of the data on my current hard drive. Before you head down that route do some research to check that the controller on your laptop can be changed to AHCI in the BIOS/UEFI. Older systems may not be able to be changed and some laptops won't permit this change. Without it you will never get reliable performance from an SSD. SSD's can still be used but without AHCI they rarely reach the standard of performance they are designed for and performance can seriously degrade over time.

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