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Best way to upgrade to a Solid State Drive?

Rhaomi — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:18:22 -0800

What's the best way to go about installing a solid state drive in a new laptop? (And is this even a good idea?) After six years of solid service from my workhorse Dell Latitude, the combination of wonky ports, depleted battery, slowing performance, and an intermittent Disk Click of Doom has convinced me it's time to finally upgrade. Luckily, I found a great deal on a snazzy new IdeaPad Y580. According to this exhaustive review, it's got everything I'm looking for: decent screen, powerful CPU and GPU, similar form factor, and priced hundreds less than comparable machines elsewhere.

The only real flaw is storage. I've heard phenomenal things about SSDs -- lightning speed, low heat/noise emissions, shockproof, etc. -- and definitely wanted to make one the centerpiece of any new laptop purchase. But the Y580 only ships with a standard mechanical drive, which the review identifies as a significant performance bottleneck in an otherwise speedy package.

One potential solution is to go for the premium model, which includes a 32GB "caching" SSD as a supplement to a whopping 1TB mechanical drive. But I get the impression that such a set-up isn't nearly as responsive as an all-SSD environment -- faster boot-up, maybe, but not a "Best. Upgrade. Ever." system-wide turbo boost. I'd also like to avoid, in light of aforementioned Disk Click of Doom, returning to the relative frailty of physical drives for storing all my files. (And frankly, I don't fully understand how one manages a hybrid set-up. Installing the OS in one drive and media files in another? Where do programs go? It sounds awkward.)

Given these misgivings, what I'd really like to do is just buy a lower-tier Y580 with a small HDD, use the savings to acquire a full SSD separately (256GB sounds good), and swap it in when the new laptop arrives. But this has complications of its own. So here are my core questions:

- What's the most reliable ~256GB drive available today? Not necessarily the fastest -- the difference between SSD models is peanuts compared to the step up from HDDs -- but the one most likely to last at least a few years, given reports of perilously high failure rates in earlier years. Intel is the most respected name and offers a five-year warranty, but they're relatively pricey at well over $1 per GB, so I'd be interested in hearing about other brands with respectable track records (as well as those with high failure rates to steer clear of)

- What's the best way to install a new SSD in a new laptop? Should I clone the stock hard disk to the SSD with a migration tool, or would it be better to just install Windows 7 on it fresh? What about transferring files from my old laptop? What's the process for swapping out the drives themselves? Also, are there any tweaks I should do to the SSD that would normally be done by Lenovo pre-shipment in order to optimize it and prolong its lifespan?

- Is there any reason I shouldn't prefer a large SSD over the hybrid HDD+caching SSD? Apart from sheer cost, obvs. I'm really trying to "future proof" this purchase and get the biggest possible performance leap that will last a good number of years, but if a hybrid drive offers ~90% of the speed of an SSD or avoids some major pitfall, then I might be willing to settle. I'd really like to shockproof my data and reduce noise/heat/power consumption, though, so it would have to be a pretty big pitfall.

How to chose an server for a small mac digital media lab?

yuletide — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:43:23 -0800

I'm trying to figure out my options for setting up a small digital media lab for a new non-profit, but I have no idea how to set a minimum level of server specs! How much CPU and RAM do I really need? What determines this? The server will be used to administer local user accounts, and store files (including large media files). We may also end up using it to host our website and mail, if it makes sense (unlikely). All the main client computers will be macs, so I assume I should make life easier and just get an XServe. But I'm open to other suggestions. See below for some prices and models for various XServe's I'm trying to choose between. How low can I go? How much CPU/RAM do I need? Let me know if you need more information... Best Used Xserve Prices

* 2.0 GHz single G5, $800 (no OS), $1,000 (10.3 unlimited or 10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.0 GHz dual G5, $1,000 (10.3 10 user), $1,100 (10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.3 GHz dual G5, $1,649 shipped (10.4 unlimited), Power Max

Best Refurbished Xserve Prices
* 2.66 Ghz 4-core Xeon, $2,399, Apple
* 2.8 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,100, Small Dog
* 3.0 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,799, Apple

Best New Xserve Prices
* 2.26 GHz 4-core Nehalem, $2,888 shipped, Power Max
* 2.26 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $3,449 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.66 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $4,799 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.93 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $5,999 + shipping, ExperCom

Where'd my network card go!?

Squid Voltaire — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:33:13 -0800

My computer can't find its NIC, any ideas? I used to connect to the internet via CAT-5, as God intended, but for a year or so I've been using a PCI wireless card. Reception in the current location is terribly, though, so tonight I took a couple hundred feet of Ethernet cable and plugged myself directly into the router.

I plugged the other end into a ethernet port, and the little green light came on. However, once I disconnected from the wireless network, that was it, no further connection.

The Device Manager only lists one NIC--the wireless one. I turned on "View Hidden Devices", but it still didn't list it.

I went into BIOS and turned on "Integrated LAN RAM"--I have no idea what that means, but it did not make my network card suddenly appear. At this point, I ran out of ideas. Any further suggestions?

Motherboard is Biostar NF61S/V Micro AM2, and I'm 80% certain that I used to have a wired connection to this machine--is there some sneaky way that I disabled and then hid my card?

Will i need to remove and replace my soundcard for windows to recognise it?

freddymetz — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:39:18 -0800

Will i need to remove and replace my soundcard for windows to recognise it? Sound card driver is installed but the hardware itself isnt recognised. Im not very tech savvy and im scared of opening my pc. I usually use ubuntu linux but now i reformatted and installed windows XP. The problem is my sound card, i have the driver installed, but the hardware itself isnt being recognised. Any suggestions?

Hard drive platter "X"?

yeahyeahyeahwhoo — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:56:03 -0800

After dissassembling a hard drive, a coworker found a drive platter with an "X" engraved/stamped on it, anyone know what this means?

Adding a hard drive to an old PC

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:03:55 -0800

I have a old PC. I want to buy a big new (non-boot, second) hard drive. Will I have problems? [more inside] My good old workhorse of a PC, a PII 400 Gateway I bought back in January '99, is still serving me well, after numerous upgrades and additions. My upgrade triggers for the whole system will probably be the release of Doom3 and Half Life 2 in the coming months, if the wife lets me (by no means guaranteed). In the meantime, though, and just in case, I'd like to buy one of these big-ass cheapo hard drives out there at the moment. Even a 40 Gb one, which is nothing special these days, would be good for my media needs. My plan would be to replace a 4 Gb secondary drive I installed a few years back. The question is, with an oldish PC running Windows XP, is a new hard drive going to play nice? Is it just a matter, as it was last time, of settting the jumpers to 'slave' and plugging it in?

A secondary question would be if anyone has any recommendations for good, cheap hard drives, or any gotchas I should look out for in the installation process. I've installed heaps of hardware in the past, on many different machines, but I usually pretty much fly by the seat of my pants, and have just been lucky so far, I think.