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Hi, is there any reason to avoid buying the A-Data SX900 128GB? I searched around the thread a little and there's barely any mention of A-Data SSDs. Or are the Crucial M4s way more awesome? They're the same price, so that's not an issue. I'm piecing together a new computer and am considering using the SSD as system drive and my old 1TB drive as secondary hard disk. And I'd like to not gently caress up before I even begin.
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Aug 22, 2012 23:14
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A little while ago I asked this question:Geemer posted:Hi, is there any reason to avoid buying the A-Data SX900 128GB? I searched around the thread a little and there's barely any mention of A-Data SSDs. To which I got this response: Zhentar posted:A-Data tends to be just another SandForce drive manufacturer, so there's little reason to give them attention over the many other such manufacturers, unless their drives happen to be cheaper. Now the OP has been edited to say not to buy A-Data SSDs because they're the devil. That's a bit strange, if you ask me. And makes me glad I decided to go for a 256GB Samsung 830 instead. Or is that suddenly going to turn into the worst brand to possibly buy too? 
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Sep 2, 2012 09:57
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I just got my parts and am building my computer. I plan on making my SSD (Samsung 830 256GB) the system drive, but don't have another computer available to update the firmware with. Would I be able to shove Hiren's boot CD in there and run the firmware upgrade tool on the MiniXP it has? Or can I just install Windows 7 on it and update the firmware while that's running?
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Sep 8, 2012 19:52
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Cool, thanks. My only prior experiences with SDDs is that my dad got an OCZ Petrol that failed within weeks three times. When I told him to try to do a firmware upgrade or something we went to the site and it said in big red letters that all data would be lost. So I didn't know (although I should have expected) that other brands are capable of updating firmware without being destructive.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:13
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Thank you guys for steering me into the right direction. My system is up and running and everything is just peachy.
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Sep 9, 2012 22:57
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The easiest way to see would probably be to just open the task manager's performance tab and open some images. If (one of) the cores get(s) maxed out for the 6 seconds that it takes to open the image, it's the processor.
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Oct 16, 2012 22:06
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DrDork posted:When you open Steam it goes out and loads up the new daily deals, checks for updates, etc. Your biggest slow-down is therefore your internet connection, which the SSD can't do much about. Steam will also wake up any and all hard drives connected to your system for no reason, so you sometimes have to spend time waiting for all the drives to spin up.
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Nov 27, 2012 20:47
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Red_Fred posted:I'm about to install a Samsung 830. Am I best to update the firmware as soon as I get into Windows? Does the 830 require a firmware update? Mine had the latest firmware pre-installed when I bought it a few months ago, so you probably don't need to update it. But you can just install the Samsung SSD Magician and click on a button to check if yours is the latest firmware or not.
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Dec 7, 2012 23:07
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redeyes posted:You need to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode (GPT partition) AND have UEFI fastboot option enabled AND have a video card that works with it(EVGA SUCKS). Well, gently caress. Any easy way to get that switched around, or do you absolutely need to reinstall to do that?
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Feb 4, 2013 01:21
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Alereon posted:The critical thing is you must verify you have the drive connected to the Intel SATA600 ports and not the Marvell or ASMedia ports (if equipped). Not that I have non-Intel SATA ports on my motherboard, but I can't help but be curious as to what those non-Intel ones could be safely used for. Is it limited to stuff like optical drives? Or would older hard drives (that aren't system drives) also be applicable? Or are they a thing you should never use, ever?
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Mar 20, 2013 22:39
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I may have an opportunity to get a Intel 510 series 120GB for cheap that I'd stick in a 6 year old Win XP laptop. Is this at all a good idea, or is it all going to end in tears? The original hard drive in there really isn't fast at all, and eliminating seek times would probably already help a ton. But I'm a bit worried about not having TRIM.
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Apr 21, 2013 19:06
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Cool, thanks. It's an auction of old stock from a store and it'll be a new drive so I won't have to worry about secure erasing it. But I'll definitively see about updating the firmware. I assume I can just clone my old drive over using the same process one would do for the newer OSes, right?
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Apr 21, 2013 20:05
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I just finished migrating my Win 7 laptop to an SSD. I've re-run the Windows Experience Index tool, made sure it wasn't set to defragment and checked to make sure TRIM is on. Is there any other esoteric setting I need to look out for? I've read that comment about setting the power options to high performance, is it actually possible to do that without murdering battery life? By the way, I'd like to say thanks for pointing out Macrium Reflect Free. Thing worked like a charm.
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Jun 11, 2013 20:04
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Cool, thanks!
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Jun 11, 2013 20:43
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I'm about to install my new SSD into my computer and do a fresh insulation of Win 7 onto it. How do I turn on AHCI mode without an OS already installed? I have an ASUS P8P67 MB so if its a simple change I can make in the BIOS prior to installing the OS than that would be super. That's exactly what it is. It's only a hassle when you want to turn it on after the fact. Look in your motherboard's manual if you get lost in the BIOS.
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Jul 5, 2013 23:19
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GigaFuzz posted:One note about the Samsung Magician software is that if you leave it running (and by default it's set to launch at startup) it'll stop your computer from sleeping. My computer would only go to sleep for a few seconds before waking back up again, and it turned out to be Magician. The UAC prompt at startup was annoying too, so I disabled it. Another note on that: It launching at startup isn't a setting in the program but rather an entry in your startup folder in the start menu. Just delete the shortcut from there and you're good.
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Jul 8, 2013 10:14
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Solvency posted:So I think my OCZ Vertex 64gb is finally dying (updated to latest firmware). Lots of blue screens (F4's and other random stuff), all while doing different things. Windows tends to hang alot now (and it's the boot drive), so I am pretty sure this is the root cause. Is there any way to be sure it is indeed my SSD before I drop $250 on a Samsung 840 Pro? Check it out with CrystalDiskInfo Portable Edition. If it shows caution or bad, it's the SSD.
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Aug 7, 2013 20:17
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1997 posted:Boot time isn't much faster? I can have my computer fully off and be at the desktop in 8 seconds with my M4. How fast is yours? My hard drives take 10 seconds to spin up. And since I leave my external connected it spins up for the BIOS to see what's on there, then spins down and then spins up again when Windows starts. This adds another five seconds or so. SSD speed is anything but the only factor when it comes to booting.
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Aug 22, 2013 17:11
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I got a 7 year old XP laptop that I got tasked to "make faster" because I'm "good with computers". It felt like the hard drive was made of cold molasses on a winter day. So I ran CrystalDiskMark and it actually turns out to be the case. This is SATA150, so I know I shouldn't expect much from it. But when my 3DS' SD card has better performance than the main hard drive, that's a problem. Re-installing is not an option, because it's someone's special snowflake. So I was hoping to jam in a decent Sandforce based SSD. Is SATA150 going to be a big issue or will it just make the drive not run at full potential, but otherwise make the laptop actually capable of booting within 10 minutes? Laptop details: It's a knockoff BTO based on the Compal HEL80.
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Aug 25, 2013 20:43
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Leaving external (USB) hard drives attached will make them spin up during the Windows logo animation, which adds a bit of time as well.
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Aug 31, 2013 22:48
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AlternateAccount posted:So how do I know when a drive is reaching the end of it's writable life or if it's starting to degrade in that direction? Run the portable version of CrystalDiskInfo and look at the percentage of health remaining. It'll also actually tell you the program and erase fail counts, if those start to go up, that's a good indicator for when it's reached the end. Disclaimer: If your SSD is lovely, the health indicator may not be relevant at all. My dad had an OCZ Petrol  and it did just what you'd expect, while the indicator still showed 70%. (After only a month while my Samsung 830 has been at 100% for over a year now.)Because my dad was being an idiot and insisted it was a hardware problem with the laptop, he had sold the laptop, but kept the bad drive. I eventually convinced him to get rid of it by lying to him and saying that the CDI indicator started at 0% for SSDs and tracked wear. The store that sold him that drive also bought it.
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Sep 17, 2013 22:40
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If you've moved to an SSD by cloning an existing Windows installation over, check if System Restore is still working! I just noticed a whole bunch of messages in my event viewer saying System Restore couldn't make a restore point at every instance of Windows Update running, or software installation or whatever. All the way up to the date where I cloned over my system to SSD. It turns out that System Restore still had my old hard drive in its list and said it was missing. Not so weird, since it's physically removed. However, it was turned off for the new drive and trying to turn it on caused an error. When I turned it off for the missing drive, it disappeared from the list and allowed me to turn it on for the new one. This is on Windows 7 x64, dunno if Windows 8 is better about it. I'm really grateful I found out now, rather than when I actually needed it. But yeah, check yo stuff. E: Turns out this also affected Volume Shadow Copies. Which explains why my backup software, which usually used those, ran so slowly these last few months. (It throwing an error and saying I should look at the event logs was what got me to notice it in the first place.) Geemer fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 14:11
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Mike the TV posted:Right now I have an 80gig SSD for windows files and a large second internal hard drive to hold anything else. After making this transition, I've noticed that some of my games (stored on the HDD) will occasionally stutter and take longer to load textures than from before I had the SSD. If I have 100 bucks to burn, would a second SSD to hold my games give me an improvement? Aside from Alereon's advice, it might also be worth checking if Windows is set to put the HDD to sleep after too short a time of inactivity. Spinning up the disk can take a while.
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Nov 9, 2013 22:21
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WastedJoker posted:Macrium was indeed the better choice - it cloned perfectly and I didn't even need to repair. Make sure System Restore is still working properly. That was an issue that cropped up for me after cloning my disk with Macrium Reflect Free.
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Nov 15, 2013 17:08
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Chief Savage Man posted:So I'm buying an Intel 530 240GB drive finally. What's the easiest way to move my OS to the SSD without having to reinstall lots of stuff or screwing something up? Schpyder posted:Assuming your current OS partition is 240 GB or smaller: Macrium Reflect Free. No need for the gparted boot disk, Macrium Reflect Free can shrink partitions on the fly. Assuming the amount of data on them is small enough. After cloning, run the Windows Experience Index tool to make Windows optimize itself for SSD by turning on TRIM and turning off defragmentation for the SSD. And make sure to check if System Restore is still working.
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Nov 19, 2013 13:10
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MikusR posted:Most laptops have space for only one drive. That's why you can get rid of the optical drive and slam the mechanical hard drive in a caddy for that slot.
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Nov 25, 2013 23:06
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teagone posted:Do unopened/unused SSDs have a shelf life? I bought a 250GB Samsung EVO when it was on sale for $119 and was going to put it in my current PC, but I'm debating on building a new one for myself in a couple months or so. Data on them starts to degrade after a year(?) if they're left unpowered, but a new one is gonna be just fine.
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Dec 10, 2013 12:26
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Straker posted:Just checking - if I get a new laptop with a spinner, I can clone it to an SSD, swap the drive with the SSD, rerun WEI and everything will be fine, right? Yes, that should do. Make sure System Restore is still working when you're done. You may need to remove the old drive from the last and add the new one to it. I'll suggest Macrium Reflect Free for cloning your drive to the SSD.
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Dec 25, 2013 12:06
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mAlfunkti0n posted:Cloning tools copy partitions (as well as other key things to make the drive actually boot). If you have partition on the existing drive that is larger than the SSD is, you will have to shrink it to fit on a smaller SSD. Unless the clone tool does this automagically, which I doubt it does considering it has no concept of what data you have inside the partition. Macrium Reflect Free does on-the-fly partition resizing to fit them on smaller drives as long as the actual data is smaller than what will fit on the target. I didn't have to do any partition resizing bullshit when I went from a 750 GB spinner to a 256 GB SSD on my laptop. I just had to tell it to keep the System Reserved partition's size as is, the recovery partition's size as is and to shrink the actual OS partition down to fit. Again, if the tool you're using is smart enough it will just resize on-the-fly as long as the data in the partition that's being resized is less than the size it will end up as.
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Dec 25, 2013 17:14
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Just make sure System Restore is still functioning properly after you're done cloning.
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Jan 25, 2014 20:35
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P.N.T.M. posted:Setting the SSD as the scratch disk is just asking for gratuitous writes to be added upon the disk. Photoshop PSDs are not so huge as to be real slow off of a disk. I thought we were past the point where we babied our SSDs because Tech Report showed that they can endure a really large amount of writes. And mind you that they use the normal 840, not the EVO. So the EVO would do even better, with RAPID and the SLC cache keeping write amplification down a bit. I'm not entirely sure on how write intensive Photoshop is on the scratch disk, but I doubt it'll be as deadly to the SSD as you make it out to be. Let's say the drive starts degrading at 50 TB written to it instead of 100 (because it's a 120 GB one) and you use up a gratuitous 50 GB a day. That's still over 2.8 years before it begins degrading. E: And RAPID would probably cause a gigantic performance increase for scratch diskin'.
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Feb 5, 2014 16:05
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warcake posted:I just got a 500gb 840 evo and I'm really pleased with it, and sorry for the inane question but do I need to install drivers for it? I don't want to install the optimisation software or anything really based on this thread. If you want to use RAPID you kinda need to have Samsung Magician. It's also good for firmware updates and I guess you can use it to benchmark as well... The only drivers you need are the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology and INF files. Or the AMD equivalent if you're on an AMD board. Also make sure your BIOS is set to AHCI or RAID so TRIM will work. You can check this with Magician as well.
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Mar 7, 2014 12:52
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Crotch Fruit posted:Has data recovery on SSDs with TRIM enabled been brought up in this thread? I've been following this thread since when the M4 was still recommended (running two 128GB M4s here, living on the edge) and I don't remember anyone ever mentioning this, nor did I see it in the OP. Obviously it's not a big problem but it seems like something that might be worth noting in the OP. I think it really relies on how aggressively the drive performs garbage collection. If I run Recuva on my 256 GB Samsung 830 that is currently 40% empty, I find files from months back. But not everything that's been deleted since then. Even if I do the "drive optimization" thing in Samsung Magician. Sandforce is supposed to be more aggressive, so you may have less leeway. In the end, I guess you better notice on time and you'll still have a chance. Just like on a regular hard drive, except your timer is tighter. Do keep in mind that an SSD will be much more fragmented, which may impede file recovery as well.
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Mar 15, 2014 00:11
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Alereon posted:Did you actually try recovering files? You should not get any file contents if TRIM is enabled and working. Woop, looks like you're right. I should've checked before posting.
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Mar 15, 2014 01:32
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synthetik posted:Got three 1TB Evo's at $350 each shipped - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3623779 I've been meaning to ask, do you ship to Europe?
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Apr 9, 2014 21:27
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synthetik posted:yep. add $20 for shipping. Hot drat, I may have to pay more attention to when you post with these.
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Apr 9, 2014 22:17
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GigaFuzz posted:It's easy enough to move individual folders such as Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures etc to another drive. Right click on folder > Properties > Location. Keep in mind that if you go that route and your platter drives are set to spin down after a period of inactivity, that every time something tries to access the library the drive will spin up and lock up the program that made the call for 5ish seconds.
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Apr 15, 2014 19:27
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ThermoPhysical posted:What should I do about the page file on the meantime? I'm getting virtual memory errors a lot when it's this low. Are you sure you set it up right? I have 8gb of ram and set my page file down to 1gb initial size and 2gb max size on a couple of computers without any issue. Are you doing anything that is eating ridiculous amounts of memory?
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May 13, 2014 14:32
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ThermoPhysical posted:Is having 5 tabs in Chrome ridiculous now a days because it seems that's what sets it up. My initial/max is 4GB, actually what Windows "recommended" so maybe Windows is broken?  ThermoPhysical posted:When you say "Drive Cleaner", do you mean: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/driver_cleaner_professional.html ? I'm pretty sure he means Windows' built in Disk Cleanup. Which will let you clean up system files such as Windows Update backup files and other miscellaneous junk. You open it by looking at the properties of the disk and then clicking the disk cleanup button below the little pie chart, or by searching the start menu. Also, just in case, have you checked if your drive is healthy with CrystalDiskInfo (use the portable zip edition)?
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May 13, 2014 21:01
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ThermoPhysical posted:I ran Disk Cleanup just a few minutes ago, I've now got 39.3GB left out of 119GB. Remember to reboot if you did let Disk Cleanup perform Windows Update cleanup. It doesn't tell you (on Windows 7), but it only really deletes the stuff during the next startup, like when it performs Windows Updates during startup.
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May 13, 2014 21:51
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