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The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:

Arcturas posted:

Goddamnit. Am I completely hosed, or can I fix this? I bought the Crucial MX300. Apparently I bought the laptop version. I have a desktop, with full cages for regular sized desktop hard drives. So the tiny SSD doesn't snap in to my removable hard drive trays. Can I just plug the SSD into my SATA system and have it work while I order some plastic spacer bullshit that will fill the empty space? Or do I need to get a whole new drive?

Quickedit: For reference, I bought this drive. I figured since it was SATA I was okay. But I'm Bad At Computers (TM).

You are not hosed, nor is there any need to fix it. You can literally put a SSD anywhere, there's no moving parts. Hell, tape it to the side of your desktop if you want. It'll work just fine.

As a matter of fact I'm pretty sure that there aren't any 3.5in SSDs. Like I don't think they exist.

I am, however, rather surprised that your case doesn't have mounting holes for the drive. Still, you can just toss it in there, no need for plastic spacers or anything. I have like 3 SSDs in my case that are just lying around not taped or screwed into anything.

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JnnyThndrs
May 29, 2001

HERE ARE THE FUCKING TOWELS

Arcturas posted:

Goddamnit. Am I completely hosed, or can I fix this? I bought the Crucial MX300. Apparently I bought the laptop version. I have a desktop, with full cages for regular sized desktop hard drives. So the tiny SSD doesn't snap in to my removable hard drive trays. Can I just plug the SSD into my SATA system and have it work while I order some plastic spacer bullshit that will fill the empty space? Or do I need to get a whole new drive?

Quickedit: For reference, I bought this drive. I figured since it was SATA I was okay. But I'm Bad At Computers (TM).

I either put them in a 3.5" bay with one screw or Velcro them to whatever flat surface is handy. You did fine.

Arcturas
Mar 30, 2011

Phew! Now I just need to find a spare SATA cable from back when I built this thing, and figure out how to rewire the power cables coming out of my PSU. Thanks for holding my hand, all.

Arcturas
Mar 30, 2011

Aaaand now when I look for the drive in "This PC" it doesn't show up. But it does show up in Device Manager. I'll try downloading & setting up the linked software and hoping that it's a formatting/drivers thing. Grumble grumble.

rally
Nov 19, 2002

yospos

Arcturas posted:

Goddamnit. Am I completely hosed, or can I fix this? I bought the Crucial MX300. Apparently I bought the laptop version. I have a desktop, with full cages for regular sized desktop hard drives. So the tiny SSD doesn't snap in to my removable hard drive trays. Can I just plug the SSD into my SATA system and have it work while I order some plastic spacer bullshit that will fill the empty space? Or do I need to get a whole new drive?

Quickedit: For reference, I bought this drive. I figured since it was SATA I was okay. But I'm Bad At Computers (TM).

Just plug it in and let it hang there if you want to. They weigh nothing.

metallicaeg
Nov 28, 2005

Evil Red Wings Owner Wario Lemieux Steals Stanley Cup

Arcturas posted:

Goddamnit. Am I completely hosed, or can I fix this? I bought the Crucial MX300. Apparently I bought the laptop version. I have a desktop, with full cages for regular sized desktop hard drives. So the tiny SSD doesn't snap in to my removable hard drive trays. Can I just plug the SSD into my SATA system and have it work while I order some plastic spacer bullshit that will fill the empty space? Or do I need to get a whole new drive?

Quickedit: For reference, I bought this drive. I figured since it was SATA I was okay. But I'm Bad At Computers (TM).

You can have it swing from the cables if you really wanted to. It doesn't require being hard mounted. Also, there isn't a desktop/laptop version - they're all the same.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Arcturas posted:

Aaaand now when I look for the drive in "This PC" it doesn't show up. But it does show up in Device Manager. I'll try downloading & setting up the linked software and hoping that it's a formatting/drivers thing. Grumble grumble.

You need to format it and create a partition.

Right click the start icon, go to computer management. In the left menu you'll see "storage management". You should see your new drive there (should be the 'lowest' letter or look at capacity). From there you'll need to create a partition and then Windows will see your drive.

Alternatively you can use software like Minitool Parition Wizard or the various dozens of software to do this for you.

my kinda ape
Sep 15, 2008

Everything's gonna be A-OK
Oven Wrangler

The Iron Rose posted:

You are not hosed, nor is there any need to fix it. You can literally put a SSD anywhere, there's no moving parts. Hell, tape it to the side of your desktop if you want. It'll work just fine.

As a matter of fact I'm pretty sure that there aren't any 3.5in SSDs. Like I don't think they exist.

I am, however, rather surprised that your case doesn't have mounting holes for the drive. Still, you can just toss it in there, no need for plastic spacers or anything. I have like 3 SSDs in my case that are just lying around not taped or screwed into anything.

3.5" SSDs do exist, or at least they did for earlier generation ones. My old OCZ Agility 2 (one of the ones where they started to change the design mid production to cut corners without changing model numbers) is 3.5".

Arcturas
Mar 30, 2011

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

You need to format it and create a partition.

Right click the start icon, go to computer management. In the left menu you'll see "storage management". You should see your new drive there (should be the 'lowest' letter or look at capacity). From there you'll need to create a partition and then Windows will see your drive.

Alternatively you can use software like Minitool Parition Wizard or the various dozens of software to do this for you.

Thanks. As for the advice farther upthread, it doesn't look like the Acronis deal is valid for the MX300's? Or at least none of the serial numbers on my drive work as activation codes. I'll try Macromix or one of the other mentioned cloning tools. There's a serial code if you actually look at all the pieces of paper in the box. I'm really batting zero for a bunch tonight...

EDIT THE NEXT:
So I finished cloning my old drive, rebooted, hit backspace to get into my BIOS, selected the SSD as my boot drive, and then when it booted into windows, my computer is flipping out. Instead of the normal login screen (whatever silly picture Windows 10 gives you, then you hit enter & can type your password), I got a blue screen with the time on it, which flickered to black every few seconds (2 seconds of blue screen with time displayed, followed by a second of black). The mouse cursor was visible, with the spinning blue "waiting" circle intermittently on and off. After 45s of that, the screen has settled to full black with only the mouse cursor displayed, and I can't get past that to a proper login screen.

It's done that both times I've rebooted and tried to boot off the SSD. I am currently trying to boot off the old HDD. Any thoughts or advice?

YET ANOTHER EDIT:
So I've cloned the drive again, and this time after it shut off I just disconnected the old HDD and booted the computer. Everything booted properly and things seem to be working so far. I assume at this point I simply turn the computer off, connect the HDD, boot normally, and then wipe/format the old HDD, and I should be good to go?

Thanks again for the help, everyone.

Arcturas fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Nov 27, 2016

Neon Belly
Feb 12, 2008

I need something stronger.

Arcturas posted:

YET ANOTHER EDIT:
So I've cloned the drive again, and this time after it shut off I just disconnected the old HDD and booted the computer. Everything booted properly and things seem to be working so far. I assume at this point I simply turn the computer off, connect the HDD, boot normally, and then wipe/format the old HDD, and I should be good to go?

Yup! Welcome to the fast boot club, friend!

ConanTheLibrarian
Aug 13, 2004


dis buch is late
Fallen Rib

my kinda ape posted:

3.5" SSDs do exist, or at least they did for earlier generation ones.
They most definitely still exist, and they're preposterous.

Eletriarnation
Apr 6, 2005

People don't appreciate the substance of things...
objects in space.


Oven Wrangler

rally posted:

Just plug it in and let it hang there if you want to. They weigh nothing.

If you don't want it to swing around, there are also good cheap brackets to adapt 3.5" bays to 2.5" drives.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



Or get a modern case that has slots designed for 2.5" harddrives.

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


If a motherboard has M.2 ports that 'supports PCIe 3.0 x4', does that means it's compatible with an NVMe drive in NVMe mode? Perhaps it's not so clear?

On some mobos this means disabling some SATA ports, which is fine, but I'd like to get a motherboard that's capable of running an NVMe SSD at full speed. I don't anticipate needing two of them, or running gpus in SLI so I figure current Z170s are fine for this.

I'm having a heck of a time understanding the requirements for compatibility. To run one at its full potential, you need:
1) NVMe drive
2) Appropriate port with PCIe 3.0 x4
3) Motherboard bios support for NVMe

Have I got that right?

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



Firmware ("BIOS") support for NVMe really consists of supporting them as boot devices i.e. loading OS from them, otherwise they just appear as a PCI device that would be useless until the OS loads a driver.

I.e. you can have a chipset that supports the PCI-e/SATA protocol switching on the M.2 slot, enabling the NVMe SSD to appear as a PCI-e device, but you also need the firmware to know how to handle that as a storage device that can be booted from.

In the olden days, expansion cards could have a BIOS extension that the BIOS would load, which could effectively enable it to support new kinds of devices, e.g. boot from a RAID controller. I don't know if UEFI has a similar mechanism.

nielsm fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Nov 27, 2016

Col.Kiwi
Dec 28, 2004
And the grave digger puts on the forceps...
In practice when shopping for a new motherboard, if it is an m.2 slot that specifies support for PCIe SSDs you are going to be able to use an NVMe drive. The big thing you're looking to avoid is an m.2 slot that only allows SATA.

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


Is there any particular way or resource for determining said firmware support? (Aside from googling)

I'd like to run my OS off one of these fancy-fast drives in the future, but not likely to purchase one this upgrade cycle.

Col.Kiwi
Dec 28, 2004
And the grave digger puts on the forceps...
The motherboard vendor websites often have a list of compatible/"qualified" SSDs, sometimes int he manual often as a separate download. It should have NVMe SSDs on it so then you'd know for sure.

All new PCIe SSDs have been using NVMe for a while now so I don't think you are going to find any new motherboards which have a m.2 slot supporting PCIe SSDs but have issues with NVMe.

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


Col.Kiwi posted:

All new PCIe SSDs have been using NVMe for a while now so I don't think you are going to find any new motherboards which have a m.2 slot supporting PCIe SSDs but have issues with NVMe.

Cool, thanks!

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"
I still wish there was an incentive for a company to put out an SSD that just gave ~300/300 MB/sec performance (just enough to saturate an SATA II connection), so we could start killing off spinners altogether. I know the reason we *don't* have it yet is that there's no incentive to specifically develop *slower* NAND, but a 300/300 SSD at high capacities would not only give people with older computers a way to transition entirely to a single large SSD, but also give everyone else a perfectly workable Steam/Storage drive with SSD seek times.

Rastor
Jun 2, 2001

BIG HEADLINE posted:

I still wish there was an incentive for a company to put out an SSD that just gave ~300/300 MB/sec performance (just enough to saturate an SATA II connection), so we could start killing off spinners altogether. I know the reason we *don't* have it yet is that there's no incentive to specifically develop *slower* NAND, but a 300/300 SSD at high capacities would not only give people with older computers a way to transition entirely to a single large SSD, but also give everyone else a perfectly workable Steam/Storage drive with SSD seek times.

What you're thinking of is a DRAMless SSD. The capacities just aren't there quite yet.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

It's not the speed it's the density. NAND chips with higher density mean less chips on less channels so they're slower. You'd think they could get 128gb on a pci card for $30 butt hats not enough room for people. iTunes, a bunch of camera and phone dumps, averagbpeople use hundreds of gigs these days.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
I'm building an HTPC around Christmastime, I saw the 850 EVO 500GB is on sale right now for $130 on Amazon, is that a good price/idea?

edit: going by the previous page looks like the answer is yes

edit2: is there a significant difference between the M.2 and SATA3 versions? Looks like the motherboard I'm planning on can support either: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128899

edit3: currently leaning towards SATA version since it seems like for the 850 EVO there's no significant difference and this will keep the M.2 slot open for a future SSD that benefits from it more.

edit4: welp I bought it, the SATA version

Cicero fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Nov 28, 2016

Anime Schoolgirl
Nov 28, 2002

850 evo only comes in SATA, but the M.2 slot supports both sata m.2 and nvme m.2

if this sounds confusing to you, you've figured out why m.2 hasn't taken off all that much!

priznat
Jul 7, 2009

Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.
The M.2 socket is pretty janky for widespread consumer adoption imo. It's fairly fine pitched and delicate, and having to use a screw on most (with the correct standoff height at the correct standoff location) is a bit much compared to plugging in a sata cable or even plugging in a pcie card.

It'd be nice if more boards have proper u.2 support and if u.2 drives start coming in thinner profiles similar to most 2.5" sata ssds. And that they don't get hotter than the frickin sun. I think then we'll see even more mainstreaming of nvme drives. I think it'll start pretty quickly!

BIG HEADLINE
Jun 13, 2006

"Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"
"Sorry, Mario...the performance you were expecting is only available in *newer* castles!"

Everyone with an older laptop with only an SATA M.2, and Z97 users whose M.2 slots will only provide two PCIe lanes should get this message every time they benchmark.

priznat
Jul 7, 2009

Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

BIG HEADLINE posted:

"Sorry, Mario...the performance you were expecting is only available in *newer* castles!"

Everyone with an older laptop with only an SATA M.2, and Z97 users whose M.2 slots will only provide two PCIe lanes should get this message every time they benchmark.

Are they off the chipset usually as well? Gen 2 only to boot!

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
I was checking out deals on Amazon and I came across this little gem. Seems too good to be true. Thoughts? I have the 500gb version and I love it but more space would be nice.

It's listed on the op as a top pick I'm just wondering if I'm missing something for why it's so cheap.

Travic fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Nov 28, 2016

MagusDraco
Nov 11, 2011

even speedwagon was trolled

Travic posted:

I was checking out deals on Amazon and I came across this little gem. Seems too good to be true. Thoughts? I have the 500gb version and I love it but more space would be nice.

It's listed on the op as a top pick I'm just wondering if I'm missing something for why it's so cheap.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday is why it's $250.

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast

havenwaters posted:

Black Friday/Cyber Monday is why it's $250.

Oh I realize that. Sometimes stores unload crap at low prices on those days to get it sold and out the door.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




Seeing the 1TB 850 evos for cheap has me considering one. I have an 840 evo 256 gb and could use more space. Will I notice much difference in speed? Seems like some benchmarks say 25% or so speed increase but I wonder if that's even noticeable? Would it be better to wait to do this when I eventually upgrade to the m.2 style when I update my CPU/Mobo in a year or two? (still have an old 2500k and old sata mobo). I've been dealing with less space for awhile, so it isn't like I can't live with it a little longer. Just looking for opinions.

Edit: it dropped to $220 on amazon and I couldn't resist. It'll be nice having all my games installed instead of picking and choosing.

Suburban Dad fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 28, 2016

Strong Sauce
Jul 2, 2003

You know I am not really your father.





i have an 840 evo 500gb. looking at the same sale for the 850 evo 1gb that other people are looking at. is it possible to mirror 500gb of the 1tb in a raid 1 alignment and then split the remaining 500gb by itself? this probably sounds like a bad idea with the different hd size and 840/850 types but seeing if people have done this and have it work or fail horribly.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



Strong Sauce posted:

i have an 840 evo 500gb. looking at the same sale for the 850 evo 1gb that other people are looking at. is it possible to mirror 500gb of the 1tb in a raid 1 alignment and then split the remaining 500gb by itself? this probably sounds like a bad idea with the different hd size and 840/850 types but seeing if people have done this and have it work or fail horribly.

Sure, software RAID could do that, but I'm not sure why you would.

Ignoranus
Jun 3, 2006

HAPPY MORNING
I'm (finally) upgrading my whole PC - moving from my (ca. 2009) Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 (it had an AMD 770 CPU slot, for reference) and upgrading to an Asus Z170A. I remember that when I originally bought my first SSD last year (Samsung 840) I had to do some BIOS setting changes to make it work properly with the SSD - I don't see anything about that in the new OP, is this no longer something I need to sweat?

VulgarandStupid
Aug 5, 2003
I AM, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, UNFUCKABLE AND A TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT TO EVERYONE. DAE WANNA CUM PLAY WITH ME!?




http://www.ebay.com/itm/302130800590?rmvSB=true&afepn=5335869999&afepn=5335869999&rmvSB=true

Ebay has the 850 1TB for $220+tax in most places, no mention of Watch Dogs 2 code.

JnnyThndrs
May 29, 2001

HERE ARE THE FUCKING TOWELS

Larrymer posted:

Seeing the 1TB 850 evos for cheap has me considering one. I have an 840 evo 256 gb and could use more space. Will I notice much difference in speed? Seems like some benchmarks say 25% or so speed increase but I wonder if that's even noticeable? Would it be better to wait to do this when I eventually upgrade to the m.2 style when I update my CPU/Mobo in a year or two? (still have an old 2500k and old sata mobo). I've been dealing with less space for awhile, so it isn't like I can't live with it a little longer. Just looking for opinions.

Edit: it dropped to $220 on amazon and I couldn't resist. It'll be nice having all my games installed instead of picking and choosing.

I just went from a 500gb 840 Evo to a 1TB 850 Evo on my old reliable P67/3570K box, and honestly could not tell the difference in everyday use. The benchmarks are a little higher with the new drive(yes, I used the Intel SATA III port), but the main improvement is all that beautiful empty spaaaace.

Arcturas
Mar 30, 2011

Hey all, I can take this to the tech support subforum if it's more appropriate, but I am having a problem with cloning my drive & migrating to an SSD and you were tremendously helpful this weekend as I tried to do that. Now that I've switched to an SSD (Crucial MX300, 525 GB), I am getting intermittent freezes & crashes. Typically what will happen is one of my tabs will decide it doesn't want to load or refresh properly, and it'll hang, as will all my other tabs (spinning circle, "Waiting for Cache", the Google Play Music stream will stop, etc). Likewise, other apps will also lose connectivity (I'm trying to reinstall League because every time I boot League after switching to the SSD it also crashes rather than playing the game).

I have a vague suspicion this is because Acronis didn't properly copy over the right permisisons settings when I cloned the drive? I told Acronis to simply "Clone Disk," which I hear should have worked. The main reason I suspect permissions is that when I opened Event Viewer and looked at the last errors before the crash, it's Event 10016. Some quick googling told me that I needed to Regedit full permissions for the linked CLID and APPID entries in the registry, and allow full control to the relevant Com+ entries in Computer Services. So I did that, but a few minutes ago I got another similar crash and I am not sure what to troubleshoot next. Any advice?

Snow Cone Capone
Jul 31, 2003


So does the Samsung Magician program do anything remotely useful? RAPID mode is snake oil, all the OS optimization stuff is done by Win10 anyway apparently, and the Optimization thing seems to be bullshit too.

The overprovisioning thing, though - Magician seems to literally just create a separate partition, but the OP of the thread talks about just leaving at least 10% space free on the drive. Is there a difference between the 2 methods?

Now I need to go into Magician and figure out what settings it changed so I can uninstall it in peace...

e: well it looks like the newest version of Magician eliminated a shitload of options, I guess Win10 took care of a lot of that stuff. Good to know it's now totally useless!

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Nov 29, 2016

Rexxed
May 1, 2010

Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

Kelp Me! posted:

So does the Samsung Magician program do anything remotely useful? RAPID mode is snake oil, all the OS optimization stuff is done by Win10 anyway apparently, and the Optimization thing seems to be bullshit too.

The overprovisioning thing, though - Magician seems to literally just create a separate partition, but the OP of the thread talks about just leaving at least 10% space free on the drive. Is there a difference between the 2 methods?

Now I need to go into Magician and figure out what settings it changed so I can uninstall it in peace...

e: well it looks like the newest version of Magician eliminated a shitload of options, I guess Win10 took care of a lot of that stuff. Good to know it's now totally useless!

It updates firmware. You don't really need to leave it installed unless some new firmware comes out.

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apropos man
Sep 5, 2016

You get a hundred and forty one thousand years and you're out in eight!
It's handy for verifying that the drive is official, too. If, like me, you got your 850 Evo for a bargain on eBay.

I don't know if it's possible to hack the firmware to make Magician think that the drive is legit, mind. I imagine that this would be too much of a hassle for any Chinese cloners to bother with.

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