SSD advice for laptop

QuietOne

QuietOne

always shouting
Hi there,

I received my MSI laptop yesterday and I want to get an SSD drive for it. I was thinking around 240GB drive for OS and games.

Would you recommend getting another storage drive too? Because I don't know whether to touch the drive that is in there as it has a recovery partition and leaving that drive untouched means that if I have to RMA it then I could put the original drive back in.

Cheers.
 
QuietOne said:
Hi there,

I received my MSI laptop yesterday and I want to get an SSD drive for it. I was thinking around 240GB drive for OS and games.

Would you recommend getting another storage drive too? Because I don't know whether to touch the drive that is in there as it has a recovery partition and leaving that drive untouched means that if I have to RMA it then I could put the original drive back in.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Even if you RMA it, the recovery drive / partition doesn't need to be there.

Personally I would create the recovery media in windows and just do a clean install, and see if you can access the recovery partition and pull the drivers off there to keep hold of on a seperate DVD (can be usefull to have as not all hardware will be installed on a fresh install.

I personally when using a SSD always add a mechanical drive for things like the user files / docs / pics etc. I use audit mode to set it up, so can install all the drivers, windows updates etc, move the pagefile to the mechanical, then clean off all temp files etc before exiting audit mode, then create the user which then automatically is created on the mechanical drive, that way it leaves your SSD for progs and poss some games, and everything else goes on the mechanical (although my steam folder is way too big now for a SSD unless I raid a couple of them).

I find doing it that way (user folders etc on mechanical) seems to keep the SSD running faster for longer, than if the user files was on the SSD.

-----------

Excalabur50 said:
Get a Samsung 840 Evo, nice drive
Click to expand...

^^^ What he said :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Excalabur50 said:
Get a Samsung 840 Evo, nice drive
Click to expand...

Thank you, heard a lot of positive feedback about the Samsung drives. I will get one of them.

YouWhat said:
Even if you RMA it, the recovery drive / partition doesn't need to be there.

Personally I would create the recovery media in windows and just do a clean install, and see if you can access the recovery partition and pull the drivers off there to keep hold of on a seperate DVD (can be usefull to have as not all hardware will be installed on a fresh install.

I personally when using a SSD always add a mechanical drive for things like the user files / docs / pics etc. I use audit mode to set it up, so can install all the drivers, windows updates etc, move the pagefile to the mechanical, then clean off all temp files etc before exiting audit mode, then create the user which then automatically is created on the mechanical drive, that way it leaves your SSD for progs and poss some games, and everything else goes on the mechanical (although my steam folder is way too big now for a SSD unless I raid a couple of them).

I find doing it that way (user folders etc on mechanical) seems to keep the SSD running faster for longer, than if the user files was on the SSD.

-----------



^^^ What he said :D
Click to expand...

I will look into creating a recovery disk, just the boot time takes forever after clearing all the bloatware that comes with it. My dad's 2yr old laptop boots quicker than mine with his 5400rpm mech drive.
 
QuietOne said:
I will look into creating a recovery disk, just the boot time takes forever after clearing all the bloatware that comes with it. My dad's 2yr old laptop boots quicker than mine with his 5400rpm mech drive.
Click to expand...

Even with windows 8? :o. Something might actually be wrong with that drive.
 
1) purchase and download Acronis True Image
2) setup boot thingy for true image
3) Clone entire current drive to SSD
4) Swap drives and enjoy SSD speediness

if(fault){
reverse step 4 and return item
}
 
Mine was stupidly slow to be fair when it had the mech hard drive.

I would keep the recovery partition somewhere though. I had massive issues trying to install a fresh copy of windows onto it without.

There's a program MSI include which allows you to transfer the recovery onto disks or a memory stick. You're best off doing that just so you've got a backup of it somewhere, then you can install it from there onto the new SSD.
 
barnsley said:
yeaaaaaaaaaaah. That doesn't sound healthy.
Click to expand...

I will try a file transfer and see how quickly it does it.

SuB said:
1) purchase and download Acronis True Image
2) setup boot thingy for true image
3) Clone entire current drive to SSD
4) Swap drives and enjoy SSD speediness

if(fault){
reverse step 4 and return item
}
Click to expand...

Thanks SuB, I could try that and see if there's any change.

jamesriley94 said:
Mine was stupidly slow to be fair when it had the mech hard drive.

I would keep the recovery partition somewhere though. I had massive issues trying to install a fresh copy of windows onto it without.

There's a program MSI include which allows you to transfer the recovery onto disks or a memory stick. You're best off doing that just so you've got a backup of it somewhere, then you can install it from there onto the new SSD.
Click to expand...

After reading the spec on scan again, it says it's a SATA 3Gb/s 7200rpm drive? For the last three years or so I have been using SATA3 SSD and mech drives. Is the noticeable difference between the two?

I will take the recovery partition and see if there's much difference once I have the OS on the SSD.

I will try the file transfer now and see how that performs. Thanks for the help guys.

Edit: copied a 500mb file from one partition to another and transfer speed was around 105MB/s so I guess the drive itself is fine?

KkmovvL.png


Here is the performance log and the part that is in blue seems to take the HDD utilisation up to about 85%
 
Last edited:
I've ordered an 840 EVO from Scan now. Should arrive on Monday. If I have any issues with moving it over to the SSD then I'll know where to come for help :)
 
Excalabur50 said:
The Evo drive comes with Samsung's own software for cloning drives
Click to expand...

If it's still Norton Ghost (and it's not the full software, it's a trial) then don't even bother.

Believe me, save yourself the time and headache and buy a copy of TrueImage. It's flawless
 
SuB said:
If it's still Norton Ghost (and it's not the full software, it's a trial) then don't even bother.

Believe me, save yourself the time and headache and buy a copy of TrueImage. It's flawless
Click to expand...

TBH I don't know what it comes with as I didn't use it personally I just knew that it came with something;)
 
I don't think I got anything in mine when I got my Evo 840 120GB a few of weeks ago , but I didn't get the kit, just the drive, will have to go check in the box and see if I missed it.

**Edit**

Yep I found it, hidden in the papers, now question is can I be bothered to see whats on the disk or not? lol
 
Last edited:
I wouldn't recommend any sort of cloning, just back stuff up to your desktop/external HDD, reinstall everything and move the files back.

I am not sure how windows currently deals with it, but for example with Windows 7 the installation won't be optimised for SSD use and fixing it requires fiddling with registry.
 
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