IT HW Wallahs to the forum pls – SSD expertise needed

My venerable laptop has decided it has indigestion and needs a bit more space. Reminds me of the old days when 40mb HDD’s were considered swanky and we quickly moved on to saving/deleting/swapping stuff to avoid running out of space…

I’m going to change my mahoosive 256gb hdd for an SDD. Presumably the biggerer the betterer? Like 2TB or is that now miniscule in today’s world of bloat ware?

Are there any gotchas or golden nuggets I should beware of and what should I be looking at for the best in price/ performance.

Sorry, dumb questions mebbies but I’m not anywhere near current on the more recent stuff.

If your Laptop has come from a standard HDD, the spec of a new SSD won’t make much difference.
In my opinion anyway. You will see huge improvements anyway.

I would try and stick to a recomended brand like Sandisk, Crucial or Samsung. Don’t be tempted by the cheap Amazon offers.

Depending on what you do on your Laptop 2TB should be absolutely fine. A standards Windows 11 instal is around 30GB, so you are leaving a lot of room for programs or data.

I’ve always thought the Samsung 870 EVO drives are a good price, and great performance.

Check the biggest drive size the bios can support. 2TB probably ok, but it will depend how old the laptop is.

I’ve always thought the Samsung 870 EVO drives are a good price, and great performance.

It’s my go-to as well.

Have installed various sizes in several of my computers, and other family members.

2tb is porn collection territory, pretty massive for normal use.

(or video shooting/editing or really hi res photos but since you’ve currently got a tiny hard drive I figure you’re not doing any of that or you’d already have had to upgrade?)

1tb (960gb) £58

https://www.cclonline.com/sa400s37-960g-kingston-a400-2-5-960gb-sata-iii-solid-state-drive/

2tb £78

https://www.cclonline.com/ts2tssd220q-transcend-ssd220q-2-5-2tb-sata-iii-solid-state-drive/

They are both ‘low spec’ drives, prices have crept up a bit recently but will still be blisteringly fast compared to you HDD.

EDIT, if you dont need 1tb+, then this looks like a good/better deal:

480gb for £32

https://www.cclonline.com/asu630ss-480gq-r-adata-su630-2-5-480gb-sata-solid-state-drive/

Thanks girls & boys. Is there anything to watch out for when migrating or is it just install in a caddy, copy accross/replicate then swap for the hdd?

Oh and BTW, no filum or pr0n but I don’t want to do this again for a long while so biggest is bestest to avoid running out of space again.

Any pointers on config as in partitions or is it just one megah jobbie nowadays to avoid running out of space?

TBH with so many cloud services these days – for storing music, photos, videos etc – I’ve found that local storage requirements are pretty minimal.

Thanks girls & boys. Is there anything to watch out for when migrating or us it just install in a caddy, copy accross/replicate then swap for the hdd?

You’ll need some clone software, you can’t just copy and paste everything across, but to be honest, if you’ve not re-installed windows recently…I’d to a fresh install rather than cloning.

EDIT, if you dont need 1tb+, then this looks like a good/better deal:

480gb for £32

https://www.cclonline.com/asu630ss-480gq-r-adata-su630-2-5-480gb-sata-solid-state-drive/

TBH with so many cloud services these days – for storing music, photos, videos etc – I’ve found that local storage requirements are pretty minimal.

Sometimes, maybe, but if your operating system is on an HDD rather than an SSD, your experience is gonna be crap, slower to boot, slower to launch apps, slower everything, really.

I wouldn’t go smaller than 480/500gb, simply as that’s a reasonable size and any smaller is often not very good value in terms of £ per GB cost.

A 240gb drive will cost you say £22…you can get one twice the size for an extra tenner, so if you are buying a drive anyway, it makes little sense to go for a 240gb drive as 240gb I would say is too small for a drive these days, more so if its your system drive as windows alone will probably fill it up 50% before youve even started.

TBH with so many cloud services these days – for storing music, photos, videos etc – I’ve found that local storage requirements are pretty minimal.

I still want my own local copy of everything though.

Sometimes, maybe, but if your operating system is on an HDD rather than an SSD, your experience is gonna be crap, slower to boot, slower to launch apps, slower everything, really.

Sure, but storage capacity isn’t the issue it once was.

Aye, I prefer local copies as well as extra emergency Bacofoil for new hats…

Most of the Cloud jobbies store copies don’t they? I’ve Google Drive, One Drive and Dropbox and they all seem to keep synchronised copies of the local copy which obviously means they need a local copy to synch with? Unless I’m missing something…

Any pointers on config as in partitions or is it just one megah jobbie

Multiple partitions arn’t really a thing these days, for home use anyway..just fill the drive with one big partition.

I mean you could create a recovery or backup partition, but you’re better off putting backups etc. onto a seperate physical drive, such as the old drive you’ll now have spare.

Ta. I said my knowledge isn’t exactly contemporary… I last did hardware support (directly) in the ’90’s…

My last laptop was 1TB. This one is 512GB and it suits me fine, only half used. All my data is on OneDrive, and there’s an option you can tick to only download the files you are actually using, seems to work well.

This one is 512GB and it suits me fine, only half used. All my data is on OneDrive

Yeah.. ‘half a terabyte‘ is really the minimum drive size really, IMO…with a 240gb drive as your only local drive, you can run out of space pretty quickly and it can be a pain in the ass with a laptop, it’s not like you can easily just ‘plop’ a new or bigger extra drive in like you can with a desktop.

Plus it also doesn’t make much economic sense in terms of £ per GB to buy anything smaller.

My laptop is 512gb and its fine for me, windows, whatever apps, and a decent selection of movies and music for when im traveling/offline.

My home PC has about 4.5tb though, as a big music collection, and loads of games (have you seen how big games are these days? my Forza Horizon 5 install is 170gb on it’s own, lol!) ,

and loads of movies.

2TB is a lot unless you’re <ahem> dealing with a lot of video.

2TB is a lot unless you’re <ahem> dealing with a lot of video.

You can just stream porn if that’s your thing…no one saves archives of porn any more…unless you’re an MP or a MET police officer 🙂

You can just stream porn if that’s your thing…no one saves archives of porn any more…unless you’re an MP or a MET police officer

Add preppers too, need something to do in the bunkers once the nukes are flying.

Vault-Tec missed a trick there.

No pr0n storage required. Just my vast collection of 1980’s ‘ATB’ anodising pics… The rest is just contingency for when PornHub goes offline in the coming apocalypse…

1-2TB should cover it all; if 2TB is <£100 you might as well.
Question: do you need SATA, or do you have an M2 or NVMe socket?

Question: do you need SATA, or do you have an M2 or NVMe socket?

This. Find out what standard you need first.

@nicko74 I’ve just done a Crucial scan that tells me it’s M2 and NVMe if that makes sense?

I misremembered, it’s actually currently a 256gb SSD not an HDD. Tssk. I wouldn’t recommend a bang to the nut, it can make you a bit ahhh, forgetful…

@nicko74 I’ve just done a Crucial scan that tells me it’s M2 and NVMe if that makes sense?

Yes, that does, make sure you get one that’s NVMe! You may also want to know whether it’s PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 (4.0 is faster and drives are a bit more expensive); but if not a 3.0 drive of the appropriate size should be absolutely fine for you

Merci. In true Columbo style; just one more thing…

Are there usually two placements (sockets?) for SSD’s or, if you prefer, how do you actually physically clone across to the new one?

Oh and if I end up with a ‘4’ (Crucial says yay) but mine turns out to be a ‘3’, will it be backwards compatible?

I know that’s 2 but there ya go, double Columbo 😊

Merci.

Are there usually two placements (sockets?) for SSD’s or, if you prefer, how do you actually physically clone across to the new one?

It’ll depend on the machine. If it currently has a SATA SSD fitted, plus it has an empty M2 socket, it will be simple – you just fit the new drive in the M2 socket and clone the old one. Otherwise you will need a caddy so you can connect the new drive via USB for the cloning.

Just thinking aloud, I’m not into laptops and I’m only a hobbyist anyway but will his drive definitely be a 2280 and will he have to worry about the key?

will he have to worry about the key?

Do you mean the Windows activation key? If so, the hardware will be registered with Microsoft and you can reinstall Windows without needing to enter the key. For cloning, just changing the hard drive alone won’t cause activation problems.

Do you mean the Windows activation key? If so, the hardware will be registered with Microsoft and you can reinstall Windows without needing to enter the key. For cloning, just changing the hard drive alone won’t cause activation problems.

Sorry, I didn’t word that well. I mean the m.2 drives are keyed but I’ve little knowledge on the laptop side of things, hence wondered about the physical size too (not it’s capacity) , ie 2260 or 2280 or the other sizes.

By the key I mean they are physically keyed but it might be a complete non issue. Still, might be worth a quick look before ordering, it sunshine on here into laptop stuff will confirm no doubt. It’s likely the M key, it at least it would be in a tower anyway.

When I’m upgrading, I usually use one of the online vendor sites that will identify compatible upgrades, then buy something of the same format.

thols2
Full Member
When I’m upgrading, I usually use one of the online vendor sites that will identify compatible upgrades, then buy something of the same format

Ha! Yes, that would be a better solution than my overthinking it approach. 😁

I did this upgrade on my Zenbook at Christmas. I used crucial’s tools to check compatibility, bought a caddy for ~10 quid, and used the tools recommended by crucial to clone the old SSD across. The cloning process was garbage. It rendered the new drive unreadable by the Zenbook through the usb port unless using the cloning software, though oddly it appeared as a regular usb drive when plugged in to another laptop. After a cycle of fitting, removing, and re-fitting, I ended up doing a fresh install of windows on the new drive. If you need a windows key they’re cheap as chips.

Do people keep the recovery partition when they replace hard drives or just rely on some other way to restore Windows once they’ve upgraded?

 If you need a windows key they’re cheap as chips.

If the machine had an activated install of Windows 10 or 11, you can install a fresh copy of the same version without needed a Windows key.

Do people keep the recovery partition when they replace hard drives or just rely on some other way to restore Windows once they’ve upgraded?

I just clone the entire drive with all the partitions. However, if you want to do a fresh install of Windows, you can download the appropriate version from the MS website and create a bootable USB drive to restore from. You should be able to download all the drivers and other stuff from the manufacturer’s website.

Do people keep the recovery partition when they replace hard drives or just rely on some other way to restore Windows once they’ve upgraded?

Depends..it can be worth keeping for some laptops if they have obscure touch pad drivers or something that might be a headache to track down online if windows update doesnt pick them up automaticaly. It’s not as big of an issue these days, and if the laptop is a mainstream brand, HP, dell, etc.

The benefit of a clean install though, i.e dowloaded from microsoft onto USB, is that you know it’s a ‘virgin’ copy, without some of the vendor bloat that some OEMs stick onto thier windows images.

The recovery partition just contains a windows image customised by the vendor, same as what you’d download driect from microsoft but preloaded with drivers and sometimes ‘other stuff’ like free trial for noton or whatever that you don’t want.

If you are going to clone rather than clean install, and your upgrading the size of the drive, then you wont be needing to save as much space as physically possible, then I’d just clone the lot across, personally.

The cloning process was garbage.

This is the only clone tool I use, so I can’t speak for others, but its really easy to use…

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/macrium_reflect_free_edition.html

Depends..it can be worth keeping for some laptops if they have obscure touch pad drivers or something that might be a headache to track down online if windows update doesnt pick them up automaticaly.

Ta. Yes, I know if I don’t use the OEM display driver on this laptop, and just use the vanilla Intel driver some features disappear. HDR for example.

Oh and if I end up with a ‘4’ (Crucial says yay) but mine turns out to be a ‘3’, will it be backwards compatible?

Yes! It’ll just run at the max speed of the 3.0 interface – bit like if you plug a faster USB drive into a slower USB socket, it still works just a bit slower

Thanks everyone. I’m gonna have to have a look under the bonnet to see what’s needed caddy wise. Hopefully I can just stick the new SSD in alongside the existing one but I somehow doubt that. It’s a lappie and space is usually at a premium…