Ol Smoke Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I am looking at getting a 250GB SS drive and would like to know the facts about them and the motherboard that will drive it. I am looking for things like this: 1. How and where do they mount? 2. How do they connect to the MB? 3. Is there a certain type of MB that I need? 4. Can I clone my OS partition to it and make it boot -or- do I have to build a new Windows partition from scratch? 5. Is there any down side to having this drive as my main boot? 6. Can I back the drive up to a standard HDD -and- if I can, will that HDD boot up in case the SSD dies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajnl Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 (edited) It connects the same way a HD does. Personally I like to start from scratch with a new SSD or HD. I guess the limited read/writes could be a disadvantage? I've had mine for 3 years ish now, and had no problem. Edited January 8, 2015 by ajnl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrot Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 1. How and where do they mount? Exactly the same as regular HDD, that is, with a SATA connection. They work best with a 6GB/s connection, but legacy 3GB/s is fine. 2. How do they connect to the MB? The other side of the SATA cable plugs into the MB. Consult your motherboard manual to see if you have a 6GB/s port, otherwise, any SATA port will work. 3. Is there a certain type of MB that I need? If your current MB has SATA ports, that's all you need. A new motherboard will definitely have at least one 6GB/s port. 4. Can I clone my OS partition to it and make it boot -or- do I have to build a new Windows partition from scratch? Some SSD's come with migration software to make cloning an existing installation painless. I'd recommend you do a fresh install just to make sure you get maximum performance (get rid of old cruft). 5. Is there any down side to having this drive as my main boot? No. In theory, there are limited read/write issues, but nothing you will ever notice. I have run an SSD as my boot drive for over three years, with zero issues. At this point, an SSD makes such a dramatic difference that I have put one in every computer I use, even my work computers. My boss just gave me a laptop to use this semester, and the first thing I did was order another SSD (Samsung 840 pro, 120) 6. Can I back the drive up to a standard HDD -and- if I can, will that HDD boot up in case the SSD dies? Yes, and depending on how you do it, yes. You would need to setup whole-disk backups in order to maintain a bootable drive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanaraud Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 Not an expert on this, but pointing out some things. Mainly one needs to check if mobo and SSD has same connection type mention in specs. 1. How and where do they mount? Most of SSD are connecting through Sata as usual HDDs do. Though there are M2 and PCI-e and PCI-Express SSD-s also. M2 is special Sata connection slot on mobo which accepts RAM-looking plate M2 SSD-s. Then there is new standard PCI-Express, still developement and uses NVM( contrary to Sata´s AHCI mode), there are 1 or 2 models of them if my memory is correct, in the future it should take over Sata. Then there is Ultra-Sata M2-s using 1-4 Sata\PCI-e lanes on one port and achieving speeds as 2 SSD in RAID usually do- Samsungs XP941 is one of them, 1600MB\s vs usual SSD 550MB\s is its speed. Other one is Plextor m6e. 2. How do they connect to the MB? See above but mainly by Sata cable, then on M2 slot or on PCI-e 1x-4x slot. 3. Is there a certain type of MB that I need? Most of the SSD should connect even on SATA 2(3Gb\s), Sata 1 will bottleneck SSD speed a lot. For M2 you need a mobo with M2 slot, for PCI-e card type SSD-s a corresponding PCI-e slot is enough 4. Can I clone my OS partition to it and make it boot -or- do I have to build a new Windows partition from scratch? Some of SSD give you some software to clone SSD, not sure how they work as I trus format C:\ over all. 5. Is there any down side to having this drive as my main boot? Most of mainstream SSD are for now fast and reliable, some high end ones lived through 1PB+ of writes, thats more than home user needs in "billion years":P NVM controlled SSD-s still have problems to boot up, so they don´t fit as main boot HD-s, M2 ones are affected somewhat also. Faster M2 SSD are achieving quite high temps- 80C or more, so wouldn´t trust them for important data. New Samsung 850 PRO-s have 10y of warrant, backing up your data is still wise but nothing to worry about SSD dying after working 2 days;) Actually its: "10 Years or 150TBW" http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/warranty.html 6. Can I back the drive up to a standard HDD -and- if I can, will that HDD boot up in case the SSD dies? To my understaning this is matter of filesystem already, probably can´t back up on your Linux HDD;) Otherwise SSD is programmed to work as usual HDD, though being flash RAM in RAID with controller masking it to be a HD;) Well all you need to know HD is a harddrive: being old good spinning one or SSD. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S3ti Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 (edited) The mainboard should provide SATA3 Ports (or faster stuff like PCIE) SATA2 ports will limit the transfer rate to ~300 Mb/s. Random reads/writes are still fast so you will hardly notice a difference between SATA2/3 in everyday use. AHCI mode must also be supported by the mainboard but that's pretty standard for a while...if it's not some ubercheap noname board or smth. It's usually no problem to clone the Windows partition to a new SSD, but it's important to check the alignment afterwards, else you will lose performance (I would also install from scratch). In the installed OS make sure that trim-mode is supported and running. Other than that it's handled the same way as a HDD (like partitioning/formating). And there's no way back if you get used to a 10 sec Windows boot Edited January 11, 2015 by S3ti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanaraud Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Wanted to point out 1 more thing, SSD isn´t treated like ordinary HDD by OS- Win 8.1 supports automatically TRIM and disables defragmentation for SSD-s. With older OS one should check if its done correctly by OS. SSD doesn´t have fragmentation and allowing defragmentation "wears out lifetime with useless writes on cells". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cod++ Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 It is commonly said that adding an SSD to your system is one of the single most immediately noticable upgrades you can make. I agree, and now that SSD technology has greatly surpassed the old days of 'sata controller with usb plugged in', SSD's are basically just as safe to use as regular HDD's. Personally, I recommend getting 2 smaller capacity (~256gb) drives and putting then into RAID0, effectively doubling your capacity and nearly doubling your speed. SSD's are stable enough now for RAID0 to be a very low-risk way to give your pc a crazy fast upgrade. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ol Smoke Posted February 8, 2015 Author Share Posted February 8, 2015 Thanks for the info guys. Much appeciated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.