SSD instalation

[tehidyman]

At present I have a desktop running Windows 7. (Some of my essential software will not survive transfer to Windows 10) My hard drive appears to have 450 GB capacity of which I use 88 GB. This has slowly built up over 6 years. To get a 500 GB SSD seems like overkill and overspend. Do I really need to get a SSD equal or above current HDD as suggested by some sites? Second question is If I clone my HDD to new SSD can I be confident that all my software, updates and databases will be 100% functional. Any other tips, links or advice will be appreciated.

[nowster]

One word of caution: some SSDs have a habit of failing totally without any prior warning. Keep backups on something that isn't flash based.

[Simon]

Gosh, is nothing safe and reliable?   

[Technical Ben]

One word of caution: some SSDs have a habit of failing totally without any prior warning. Keep backups on something that isn't flash based.

This is true of all media, and even HDDs did this in their early days. All/most SSDs are now past that stage of risky technology, and will give you a warning (My Samsung does if I have the software installed, I got it second hand from a PC store, I can only hope it was customer unwanted goods and not stolen/palmed goods as it was literally nearly new, a couple hours on it's firmware showing, so no idea where they got it from ).

Generally, yes it does need to be equal or bigger than your current drive.  You could split the drives. It's more hassle than it's worth IMO (though I did it out of need, a 250gb ssd and 1tb hdd). The method is uninstalling everything you don't need, moving everything worth moving of personal files and installed software to a different partition/drive and getting it smaller. I got my 500gb partition down to 250gb so I could move it to an SSD.

But running with 1 drive is much more simple, and you then have 1 drive to backup/mirror for redundancy.

Most manufactures offer software to "mirror" the drive across to the SSD. Then if they don't do it automatically, it's about 1 command in Windows to get the SSD settings going well. There are even companies offering free software to do it (I used Macrium Reflect) and they set the SSD setting too (such as "TRIM" but you may need to turn off "Windows Search Indexing" etc.

Most SSDs will also last at least 10 years normal use write cycles. I've got 280 times the drives size as an endurance rating, 250gb drive with 70TB endurance. I kind of panicked at the 280 times, as it seems low, but at my current usage (and that's including installing windows on it when I got it), it will take me around 20 years to hit that "limit". After that the drive will warn me it's feeling old and tired.

[zappaDPJ]

Gosh, is nothing safe and reliable?   

When it comes to data storage it's best to assume not although you are more likely to lose everything to ransomware these days than suffer a drive failure. Either way it's essential to take backups, preferably stored on removable drives.

I might have had my first SSD failure recently. Although the data is intact and readable, my PC crashes every time I try to take a backup of the drive. In general though they seem to be as reliable as hard drives.

To get a 500 GB SSD seems like overkill and overspend. Do I really need to get a SSD equal or above current HDD as suggested by some sites? Second question is If I clone my HDD to new SSD can I be confident that all my software, updates and databases will be 100% functional. Any other tips, links or advice will be appreciated.

I would always lean towards getting a larger capacity drive. You may not need it now but programs/applications and their associated data are only going to get bigger and it's never a good idea to fill a drive to capacity, especially a drive containing the operating system.

The only tip I'd give regarding cloning is don't wipe the source drive until you 101% sure everything is working as intended on the new drive

[Technical Ben]

Yep. I've still got a live backup (though pruned) and an archive of my old drive... I think I need to sort through it all.

[nowster]

This is true of all media, and even HDDs did this in their early days. All/most SSDs are now past that stage of risky technology...

Mine was a reasonably recent Sandisk in a low activity role. One day without ever having thrown any SMART errors it suddenly reported a capacity of zero.

[Technical Ben]

Mine was a reasonably recent Sandisk in a low activity role. One day without ever havingthrown any SMART errors it suddenly reported a capacity of zero.

Really? That sounds strange, considering the cells should be separate to some degree, so to have all of them fail is strange. Did you ever find out what it was? I've not tried file/drive recovery on an SSD yet (don't basic on SSD cards etc). I'm not even sure how an SSD can report a zero size.

(A quick Google suggests it might be a firmware problem. Which is entirely down to manufacture not to put out buggy drivers/firmware... and not down to actual reliability of the tech. :/ ) So I guess you got a rare but still annoying dud. (Like that time I got 2 psus turn up with broken switches, I'm still using the second, as not worth the problem for an almost cosmetic fault).

[zappaDPJ]

A quick Google suggests it might be a firmware problem.

The first SSD I bought sometimes failed to be seen as bootable even though it was recognised by the BIOS. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) that was also a Sandisk product. I was fairly convinced at the time that it was most likely a firmware issue.

[Technical Ben]

PC hardware is strange. Currently taken on a dying Geforce 570 to repair/replace. I swapped it out for a friend for with a spare, but working, 560... thing is, they don't even game! So I should have given them the £20 GPU, but they don't understand their needs VS advertising, and just want what they bought... so it's the closest match. They bought the whole PC second hand so even worse a deal for them . But you can only help with current problems sometimes, not change people.

But back on topic, the 570 probably has a VRAM chip dying or falling off. That seems a common fault for the 500 series (that and being cooked from too much voltage... but could be the same cause of two faults. Other boards before and after could be fine. But one model/revision/batch and every one dies (IIRC my brothers also did, and it's why I have a nice 660ti as a replacement via warranty claim! ).

I might try a home improve DIY reflow of the solder to see if that resets the chip (or just rejigs it's broken silicone ). Nothing to loose except some electric cost, some time, and some tin foil.