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SSD Installation
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Jun 25, 2019 16:28:15   #
bobforman Loc: Anacortes, Washington State
 
Always being amazed at the breadth of knowledge on this site, I thought I'd try ask this here. I'm considering swapping my hard drive for a solid state drive in my Win 10 PC and making the SSD my primary drive. Is this something a civilian can do or should I take it to a shop for the work? Also, are there instructional guides on how to do this? I did check YouTube and they showed the swapping part but not the data Xfer and set up portion of the process.

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Jun 25, 2019 16:39:51   #
alx Loc: NJ
 
Let me ask you a quick starter question to help us know which way to guide you.

Is the computer a LAPTOP or DESKTOP unit?

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Jun 25, 2019 16:53:07   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
It depends on how comfortable you fee with the process of removing the guts.

On my Windows 7 PC, I had a drive with "an impending failure" on it (Thanks HAL).
I used Acronis to make an image copy of my hard drive (I have a USB external dual drive dock.). The new drive has to be the same size or larger. I went from a 1Tb to a 2Tb.) I believe Acronis shuts down Windows to do the process as you cannot copy system files when Windows is running, they keep changing. (Ibid you just can't "copy" the drive on a running system.)

When Acronis was done, I powered down the system and swapped the drives. (My computer has a drive cage that has to be removed to change/add a drive.) I powered up (I think Acronis did some housekeeping) and it was like nothing changed, other than I now have a 2Tb drive. No more "failure imminent" messages.

You should be able to connect the SSD to the cables the original drive was using and add the old drive as a secondary. Then you can clean up the secondary. I would have done that to my system, but the disk monitor software said the drive was going bad so I didn't want to use it. I was given a 1Tb drive a few months after I did this. I wish I would have received it sooner...

The process worked so well that I'm considering getting another 2Tb and making a backup image drive periodically.

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Jun 25, 2019 16:54:04   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
alx wrote:
Let me ask you a quick starter question to help us know which way to guide you.

Is the computer a LAPTOP or DESKTOP unit?


Yes, more room (and probably easier) to work in with a desktop.

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Jun 25, 2019 17:59:41   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
bobforman wrote:
Always being amazed at the breadth of knowledge on this site, I thought I'd try ask this here. I'm considering swapping my hard drive for a solid state drive in my Win 10 PC and making the SSD my primary drive. Is this something a civilian can do or should I take it to a shop for the work? Also, are there instructional guides on how to do this? I did check YouTube and they showed the swapping part but not the data Xfer and set up portion of the process.


I've done this many times. I use the following cable to connect between computer and SSD. Then I use the free version of Macrium Reflect to clone the hard drive that's in the machine. Then I swap drives. I've never had a problem. The only potential problem I see is that if you're doing this on a laptop, you may need special tools to get it open, and you should use the service manual as a guide. (I had to buy itty-bitty star drive screwdrivers to get my HP laptop open.)

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/ref=sr_1_3?crid=5DBZUFO84QJ6&keywords=usb+to+sata+cable&qid=1561499783&s=gateway&sprefix=usb+to+SATA%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-3

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Jun 25, 2019 18:01:20   #
pendennis
 
I did it on both my laptop and my primary desktop. Took around 30 minutes for each installation, and that included the cloning. The SSD for my laptop came with the adapter to fit the slot, and I had to order an adapter from Amazon for the desktop.

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Jun 25, 2019 18:23:58   #
bobforman Loc: Anacortes, Washington State
 
HP Desk Top. About 10 years old.

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Jun 25, 2019 18:28:47   #
wrangler5 Loc: Missouri
 
pendennis wrote:
I did it on both my laptop and my primary desktop. Took around 30 minutes for each installation, and that included the cloning.


Me too. Replaced the spinning drive in a Macbook Pro and the C drive in a Windows 7 box I had built from Micro Center parts about 6 or 7 years earlier. Didn't increase the disk size in either case, just got visibly faster booting - probably got generally faster operations in general, too, but never did any timing to prove it. I really like the faster boot, though, and the knowledge that there are no moving parts any more.

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Jun 25, 2019 19:11:59   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
bobforman wrote:
HP Desk Top. About 10 years old.

Mine's an HP also, ≈9 years old.

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Jun 25, 2019 21:23:25   #
nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ
 
If you're comfortable working inside your computer, it should be fairly easy. I replaced a still good 320gig HD with a 500gig Samsung EVO 850 a couple years ago. The performance improvement was very good. I never checked how much faster it booted.

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Jun 25, 2019 23:45:38   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
bobforman wrote:
HP Desk Top. About 10 years old.


One thing I want to mention is that an older computer may be using SATA II, which becomes a bottleneck with a fast SSD. The benefit in upgrading from a spinning drive is less, and I can say that from personal experience.

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Jun 26, 2019 07:35:15   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
therwol wrote:
One thing I want to mention is that an older computer may be using SATA II, which becomes a bottleneck with a fast SSD. The benefit in upgrading from a spinning drive is less, and I can say that from personal experience.

Geeze, what's the latest now? SATA III or something else?

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Jun 26, 2019 07:58:25   #
jgudpns Loc: Pensacola, FL
 
Longshadow wrote:
Geeze, what's the latest now? SATA III or something else?


SATA III is actually getting old, but provides 6gb/s transfer rate - BUT there is now PCIe SSD which requires a bus connection (kind of like a memory card) that is 16 gb/s!!!

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Jun 26, 2019 08:02:37   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
jgudpns wrote:
SATA III is actually getting old, but provides 6gb/s transfer rate - BUT there is now PCIe SSD which requires a bus connection (kind of like a memory card) that is 16 gb/s!!!

I could never figure why they went to a serial interface. Parallel (data & address buses) is so much faster.

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Jun 26, 2019 09:11:04   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
jgudpns wrote:
SATA III is actually getting old, but provides 6gb/s transfer rate - BUT there is now PCIe SSD which requires a bus connection (kind of like a memory card) that is 16 gb/s!!!


True and true. The latter is NVMe, but your motherboard has to support it, and chances are that if you bought a machine with such a motherboard, it would already have an NVMe drive installed in the slot.

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