So I'm going to be installing an SSD as a boot drive (currently just got a 1TB HDD for everything) and don't know which to get. Will probably just go for a ~240/250GB as it's mainly for booting and storing a few programs and couple of games on. Anyway, seems my main 2 options are these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ul...s&ie=UTF8&qid=1461066508&sr=1-11&keywords=SSD https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product...act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE Is there really a noticeable benefit of spending £30 more on the Samsung? Is reliability or noticeable speed likely to be a factor? Also, any tips in general for this would be appreciated, thanks.
250gb is about perfect for an OS drive. So far I've never owned a Samsung drive but I don't really see any one complaining they've failed. That being said I don't see any complaints about Sandisk either. About the most reliable drives I've used personally Intel have been the best with Corsair and Patriot being the worst.
You can get the 850 Evo a little cheaper from Maplin - http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/samsung-250gb-850-evo-ssd-a63tk Otherwise i think you've misread the pricing on that Sandisk, as the Amazon link is showing the 120GB at £50 & the 240GB at £65... ...vs the Samsung at £68 (from Maplin) - so it's a £3 difference, not a £30 one, when comparing the equivalent capacities. Personally i'd get the Samsung every time.
I can't believe I didn't notice I had the wrong size selected on Amazon, with that little price difference I'll go for the Samsung, seems a no-brainer. That link just says product discontinued and doesn't let you add it to a basket or anything...
They still had stock when i was price checking yesterday, so they must have only had a few left & sold them. http://www.tekheads.co.uk/product/2...ATA3-6Gbs-25inch-Solid-State-Drive_48235.html is a couple of quid cheaper than Amazon - though they only have 3 left.
Just to check, cause I always get myself nervous with things like this. I can put this SSD in, unplug my existing HDD, and install Win 7 to it off my disc and give it my series code and it should all work as its on the same mobo and CPU? And when I plug my old HDD back in to use as mass storage it shouldn't mess anything up? I guess I'll have to make sure it knows which drive to use as a boot drive in the BIOS, but should be able to figure that one out myself. Weird. Thanks for that. I'm not good at shopping around.
Yup. Just make sure the system is booting from the SSD once you've plugged the HDD back in, else it'll boot into your previous copy of windows, that in itself is a little bit of extra hassle, but won't cause any failures or errors or anything. Then you've got the fun of going through and carefully nuking out windows from the HDD to gain back 20 odd GB of space!
If you go for a Samsung then you can download 'Data Migration' software that simply transfers your OS from the old HDD to the SSD! http://www.samsung.com/global/busin.../SSD/global/html/whitepaper/whitepaper11.html
I'm actually wanting to do a new install because that version has been running for 4 years now, general crap build-up has slowed it down a little so thinking a fresh install might be nice anyway. Don't mind re-installing a few programs. Kinda good to know that should anything go wrong with the SSD boot I could just remove it and stick my old HDD in and use my old set-up. I don't look forward to manually removing all them files at all.
Do I need to backup stuff on my current HDD before doing all this? Guess it should be fine, just never unplugged it before so unsure.
Thanks. Was thinking in theory it's just stopping power to it for a bit so should be fine, but never hurts I guess.
So apparently installing this way means that Win 10 won't recognise your Win 7 product key. Am I going to have to install Win 7, let it update, upgrade the Win 10 and then re-install to get a fresh install? Or can I call Microsoft for help? In which case, where the hell can I find their number for the UK, I can't seem to find an actual phone number anywhere.
