Solid State Drives: The Future of Storage

I bought a new Dell XPS a little over 2 years ago. It came with 256 SSD and I think a 2 TB hard drive. I am overjoyed with it. I am 81 years old and trade stock options so I often have 4-8 windows open.

I have upgraded two laptops to SSDs in the last year. WOW what a difference! These machines were super slow to start up and I had to wait 10 minutes after booting to even be able to work.

Simply a difference like NIGHT and DAY!

I have installed several SSDs on many desktops and am satisfied with their performance.The exception would be if you installed a SSD on a older machine.

The machine might not recognize the SSD as a drive or function funny after installation.Stick to machines made in the last ten years and you should be OK.

I just finished swapping out a 1 tb hdd for a 1 tb WD blue ssd. The clone software was Easus and it only took an hour to clone, open computer, replace the drives and close up the laptop. First boot was flawless with speed that I absolutely could not believe. Now I want one in all my pc's. I paid $87. for my new ssd on a prime day sale.

I replaced my 7-year-old 1T Hitachi disk with a Samsung 500G SSD a year ago. The disk was showing signs of flakiness, and though CHKDSK did whatever it does to "repair", I decided the time had come.
I keep all my files on an external 1T USB disk, with only software files on the C: SSD. I backup my files to two other USB disks, alternating between the two. So far, so good.
I also backup C: occasionally to the two USB disks.

Many years ago, I replaced the 160 GB HD drive in my Toshiba NB 206 netbook with a 500 GB SSD. I run the Ubuntu OS and even though the netbook only has an Atom CPU and only 2 GB of memory, it more than fulfills my requirements,

Less than a year ago I was experiencing issues with my magnetic hard drive on my HP Pavilion laptop. I replaced it with an SSD and the difference is noticeable. The boot-up time was cut nearly in half, overall speed increased dramatically and whisper quiet operation is great. Subsequently, I replaced the magnetic drives in my other laptops with SSDs.

I've followed Bob for several years now and as he says on the weekly updates, I've become 145% smarter. Thank you Bob.

How do I install a new SSD and get it up and running. I think the physical installation is easy but I am concerned about transferring the information from my current drive (including the boot up information)

I replaced the HDD in a 9 year old Toshiba laptop with an SSD and increased the RAM to the max it could handle. Several times better. SSD and RAM were from Crucial. I'm just waiting until my PC is out of warrenty to do the same to that, and I'll use Crucial agaim. I have no connection with Crucial except as a very satisfied customer.

I replaced the original 1TB HD in my Asus desktop 2 years ago with a 1TB Western Digital Blue. Boot-up went from just over 3 1/2 minutes to 40 seconds. Absolutely everything functioned faster. It was like getting a new PC. I kept the original HD in the machine and use it for backups. I also backup to 2 external HDs, but will be replacing the older one with a 1TB SSD in the next couple of weeks. Although I've had good luck with my external HDs -- have a retired 15 year-old WD and a 9 year-old Seagate that still work -- ain't taking any chances.

Earlier this year, I tested my first 1TB SSD on my oldest Laptop (an Acer Aspire 5741). It had been running slowly enough that I began to consider replacing it. I also got an external HD box for it so I could more easily clone my existing drive (a cost of only about $20.00 on Amazon, and now I use the original drive for local back-up purposes).

After cloning the original drive and installing the SSD, the first thing I noticed after initiating a restart was how fast it booted (about 35 seconds as you reported ). THe next thing that hit me was how much more quickly my apps loaded (Edge, Mail, and a few games).

Before the drive swap it took several seconds to load Edge or Mail. After the swap, it now takes only moments.

After using the Laptop for a few days, I got three more SSDs for my other systems (two Desktops and another Laptop). The reasons why I have two Laptops and two Desktops is another story :).

I have experienced similar results on all four computers (they all boot in about 35 seconds).

All of my computers have been around for several years and the addition of the SSDs will let me keep them for (perhaps) a few more.

My suggestions for anyone who is using older hardware that is working well (even if too slowly) follows:

1. Max out your system RAM (as much as your mainboard can support).

2. Check that your system has the fastest CPU the mainboard will support, and upgrade it if not.

3. Get a 1TB SSD Drive to replace your current one (and perhaps an external hd case for cloning purposes).

I took all these steps with my production Desktop PC (one at a time in the order I suggest above), and I am now very satisfied with my system after an investment of less than $200.00 for the additional RAM (a second 8GB ~ $30.00), the newer CPU (a used quad-core AMD Phenom - ~ $30.00), a new -very large- CPU cooling fan ~$30.00), and the 1TB SSD HD (about $98.00). I almost forgot, I also have an older nVidia (GT-710) graphics adapter to improve video performance (installed a few years ago - do not remember the price).

As a caveat, I have been building my own Desktop systems since the 1990s rather than buying brand named devices. I had a side business doing the same for people I know/knew (stopped when I retired to care for my wife), so I am familiar with the inside of my system box. If you do not know how to work around electronic hardware, consider having a local technician do the work for you. Adding RAM or a Hard Drive should be within the capability of most mechanically adept people, but when it comes to replacing a CPU (or the CPU cooling fan), you should be very careful. If you decide to attempt to replace the CPU, first get a book about this subject and study it. I used "Upgrading and Repairing PC's", a QUE book by Mueller (I still have the book on my desk). There may be newer books on Amazon, or at your local book store.

I hope this helps someone,

Ernie

What about the long term reliability? Will the data on an SSD still be reliable if sitting on the shelf for 5+ years or does it have to be refreshed every so often? My old spinning backup drives data is still there after 10+ years.

Several years ago I had an old Gateway laptop with Vista that was running very slow. I maxed out the memory, changed the internal drive to an SSD and loaded Windows 7. It was like a new machine, and I continued to use it for several more years.

I agree that for the short term, solid state drives will rule the roost, but when looking to the future, quantum storage will be the next step, especially when combined with artificial intelligence (AI).

SSD's are in my view still too expensive for mass storage when I find a 250Gb SSD is quite enough for the OP system and for basic storage, when the cost of SSD's drop then it might be worth the risk of going all SSD for extra mass and backup storage, although I don't think the option of the magnetic system should ever be taken from us as there should always be a cheaper alternative system available, and expensive SSD's might suffer from the same problem as corruptible memory sticks