SSD = Whizzy

[snuffy]

The missus has a HP laptop which is about 5 years old. It was cheap and cheerful but it's fine for what she uses it for (surfing and email 99% of the time). But it's slow to boot and even coming out of sleep I'm met with "come on you fking thing" , "what's wrong with it now?", "sort this pile of crap out will you?" all the time.

All it is is that of course Windows has helpfully presented the desktop when its not actually ready to be used, so firing IE or her mail-client hangs until Windows is actually ready, giving the impression it's fked.

So today I dug out a small SSD I had lying around, a USB interface cable and made myself a bootable Acronis USB media recovery stick. Then open the case up, pop the old HDD out, slip the new SSD in, close it all back up. Attach the old HDD to a USB port, pop the bootable USB stick in, change the BIOS to boot of the stick and away it went. 30 minutes later it was all cloned.

Reboot and wheeee - fires up in a fraction of the time. Click IE and there it is - no more waiting for Windows to actually finish booting because it already has.

You have to be a looney not to put your OS on an SSD these days.

[LimaDelta]

2012 called, they want their revelation back.


They are good though, aren't they? Bang for buck the best way to revive tired old hardware.

[snuffy]

LimaDelta said:

2012 called, they want their revelation back.


They are good though, aren't they? Bang for buck the best way to revive tired old hardware.

Yes, I know !!

I've had one in my Desktop for ages. And my laptop came with one. But it's the first time I've swapped a HDD for an SDD in a laptop; it is as you like a new machine.

[Derek Smith]

I'm typing this on a 2008 Dell Latitude E6400 laptop. My daughter was going to throw it out as, despite it having a massive 70gig HDD, Win10 struggled to run. I bought a 250SSD but it would not clone. I put it in, installed Ubuntu and it runs faster than my 3-year-old i7 Acer laptop. The keyboard's much better, with a firmer touch.

Apart from needing two people to carry it, it's great, and all for less than £40.

[droopsnoot]

I like reading stuff like this. I've been thinking of putting an SSD in my desktop for ages, then read stuff about it not making much difference for the kind of stuff I do, need for frequent backups and so on. For a while I saw Crucial were just over £30 and thought "if they get below £30, I'll buy one". Then suddenly they're £27-odd (£26-odd now) and I'm thinking "if they get below £25, I'm in". One day I'll get around to it. But then, do I clone (quick and easy), or do I reinstall, drop the unused junk, and go 64-bit so I can use some later stuff that doesn't work on 32-bit. Decisions, decisions.

[FourWheelDrift]

droopsnoot said:

I like reading stuff like this. I've been thinking of putting an SSD in my desktop for ages, then read stuff about it not making much difference for the kind of stuff I do, need for frequent backups and so on. For a while I saw Crucial were just over £30 and thought "if they get below £30, I'll buy one". Then suddenly they're £27-odd (£26-odd now) and I'm thinking "if they get below £25, I'm in". One day I'll get around to it. But then, do I clone (quick and easy), or do I reinstall, drop the unused junk, and go 64-bit so I can use some later stuff that doesn't work on 32-bit. Decisions, decisions.

If you have Windows 10 installed (who doesn't) you can install it fresh onto the new SSD, your PC will be coded by the MS servers so you don't need to put in a serial code. Run the installation.

Windows Media creation tool - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/... run that and create a bootable USB or DVD with it on and then boot from that, you might want to set your SSD as the next bootable item in your BIOS too. Or even disconnect your current Win10 HDD so it doesn't get confused with where you are installing. You might need to format or create a partition on your SSD first as well depending on who you buy from but you will find that out when it doesn't want to install.

Just skip any steps asking for a serial key and select "I am Reinstalling Windows 10 on this PC"


Ps. I did it on an old PC a few weeks ago for a friend that was taking 4m30s to completely boot up (including all desktop running progs) it now does it in 25s, just 9s once Windows logo appears.

[droopsnoot]

FourWheelDrift said:

(who doesn't)

Me, it's 7 Enterprise.

[Penelope Stopit]

droopsnoot said:

FourWheelDrift said:

(who doesn't)

Me, it's 7 Enterprise.

I don't have 10 I have Debian and it's super dooper music looper fast with SSD

I will never ever use Windows again as my main OS, windows 7 will do if I'm stuck for doing a special job that Debian wont do for me

[Richyvrlimited]

LimaDelta said:

2012 called, they want their revelation back.


They are good though, aren't they? Bang for buck the best way to revive tired old hardware.

An M2 NVMe drive is another level again. Granted old hardware is very unlikely to support it. However my PC with one fitted boots to the W10 login screen faster than the monitor can turn on....

[snuffy]

Richyvrlimited said:

An M2 NVMe drive is another level again. Granted old hardware is very unlikely to support it. However my PC with one fitted boots to the W10 login screen faster than the monitor can turn on....

I have one of those in my Desktop. Took me ages to find a new MB that supported two M.2 drives just so I could keep my old M.2 (SATA) and get a new NVMe one as well.

[Mr Pointy]

Penelope Stopit said:

I will never ever use Windows again as my main OS, windows 7 will do if I'm stuck for doing a special job that Debian wont do for me

Ah the zeal of a recent convert renouncing the past. It's like newly minted non-smoker preaching to those who haven't seen the light yet.

It's amusing that you think Windows 10 to be the biggest threat an ordinary user will encouter. I'm guessing you don't use Google software or products in any form, Android, Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp, always run a VPN from a known known safe provider on both PC & phone, don't use public Wi-fi & are using DNSSEC. Dropping back to a soon-to-be unsupported OS is strange choice as well if you're paranoid about security. I guess you'll only do that on a device disconnected from the internet?

GCHQ know far more about what you do than Microsoft.

[h0b0]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[The_Jackal]

Mr Pointy said:

Ah the zeal of a recent convert renouncing the past. It's like newly minted non-smoker preaching to those who haven't seen the light yet.

It's amusing that you think Windows 10 to be the biggest threat an ordinary user will encouter. I'm guessing you don't use Google software or products in any form, Android, Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp, always run a VPN from a known known safe provider on both PC & phone, don't use public Wi-fi & are using DNSSEC. Dropping back to a soon-to-be unsupported OS is strange choice as well if you're paranoid about security. I guess you'll only do that on a device disconnected from the internet?

GCHQ know far more about what you do than Microsoft.

Nose - cut - spite - face

[Penelope Stopit]

Mr Pointy said:

Penelope Stopit said:

I will never ever use Windows again as my main OS, windows 7 will do if I'm stuck for doing a special job that Debian wont do for me

Ah the zeal of a recent convert renouncing the past. It's like newly minted non-smoker preaching to those who haven't seen the light yet.

It's amusing that you think Windows 10 to be the biggest threat an ordinary user will encouter. I'm guessing you don't use Google software or products in any form, Android, Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp, always run a VPN from a known known safe provider on both PC & phone, don't use public Wi-fi & are using DNSSEC. Dropping back to a soon-to-be unsupported OS is strange choice as well if you're paranoid about security. I guess you'll only do that on a device disconnected from the internet?

GCHQ know far more about what you do than Microsoft.

You get a Blue Peter Badge for guessing correctly that I won't be connecting Windows 7 to the internet

[Derek Smith]

Mr Pointy said:

Penelope Stopit said:

I will never ever use Windows again as my main OS, windows 7 will do if I'm stuck for doing a special job that Debian wont do for me

Ah the zeal of a recent convert renouncing the past. It's like newly minted non-smoker preaching to those who haven't seen the light yet.

It's amusing that you think Windows 10 to be the biggest threat an ordinary user will encouter. I'm guessing you don't use Google software or products in any form, Android, Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp, always run a VPN from a known known safe provider on both PC & phone, don't use public Wi-fi & are using DNSSEC. Dropping back to a soon-to-be unsupported OS is strange choice as well if you're paranoid about security. I guess you'll only do that on a device disconnected from the internet?

GCHQ know far more about what you do than Microsoft.

I don't regard myself as a zealot, but I've been converted to Linux on my two laptops. I use them for writing, browsing and a little bit of picture editing. I find the experience better than Win10. To be fair, the only reason I opted for it first was because Win10 would not clone onto an SSD and the cost of Win10 was daunting. I went dual boot on my second laptop and now use it almost all the time.

I have a desktop, recently updated with new m/b and CPU. That's got Win10 on it so as I can run my DTP software, full fat image editing, video editing and suchlike. However, the more I use it the more I appreciate Ubuntu.

I've converted my brother and a friend to it, neither of whom could be called nerds. Nor could I.

[Mr Pointy]

Derek Smith said:

I don't regard myself as a zealot, but I've been converted to Linux on my two laptops. I use them for writing, browsing and a little bit of picture editing. I find the experience better than Win10. To be fair, the only reason I opted for it first was because Win10 would not clone onto an SSD and the cost of Win10 was daunting. I went dual boot on my second laptop and now use it almost all the time.

I have a desktop, recently updated with new m/b and CPU. That's got Win10 on it so as I can run my DTP software, full fat image editing, video editing and suchlike. However, the more I use it the more I appreciate Ubuntu.

I've converted my brother and a friend to it, neither of whom could be called nerds. Nor could I.

Yes, but at least you aren't being a drama queen about never letting Windows 10 ever darken your door without specifying the reasons. If, as I suspect, it's because of the telemetry aspects then as I have said we willingly give up far more personal informnation for the ability to post each other the latest cat video. Like you I have a couple of bits of software that use Windows & I simply can't be bothered to run different OSes on different PCs. I just want to get on & work.

I'm not sure why Windows was expensive as if you have a previous version upgrading was free (and probably still is).

[RTB]

I underwent the SSD revelation about 5 or 6 years ago. My new revelation is how cheap they are getting. I've been struggling with a 120GB SSD that I bought for my desktop years ago, so I thought I'd upgrade it to a bigger one. Found a 1TB Samsung SSD for 100 quid! It's quick and has enough room to install games on. The old 120GB SSD has gone in an ancient Samsung NC10 Netbook along with Mint Linux.

[Mr Pointy]

RTB said:

I underwent the SSD revelation about 5 or 6 years ago. My new revelation is how cheap they are getting. I've been struggling with a 120GB SSD that I bought for my desktop years ago, so I thought I'd upgrade it to a bigger one. Found a 1TB Samsung SSD for 100 quid! It's quick and has enough room to install games on. The old 120GB SSD has gone in an ancient Samsung NC10 Netbook along with Mint Linux.

It's true that they have fallen in price (presumably as a result of a flash memory glut) but I'm still very wary of the manufacturer & would always buy a Samsung drive over almost any other. When I see someone saying they bought a drive for £40 I really hope they have a good backup regime in place (& of course should do so even it is a Samsung drive).

[snuffy]

Looking right now you can get a Kingston or Crucial 120GB for a few pence under £18. That's about 4 pints down the boozer.

I have two Samsungs, a Crucial and a Muskin in my desktop. It was a Toshiba one I fitted to the missuses laptop at the weekend; and all the moaning and shouting at it has stopped !