Buying an SSD

[KIDDO680]

I have a pretty decent system. 16GB RAM, and an i5 CPU. However I'm using a crappy 10 year old hard drive and my system is not as fast as I think it should be. It also has a terrible scratching, clicking noise from the HDD so it's probably on it's last legs. I'm only using 271 GB of storage at the moment but I'm getting more and more into PC gaming. I would like to buy an SSD now but I don't have the biggest budget. I was thinking about a 500GB SSD but would that be enough for future games? Then if that was enough I would probably buy another in the future and put that in RAID 1 as a backup. Or should I use that second to create 1TB of storage?  What would be the best setup possible? Should I get a cheap HDD for backup's? (Might be a good idea because then I could use that to backup other computers in the network.) Does anyone have any preferences on the best (and hopefully cheaper) SSD's out there? And is it fairly straight forward to clone data? 

 

Thanks! 

 

Grant. 

[zzenigmaxzz]

cant go wrong with samsung for price to performance, what most people do is have a ssd for the os and main programs and then just grab a 1tb seagate or wd for mass storage and games

[Elfuego]

500gb Samsung 850 Evo for performance option

480GB M500 for Value option

 

1tb 850 Evo for the "futureproof" option

1.2TB Intel 750 for giggles option

 

Cloning data is easy; but tbh id disconnect the HDD, do a fresh install of windows 10, then connect the old HDD, backup any data

then take a 2nd HDD of same capacity and stick in raid 1 if you want. (or buy two new drives if you have the money and use the other drive for backing up backups...

[arronleeds]

samsung ssds are usually priced quite higher than other ssds, theyre very good dont get me wrong but the price difference is a bit meh, i have a sandisk ultra ii and its very good and didnt cost an arm and a leg.

[DarknessTroller]

Defenetly the Samsing 850 EVO it's fast reading/writing and the price is going down quickly. (Right now is already very cheap [for an ssd ofcourse])

[Elfuego]

850 Evo is really good - RAPID mode makes a big difference too.

[Benji_w]

I have a pretty decent system. 16GB RAM, and an i5 CPU. However I'm using a crappy 10 year old hard drive and my system is not as fast as I think it should be. It also has a terrible scratching, clicking noise from the HDD so it's probably on it's last legs. I'm only using 271 GB of storage at the moment but I'm getting more and more into PC gaming. I would like to buy an SSD now but I don't have the biggest budget. I was thinking about a 500GB SSD but would that be enough for future games? Then if that was enough I would probably buy another in the future and put that in RAID 1 as a backup. Or should I use that second to create 1TB of storage?  What would be the best setup possible? Should I get a cheap HDD for backup's? (Might be a good idea because then I could use that to backup other computers in the network.) Does anyone have any preferences on the best (and hopefully cheaper) SSD's out there? And is it fairly straight forward to clone data? 

 

Thanks! 

 

Grant. 

 

If you get a 120gb SSD for your boot drive and then a WD blue/black as your storage drive it will make you pretty happy tbh, both a 120 SSD and a 1TB HDD are cheap as chips so you can save up for a 1TB SSD down the line if your really can't put up with a HDD.

[Elfuego]

Please get a 250GB SSD... 120GB ssds are garbage

[Benji_w]

Please get a 250GB SSD... 120GB ssds are garbage

 

Please explain why a 120 for a boot drive is any less adequate than a 250? I've had zero issues with mine and it's still plenty fast as the day I bought it.  :huh:

[Elfuego]

Please explain why a 120 for a boot drive is any less adequate than a 250? I've had zero issues with mine and it's still plenty fast as the day I bought it.  :huh:

 

They are slower (due to NAND paralellism) and you cant actually store some games on it (OS + Basic Apps + 1 Game and I am already over that 100GB Max).

[KIDDO680]

Thank you so much guys! The support on this form is fantastic! Got a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo coming tomorrow and my friend has a few hard drive's lying around so we can work out which would be the best from there! 

[KIDDO680]

Okay so I have got the new SSD and HDD. I have an exact clone of the two of both so the SSD is almost full and I think out of luck it's booting to that one first. My system is literary a mess. So just to clarify, I'm now going to Disk Management and deleting my HDD volume? Then setting that up as a new volume, something like D: for mass storage? What do I do about Steam for example? How do I get those games onto the HDD and make steam save any new games there? And any pictures, documents and movies, for them am I just cutting and pasting them into the mass storage? 

[KIDDO680]

Lol, please help with this mess 

[Elfuego]

Okay so I have got the new SSD and HDD. I have an exact clone of the two of both so the SSD is almost full and I think out of luck it's booting to that one first. My system is literary a mess. So just to clarify, I'm now going to Disk Management and deleting my HDD volume? Then setting that up as a new volume, something like D: for mass storage? What do I do about Steam for example? How do I get those games onto the HDD and make steam save any new games there? And any pictures, documents and movies, for them am I just cutting and pasting them into the mass storage? 

 

You managed to totally b0rk that.

 

Step 1. Remove all the old SSDs/HDDs.

Step 2. Connect New SSD

Step 3. Install Windows on New SSD.

Step 4. Connect old drives and move files where you want.

[Benji_w]

Okay so I have got the new SSD and HDD. I have an exact clone of the two of both so the SSD is almost full and I think out of luck it's booting to that one first. My system is literary a mess. So just to clarify, I'm now going to Disk Management and deleting my HDD volume? Then setting that up as a new volume, something like D: for mass storage? What do I do about Steam for example? How do I get those games onto the HDD and make steam save any new games there? And any pictures, documents and movies, for them am I just cutting and pasting them into the mass storage? 

 

1. Remove all hard drives except for the SSD
2. Do a fresh install onto the SSD
3. Install all your drivers and crap
4. Plug in old OS drive, drag and drop all your old files (pictures, music, documents etc) onto new OS
5. Ding Dang Done

Never used cloning software tbh simply because It doesn't take that long for me to install drivers on to a fresh install, I also cba with all the old issues from the old install coming back but I guess there are some people out there who benefit from having clones.

[KIDDO680]

WTF, it's just saying BOOTMGR is missing... cannot get into Windows now! 

 

The SSD is my main boot, I didn't touch any of those files, why is it not booting! That was an exact clone of the HDD! I tried deleting files off the HDD now I have this! Help please! 

[KIDDO680]

Hahaha, it's alright, I compleatley fucked my HDD, I had to clone the SSD back to the HDD then do a system recovery. Now back to square one lol! Got all my data though.