i have a year old hp laptop which i am looking to upgrade to ssd - it has a 500gb 7200rpm hitachi in it now… ive been looking at both the crucial m4 and the samsung 840 pro (both 256 gb)… the samsung is more expensive, but seems to perform better…
also its worth mentioning that my laptop has sata II not sata III… so whatever drive i get will not be performing at max spec… i am not looking for max benchmark specs, just a good improvement with good reliability
some other specs of my laptop:
hp4530s
2nd gen core i7
8gb 1333mhz ram (4gb x2)
ati mobility 1gb vid card (forget which model number)
windows 7 prof
i only paid $620 for this last year
anyone have any opinions? also i am going to need to transfer the contents of my drive (minus the 250gb of music which is going to a usb drive) to the new drive…. operating system included, since i did not get a win 7 disc with the laptop… any suggestions on disc clone software?
crucial m4, I have one on my pc and it wokrs great.
really fast compared to a mechanichal HD but not so fast as other (ocz crucial and vertex) but much more reliable.
In my latest upgrade two weeks ago I was going to go with the Samsung SSD until I went through the reviews at Newegg, NCIX, Memory Express, and Amazon. Then I thought maybe Intel were a better option, but definitely got scared off the Sandforce controllers. In the end I could not find anything that would ensure the reliability I wanted so I decided to go with a WD Velociraptor. Then I also bailed on it and in the end decided to wait. I’ve got an OCZ in a Zotac in my van and it certainly does boot fast, but in the van I do not have critical data, mainly it’s used as an HTPC when we are overnighting in the Delica in the winter. Sounds like if you are going to be using it on a machine that houses critical data, keep your data on a mechanical drive and just use the SSD for your OS. Let us know which model you eventually decide upon and why.
I’m probably going to go with the cheaper crucial m4 since I only have sata II …. I’m just working out now how I am going to migrate my system and operating system over … my laptop didn’t come with an install disc for win 7… and I’m not sure if I can just download the ISO from MS and use my key…. some computers wont activate even with a valid key unless you use their recovery software.
it also looks like there a handful of BIOS and regestry tweaks I need to familiarize myself with as well… I’m fairly comfortable with computers, as I have built a number of them over the years… but I would like to eliminate any roadblocks ahead of time if possible.
Go for it. Honestly the best upgrade i did to my PC. Either the Samsung or the crucial will be great drives. Get whatever you can find a better deal on.
I have an older Crucial C300 - 128gb. Originally I ran it on SATA 2 and there is not much noticeable difference between that and now running it on SATA3.
Even being on SATA2 you will notice the difference in load (seek) speeds, even if you cant max out the speed of the SSD.
In terms of the drive cloning software - I have always just did a straight re-format. SSD drives require some windows settings to realize their full potential in terms of enabling TRIM and to me it has always just been easier and cleaner to start from scratch.
You should be able to create a HP recovery disk from the current recovery partition.
The Samsung 840 Pro outperforms everything on the market right now and comes with a 5 year warranty. However, since you are limited to Sata II, it is a moot point. The M4 drives always get good reviews. I don’t know how often you upgrade, but you may want to consider opting for the better drive if you plan to upgrade any time in the next couple of years.
The Samsung comes with software that automatically changes all of your settings (Trim, etc.) to maximize it’s performance. I’m not familiar with the Crucial drive in that regard.
One thing’s for sure, either drive will be a MASSIVE improvement over a conventional drive. It will feel like a new computer.
I’ve only tried cloning a couple times (including Ghost) and never had complete success with a main OS drive, so no recommendation. Today, I’d try the supported freeware before buying.
I’d want to make sure the SSD gets to MS validation immediately and through a few update cycles before re-purposing the HD, too.
You may also have to re-partition the HD down as small as the SSD before cloning, obviously after moving content as planned.
I don’t have any plans on upgrading my laptop for at least 2-3 years… by that time sata IV or whatever the next interface is will probably be available. right now I’m just aiming for a good bang for Buck and reliability
after reading up… I’ve decided to make hp recovery DVDs and restore my OS that way. unfortunately that means it comes with all the bloat ware from hp, but it looks like a fresh ISO install will not work since my win 7 is an OEM copy.
Good point - last laptop I looked at had something like 250GB in the “hidden” recovery partition (of a 750GB drive), as reported by Disk Management. A partition like that needs to be figured in the cloning plans also.
PS - I just did a Dell OS recovery on a replacement laptop HD and it was easier than retail in that it immediately validated with no code entry.
I am going to make the hp recovery discs tonight… I am also going to try a clean win 7 install from a Ms image that matches the OEM version on the serial# on my PC first just for hahas. if I can get win 7 installed without hp bloatware that would be a huge plus…. it looks like this is possible based on the hp forums, however there’s a ton of noobie posts with stupid issues to sift through…. either way I’m going to try and have more than one way to reinstall my os and restore my data….
going to read up a bit more tonight and order the drive tomorrow…. will probably upgrade Friday night or this weekend
I have intel ssd x25-M 120GB for sata II (old version).
My laptop is about 4 years old, and performs very well.
I have also converted my sata dvd-rw’s space to secondary harddisk with a caddy.
My secondary hdd is 7200rpm 500GB disk.
Because you have sata II, you may choose old intel ssd like mine.
there isn’t much difference with sataII and sataIII performances if you use an average ssd; only if you use a vertex3 or 4.
and the better performance is almost restricted to benchmark tests.
the final thoughts are:
if you spent all your time looking benchmark, you are forced to see processes in the most heavy way, and lose the overall vision of the performances.
yes these data are relevant to compare SSDs, and as you can see in the real test you couldn’t almost tell a winner between Vertex3, Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 using medium duty work.
looking to specific profiles as casual write 4kb or sequential readings 128 kb we can draw conclusions easily on the limit of each architecure.
does the most expansive SSD really outdrives the other models in performances? if you look to benchmark results, yes. If you look only to the performance of a PC, not at all. So, imho, look for a cheap and, mainly, RELIABLE ssd. Marvell controller are more reliable than corsair and ocz, as far as I know.
They are out of stock now, but I have one. In addition to giving you 2 hard drive hot swappable docks, you can clone a drive without a computer. One touch does it. I have already cloned my win7 boot drive it works. Also it is fast as the cloning all occurs internally. Not affected by the connection to the computer. There are both USB and eSATA versions.
This review is incorrect in that you DO NOT need to install any software to use this device. Using this as an external drive or one touch cloning does not require any software. The cloning occurs completely within the device.
@budda, thanks! That’s exactly the info that I’ve been looking for, as I’ve been made paranoid about all the reviewers that report the failures. All the reviews I seem to find focus on speed, etc., as they have only had the drive for 24hrs, it is impossible for them to assess how reliable any device really is. Now to get busy with Google and find a list of the drives that use that controller.
@dchomak, how much are those when they do have stock?
Well, I would go for one, but after my posts of last night I have been ordered by the BLF Gestapo to make my next purchase a Thrower, so I’ve been collecting empties from dumpsters all afternoon, so far I’ve got enough for the lanyard. I do have one bay left in my docking station I got from Newegg over a year ago so I guess I should just look for software that will do it for me. Thanks for the info.
My son got an M4 awhile back, because he wanted to upgrade his laptop (an HP). However, his laptop, which is only a few years old had only SATA II, and he said that he didn’t notice much difference between the M4 and the original drive. We ended making a deal. I bought a new WD Black 500 GB and gave that to him, and he gave me the 128GB M4 (dads always get the short end of the deal with their kids :laughing:.
If you haven’t gone to the SSD yet, one thing to consider is a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB. This is a “hybrid” drive, with a 7200 RPM spinning drive, and a (relatively) small amount of SSD (plus cache memory). The drive basically automatically caches most frequently accessed info on the SSD part, so, depending on your usage profile, you can get almost SSD performance, but with spinning media sizes.
If you look into this, you probably want the 750GB, which is the 2nd generation hybrid drive. The earlier ones were 320GB and 500GB, but were not as good as the 2nd generation ones.
interesting… im sure i will need to read into those hybrid drives a bit… maybe i should just save my cash then…. my laptop is fine once its booted up… and $175 is a lot to pay
