Upgrading HD Desktop System with SSD Drive!

[Macavity]

Despite having familiarity with Windows systems (I had to *install*
such things as part of my former job) it's all quite a while ago now! ?
(Over that time Hardware and Software has moved on significantly)

Meanwhile my HOME Win7 Desktop machine has chugged along
fairly well... But lately, the 2 min. Boot time, exceeded my patience? ?
I assemble my own PCs and, in its day, this was not a BAD machine!
Quad core i5 @ 3.3GHz... 4GB DDR3 133 Mem... 7200rpm Disks etc.

Despite running a fair bit on non-Astro software, my 150GB Boot HD 
was only about half full, so I decided to try a "budget" 120MB SSD! 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N6JQS8C/

Plugging in the SSD caused Win 7 to install the serial ATA driver.
The SSD was present in the Device Manager! To render it visible
to Win7, I had to invoke "Disk Management" via the Start menu
and Format the drive (I gave it a temporary random drive letter).

I then searched for (FREE!) DISK Cloning software and decided on:
https://www.partitionwizard.com/ (Even read the documentation)!
TAKING GREAT CARE to specify the source and destination (SSD)
drive correctly, I began the disk cloning! As is wont for such things
the Software requested to reboot into DOS mode to do the copy.

About half an hour later the process was finished! So, with some
slight trepidation, I allowed the system to reboot from the SSD...
And it WORKED first time! (Yay!) ?

Despite my motherboard only supporting 3Gb/s SATA drives
(The SSD is rated at 6Gb/s) the improvement is start up times
exceeded my (rather circumspective / modest) expectations! lol

Time from power on to Login screen reduced from 40 to 10 sec!
Time from login to Desktop Availability... Two Min to < 20sec! ?

ANYWAY... If anyone has been contemplating putting an SSD
drive into their Desktop machine, but was reluctant to risk their
working system perhaps this will encourage you to have a go?
Reasonable Care needed (no guarantee!) but this system now
veritably ZIPS along! Wish I'd done this upgrade AGES ago... ?

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Just make sure you have good backups, that are updated regularly, and to a totally different drive (preferably networked), for while SSD reliability has significantly improved over the years, there are still times when they fail, and unlike spinning rust, may not give any warning, they just suddenly fail 100%..  how do I know, well.. I lost a lot of historical images (personal not astro) off an SSD, which had only just gone out of guarantee period, which wouldn't have helped with the data anyway.. ? 

[PaulM]

SSDs are rapid and so much cheaper these days

[SamAndrew]

Made the switch a long time ago and never looked back. The difference is night and day. You'll now notice other bottlenecks in the system, and all the other components will have a harder time keeping up.

[Macavity]

I think that is the thing that still bothers me about SSD technology.
The anecdotes about sudden and catastrophic failure. At least with
past Hard Drives, I had significant hints that the drive might just be 
"on its way out"... and I was generally able to change it in time etc. ?  

[Mick J]

At that price get another and clone the new drive (regularly), new drive pops and a quick swap out.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Still need the data backups...

But as with anything, if you want increased security, at a cost, then source multiple disks & raid them, either locally or remotely ....  my main network storage device is a 16TB raid 5 array (slower but who cares, I want the security), with 'top-end' disks, data-guard software etc...

[Gina]

I've had an HDD fail without warning!

[Chriske]

Just swapped a HDD --> SSD...? that  thing is fast...!
Old PC's and laptop can be revived with these SSD's

[Gina]

They do slow down if they get nearly full though.  Buy yes - very fast...

[coatesg]

For those saying that platter drives give some warning before failure - maybe sometimes, but *ANY* drive can fail without warning, SSD or platter: always backup your data!

I had one out of a pair of RAID 1 drives go completely AWOL in a NAS not so long ago and this without any SMART warnings - the disc's onboard electronics died and were reporting 0GB as the size when I plugged it into a desktop...   Equally, it's not unheard of for RAID controllers to fail and silently cause corruption across drives.

[Chriske]

Going to buy me a few of these SSDs (240Gb)

A 60Gb cost $15.99
A 240Gb cost $ 28.90
A 480Gb cost $50.30
 

[Macavity]

10 hours ago, coatesg said:

For those saying that platter drives give some warning before failure - maybe sometimes, but *ANY* drive can fail without warning, SSD or platter: always backup your data!

I think we do get it! [laughing] But you are RIGHT. I am *significantly* remiss
about backing up stuff! I have lost DATA files that I would have liked to keep. ?

Since I began messing with PCs (mid 80's?) the evidence is there... A pile of
three totally DEAD (IDE?) platter drives and two (SATA?) ones I can still read? ?
N.B. didn't check the interface but I have a "Freecom" dock to read survivors!

The SSD drive on my Desktop has increased the File transfer rate from my NEW
(Optane cached) Observatory Laptop to around 100MBytes/s over 30m Cat6. ?
Ultimately, this is something you have to *measure* ... and come to accept? lol

I have a better (updated!) personal understanding of "modern hardware" now.
The (mistaken) delivery of the HDD + Optane Laptop system (rather than SSD)
may allow me to replace the 1TB HD with hybrid smart cached HD? This Lappy
must also have an *M2* slot for a genuine SSD drive to replace the "Optane"? ?  

BUT THEN I am reluctant (from experience) to "Crack Open" any Laptop Case! ?