Computer help. Adding hard-disk space.

[cruiseroutfit]

I've got a little laptop I am really enjoying (Dell Vostro 3450). When I ordered it I opted for a solid-state drive, my thinking was stability and quick open/close, both of which it has excelled at... I'm pretty rough on electronics and this thing has been a workhorse for me. However, at the time the biggest drive they had (or I could afford, can't remember how it worked out was a 100GB (Samsung SSD PM810 2.5" 7). I'm now bouncing off of the rev limiter and need to get a bigger SSD drive installed. So, what drive do I buy? How do I move all the memory from the current drive to the new drive? Is this something I should pay a professional to do or is there and RME'er that is comfortable with the process and wants some side $$$? I run regular back-ups to a little WD adventure drive, so while a data loss wouldn't be preferred or ideal, it wouldn't be the end of the world. What about installed programs? I don't have much, Firefox, FTP server and the Microsoft Office suite... do those stay?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kevin B.]

Any chance you could keep it simple and move some data to an external hard drive? Or do you have to have all that data with you all the time?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Any chance you could keep it simple and move some data to an external hard drive? Or do you have to have all that data with you all the time?

Great question and I guess I don't know. The majority of the data (75%+) is photo's and surely I don't need all of them with me all of the time. I just like the idea of redundancy, i.e. having them on the laptop and a full mirror on the back-up drive. I suppose I could rock a second back-up drive and store it separate of the first but then I have to remember what info is on the laptop and which is on the back-up. As is now I just copy/paste my desktop to the backup and delete an older version.

 

[sixstringsteve]

I like a small SSD for running windows and associated programs, and a separate hdd for photos, videos, files, etc. The ssd makes the most difference for running programs. A spinning disc hdd won't be noticeably slow for just pictures and docs, etc.

 

[Badger]

You could get an external hard drive or even possibly an array setup and then have it hosted on your network. You could basically access it from any where just like it was in your laptop without having it take up the space. Think of it as your own person cloud. They are not hard to setup anymore.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I like a small SSD for running windows and associated programs, and a separate hdd for photos, videos, files, etc. The ssd makes the most difference for running programs. A spinning disc hdd won't be noticeably slow for just pictures and docs, etc.

I don't know if my laptop has enough room for another drive? Suppose I could ditch the DVD/CD drive for another HDD?

You could get an external hard drive or even possibly an array setup and then have it hosted on your network. You could basically access it from any where just like it was in your laptop without having it take up the space. Think of it as your own person cloud. They are not hard to setup anymore.

That would be cool and I do have plans to set up a network back-up drive at my house that mirrors my work desktop and my personal laptop. Perhaps that is the best way to do it? That leaves me back to a single place backing up photos though and I would prefer them here and there.

 

[Badger]

I know how that goes and you could do anything from getting a two bay drive having them in raid so that way even though they are in one place it is basically mirrored to two drives so if one fails you still have all the info or just have another drive that backs it up from time to time. But when does it end really. Things like pictures I tend to upload to a group of different places depending on what they are and use that for back up of the originals. Anything else if I lose it I lose it. I can always reload it like programs and what not.

As for getting it going. lie I said it's easy and cheap these days

Newegg- Seagate 2TB cloud server

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Hmmm, I may already have one here that does that lol. I've purchased a 3-4 back up drives over the years, I just copy/past to them until they are full and toss them in the safe or sdb. Steve Edmunds was giving me some great advice about using an old computer tower, set it up in my basement and have it download the info from all my computers a couple of times a week, only copying things that have changed. I assume that is the same as the Seagate setup you mentioned?


As for the in computer drive, would this work?

256GB:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=897040&Q=&is=REG&A=details

500GB:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=897033&Q=&is=REG&A=details

I think even the 256GB would get me through the end of the lifespan of this laptop... that would give me basically 3X the amount of photo storage I have now (~70GB of the 100GB drive)

 

[Badger]

reading the reviews on the one I posted it's not the best and there are better units with more options it was just to give you an idea of the options that are available. I personally would make a cheap host computer out of old parts and slap a couple of TB drives in it and hook it to the network and make it a cloud server.

 

[Badger]

Those should work as replacements. I always try to go as big as I can possibly afford to put into it. You can never have enough space as your finding out.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Those should work as replacements. I always try to go as big as I can possibly afford to put into it. You can never have enough space as your finding out.

Cool... now I just need to figure out how to get the info from the current 100GB drive to the new drive without losing any data, software, etc. As easy as mounting the new SSD in a USB enclosure, copy/past and then swap the drives?

 

[Herzog]

You can get a new drive and a usb/sata adapter - make a shadow copy of your current drive with everything on it to the new drive... then install the new drive and boot it up. Everything will be there. Then you can throw your old 100GB ssd into an older lappy to get a little more speed/life out of it or turn it into a pocket storage drive.

Luckily, SSD prices have come down a bit... but they are still really high.
Here's a decent price for a 480GB. http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1388954104&sr=1-2

 

[DAA]

FWIW... I've had really bad luck with Crucial SSD's at work. Out of only about a dozen I installed on dev boxes, five or six have had issues. And - the new desktop I bought for myself at home a year ago, came with a Crucial, and it too has had issues. Always the same thing, they just fail to boot on occasion - "no boot drive detected...". Have always been able to get them to come up, seems fully discharging all caps in the system helps, but it's a PITA and was happening frequently with some of them.

Ended up replacing them all (including my home machine) with Samsung, have not had a hiccup out of any of those yet.

And, as Herzog just mentioned, ghosting your current drive to the new one is painless and easy. I used Paragon to initially migrate the dev boxes mentioned above to SSD's in the first place, then migrate them again from Crucial to Samsung SSD's, not a single glitch with any of them. Pretty sure you can download a free trial of Paragon for a one time use. There are others that are probably just as good or maybe better, that just happened to be the one I had a license to use on that many machines.

- DAA

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...And, as Herzog just mentioned, ghosting your current drive to the new one is painless and easy. I used Paragon to initially migrate the dev boxes mentioned above to SSD's in the first place, then migrate them again from Crucial to Samsung SSD's, not a single glitch with any of them. Pretty sure you can download a free trial of Paragon for a one time use. There are others that are probably just as good or maybe better, that just happened to be the one I had a license to use on that many machines.

- DAA

Shane, you mention 'shadow copy' and DAA your mentioning using Paragon. I'm assuming there is more to it than putting the new drive in the USB enclosure. Plugging it in as a drive. Copy/pasting the entire contents of my hard-drive and then swapping? This is where things are fuzzy for me, it looks like a software is needed?

 

[Badger]

Paragon is the software for doing it, there are others. With the software it pretty much is plug and play, a couple of clicks waiting for ever for it to do it's thing and your done. As for SSD failure. Most have issues and will blue screen left and right. There are only a few I trust and I usually only buy intel drives for OS because they are known for their stability.

 

[Caleb]

As for drives, take a look at the samsung 840 pro. I picked one up for my machine and it's screaming fast.

 

[mbryson]

You can get a new drive and a usb/sata adapter - make a shadow copy of your current drive with everything on it to the new drive... then install the new drive and boot it up. Everything will be there. Then you can throw your old 100GB ssd into an older lappy to get a little more speed/life out of it or turn it into a pocket storage drive.

Luckily, SSD prices have come down a bit... but they are still really high.
Here's a decent price for a 480GB. http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1388954104&sr=1-2

FWIW... I've had really bad luck with Crucial SSD's at work. Out of only about a dozen I installed on dev boxes, five or six have had issues. And - the new desktop I bought for myself at home a year ago, came with a Crucial, and it too has had issues. Always the same thing, they just fail to boot on occasion - "no boot drive detected...". Have always been able to get them to come up, seems fully discharging all caps in the system helps, but it's a PITA and was happening frequently with some of them.

Ended up replacing them all (including my home machine) with Samsung, have not had a hiccup out of any of those yet.

And, as Herzog just mentioned, ghosting your current drive to the new one is painless and easy. I used Paragon to initially migrate the dev boxes mentioned above to SSD's in the first place, then migrate them again from Crucial to Samsung SSD's, not a single glitch with any of them. Pretty sure you can download a free trial of Paragon for a one time use. There are others that are probably just as good or maybe better, that just happened to be the one I had a license to use on that many machines.

- DAA

I've not used Paragon but have had good luck with the same type of processes using EaseUS

 

[ozzy702]

I'm a fan of Samsung SSD's. The 840 evo is fine for 99% of people even though it uses TLC NAND.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...iew-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested

The 840 Pro is one of the, if not the best overall drive on the market right now.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Which Samsung would be compatible in speed and reliability to my current drive (Samsung SSD PM810 2.5" 7) but the larger capacity? Standard, Evo, Pro? Looks like prices are $168, 190, 240 for the Samsung SSD 840 lineup. Not much jump between the standard and EVO but does the pro offer me $50 worth of utility?

 

[ozzy702]

The pro is the fastest and allows for more writes to the drive because it uses a more expensive type of storage medium than the standard 840 and 840 evo. It will be the most reliable of the three but honestly you'd have to be writing a LOT of data to the drive every single day to ever "wear out" the nand. I've used all three versions and they are great drives but as with any electronic device there can be failures so having redundant backups is a must for important data. Of the major brands that I've used only OCZ has disappointed me with failures.