Forced replacement - advice?

q974739

q974739

q974739

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Joined
4 Feb 2009
Posts
1,396
Hi All

My main systems drive (an old 256gb HD) has now failed it's smart tests. On the upside, this means I can upgrade without the wife complaining.

More to point, it means I need to make a choice and I'm stuck.

Options are: Solid state vs Mechanical, preserve install vs re-install.

My budget is up to £250, but could be stretched to £350 for genuine longevity. Any ideas people? Current HD use is 220gb, but much is old games, downloads that could be easily cleared.

(Rest of system in a phenom 2 black edition, 965 or similar, 4gb ram, radeon 7850 (or 7750?))
 
With a budget of £250 why don't you buy a SSD for your OS and a mechanical drive for your general storage/games?

That's what I have done, I have a 240GB SSD for windows and some games and another 2 mechanical drives. One for photos/films and general things and the other for games.
 
Just because I have a budget of £250, doesn't mean I have to spend it! :)

I also have an N34L microserver that stores most of my files. The desktop is just a games machine nowadays, and I've coped with 240gb in total.

Question is, can I get away with not re-installing?
 
It's fairly easy to "clone" a HDD to an SSD, I do it fairly regularly using Easeus Todo Backup. There are other tools that can do the same job, Macrium Reflect being one of them.
 
Depends all on how much of your budget you want to spend and what you want to access on a regular basis etc.

I'd opt for an SSD in the 120gb + region to keep your operating system/software/games on. Maybe onelike Crazy has suggested and then a single mechanical drive for over spill/general documents.

Mechanical drive is also completely your choice. Samsung 840 pro SSD and a WD black whichever size you want (5 year warranty) means you're covered for five years and have some pretty damn good drives.
 
I'd go 256GB SSD for OS and most things, then a 1TB HDD to back everything up, with your budget.

I'd also do a clean install if you can face it.
 
The new Samsung drives looks promising (the 830 and 840/Pro are good), but being new they are also unknown to a large extent.

The M4 is a good drive and very popular.
 
flopper said:
if on a older motherboard I would go with the crucial M4
some of the new controllers for ssd have issues with older boards.
Click to expand...

So far I`ve not encountered any issues with Samsung 830 or 840s, and I`ve installed a few on some rather oldish motherboards (a couple were Sata 1).
 
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