Hard drive advice!

matthew younanof · 28 Feb 2018 at 02:51

I have a fairly old computer its a intel I5 2.80 ghz. I want to purchase a new 500 gb hard drive to replace my main drive just in case it stops working at some point. It has been working for over ten years without any issues at all. It is a Hitachi drive I have had nothing but problems with Seagate drives over the years and would never touch them again. I wanted to know if is best to get a solid state hard drive or a standard hard drive ?. If SSD is the best option which ones are the most reliable at a resonable price ?. If I was to get a standard hard drive it would have to be a Hitachi drive because I am amazed how well they last so long. But I am not also so sure they are built as well as they was.

Nugsy88 · 28 Feb 2018 at 08:32

You might find an SSD will improve your computer experience but compared to mechanical drives they are more expensive, I think it's worth it, Samsung is known to be the best in the SSD world but 500gb will set you back around £120.

10 years from a hard drive it good going. Most of mine have failed before that so probably a good idea to have a backup.

APM · 28 Feb 2018 at 13:54

Try a SSD,you'll be amazed.

Most will come bundled with software that will be able to copy over your current set up to the new drive as well.

matthew younanof · 2 Mar 2018 at 04:07

Even on Sata 2 3.0 gbps would the bootup speed and opening times for programs be hugely noticeable ?. Also does any pc and bios automatically detect a ssd drive ?. Also when i checked
Crucial MX500 came in as the best sdd at the moment.

bledd · 2 Mar 2018 at 04:16

Yes, even on sata1 the difference is night and day.

It's the speed at which multiple small files can be accessed that improves your system performance, not the ability to copy at 550MB/s

bremen1874 · 2 Mar 2018 at 04:21

The only reason not to use a SSD is cost.

It's painfully obvious when you use a PC that doesn't have a SSD for it's OS drive.

matthew younanof · 2 Mar 2018 at 04:26

I use paragon hard disk manager 15 which has a Migrating Windows OS to a solid state drive option. Is this the best way to migrate my drive to a new ssd drive ?. Or is there any software that is better ?.

bremen1874 · 2 Mar 2018 at 04:34

I usually use Macrium Reflect.

Space allowing it's only a disk-to-disk clone so use the software you're comfortable with.

APM · 2 Mar 2018 at 09:46

I'd vote for Macrium too,I've found it to be an amazingly simple and straightforward tool.

The best performing hard drive I used before going to SSD for OS drive was a WD Black,boot up times were 3 or 4 times slower than what I get with an SSD now and the SSD will make the whole computer experience much more snappy and responsive.

I have found using smaller 128GB or 240GB SSDs better overall as they come in cheaper and you can keep a spare one in a drawer with a clone of your install on for a rainy day.

JasonM · 2 Mar 2018 at 18:16

bremen1874 said:
The only reason not to use a SSD is cost..

Reliability also.

Of my 10 SSD's purchased since 2009, ranging from Kingston Value to Samsung 840 pro's, 5 have had issues.

Of my maybe 40 HDD's purchased over last 25+ years, only 2 had issues. A 20MB Seagate on a 80286, and a 1.5TB Samsung Green that was dead on arrival.

After buying those 10 SSD's, my main development computer is running Western Digital RE4's in mirrored RAID, this is the level of distrust I hold for SSD's now.

bledd · 2 Mar 2018 at 18:19

Meh.

Raid 1 SSDs and use Veeam Endpoint backup (it's free) if it's production.

JasonM · 2 Mar 2018 at 18:36

I actually did this. I had SSD's and then used a HDD in RAID recovery mode to mirror them, and thank got I did as those SSD's eventually failed.

First I lost the Samsung 840 PRO, then I replaced with a Crucial MX100, then that went down.

Really I've had so many issues with SSD's.

bledd · 2 Mar 2018 at 20:40

Samsung Evo 850 are solid in my experience.

JasonM · 3 Mar 2018 at 14:52

bledd said:
Samsung Evo 850 are solid in my experience.

I actually have 4 Samsung 830's, these have been really good, one however did loose all it's data but a re-format and the drive was working fine again.

One of the biggest things of SSD's is quite operation of a computer, I also think that HDD's will eventually go the way of a steam engine. It's just I had so many issues I'm left really uneasy about them.

APM · 3 Mar 2018 at 16:43

I had a few issues with firmware on my first few Crucial MX100's and had a SanDisk fail on me very slowly and allowing me time to copy all my data off.

Touch wood all the Samsung drives I have are working ok.

mattyfez · 4 Mar 2018 at 15:10

Yeh I'd go with a Samsung, mines not skipped a beat.
I put a slightly cheaper Kingston in a reletives pc and it's had some kind of failure, refusing to boot, possibly an RMA, but I've not had chance to put it in a different machine to try and diagnose it yet.

Pocah · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:47

Depending how old your motherboard is, it may not have a reliable AHCI mode, in which case the SSD will not run at full speed. It will still, however, be a lot faster than even the fastest mechanical drive. Samsung are very good indeed but it's going to cost you about £120. That's three times the price of a mechanical drive. Something like a WD 1TB is about £40 now. I have to say that an SSD does bring a rewarding refresh for an older PC, so if it is within budget I would definitely get one. Both WD and Samsung include clone software on their site that can be used to migrate to the new disk.

mrbazmondo · 8 Mar 2018 at 23:14

I've had issues with a few samsung 840s in the past, but after upgrading the firmware and resetting them they've been stable for years.
If you hadn't said you had issue with seagate I'd suggest checking out the firecuda if your budget is small as its hybrid so it should boot fast and have capacity.
I've used kingston and sandisk in cheaper builds. Samsung in others.