How can i tell my SSD is being used?

Si Turl · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:01

Hi there,

I recently bought a Samsung Samsung MU-PA500B/EU Portable SSD T5 500GB.

This was because my PC has been running slow and is unable to play the newer game titles.

My friend advised me that this would be a cheaper fix than buying a new PC.

So I have installed samsung magician and completed the data migration.

Im not noticing too much difference tbh.

How do I know that my PC is now using the external SSD card? Do I have to disable the old hard drive?

Are there any checks I need to carry out to make sure its been installed correctly?

Thanks.

Hyburnate · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:08

You need to boot into BIOS, change your Boot Priority settings to the new SSD and restart

Also, you need to edit your post and remove the reference as to where you bought your hardware from.

Quartz · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:09

If it's an external SSD, it's likely going through the slow USB 3 interface and likely has write caching disabled. You need to have the SSD as the internal drive on which your OS and games are installed and it should be connected by a SATA cable or plug into a M2 socket.

You need something like one of these:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Samsung 500GB 860 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-76E500B/EU)= £67.99
1 x Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 500GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £99.95

Total: £176.64 (includes shipping: £8.70)

You may be able to use a M2 SSD if your PC is quite new, but the SSD is more easily transferable.

If you ring up OCUK their sales staff will be able to guide you.

something daft already!! · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:09

Your friend clearly has no clue what he's talking about. An ssd will not speed up your pc only loading times.

Si Turl · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:10

Thx for replies. As a side note... how do I clear the drive ?

Si Turl · 20 Dec 2018 at 13:45

Hyburnate said:
You need to boot into BIOS, change your Boot Priority settings to the new SSD and restart

Also, you need to edit your post and remove the reference as to where you bought your hardware from.

Id like to try this. How exactly is this done mate?

Hyburnate · 20 Dec 2018 at 15:11

Si Turl said:
Id like to try this. How exactly is this done mate?

When you first boot your PC, you will see some text like "ENTER SETUP" or "ENTER EUFI BIOS" or similar. Usually to enter, you have to hit a key, sometimes this is delete, escape, or an F key. It will vary dependant on your motherboard.

I did miss that your ssd is external, so I'm not quite sure how much benefit this provides as opposed to an internal ssd.