SSD in laptop

[GWR-Kris]

As already said really SSD all the way I have an Evo 840 in my PC and a integral p series in my laptop. Both running windows 10, they both boot within seconds, and for laptop reduced noise, less heat and a improvement on battery life. Certainly a major improvement from a std 5400rpm hdd fitted to most laptops. I would recommend a fresh install too

[westie7]

I've just replaced the HD in my macbook with an SSD. Upgrading ram to the max at the same time. The 320gb HD was replaced with a 250gb SSD. Significant increase in performance but so far hadnt thought about or noticed any battery life increase.

Going to try the same thing with the kids Netbook next

[CaleyDave]

There should be a power saving based on how the drives operate.

In a Traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) the disk is span by a motor constantly as because the drives are so slow (In comparison to everything else going on in the computer) they need to be ready instantly ('eco' drives are designed to spin down when not needed but there is a time delay.)


As for fragmentation a SSD does not need De-fragmented as the way the computer interfaces with a SSD is different.

In HDD's. The computer has complete control over a HDD (To the point an expert could change any exact point of data on the drive using only manual commands)
One of the major reason for fragmentation is that in order to preserve the life of the disk the computer always rights data to unused parts of the disk before starting from the beginning again. This means as data is move or deleted gaps may appear which may then be filled with data which needs to be split up as it doesn't fit.

In SSD's. The computer has no control and only gives requests or gives data too/from a controller board thus has little to no control over fragmentation.
A good controller board will manage fragmentation/ de-fragmentation however the speed means that it is unnoticeable.  Self healing for example works by the controller stopping data being written to a fault chip and moves the data to a different part of the drive. If the same thing was done on a HDD it would be noticeable because of the speed but here is isn't.
With regard to Defragging being harmful; Old drive had a low number (Still in the 100 of thousands) of times it could be written to before they would break so moving the data around unnecessarily would severally harm the life expectancy.
In a modern drive this is not so much of an issue. Modern Controller boards and good quality Defragging software should both negate any negative impact if a user attempts to defragment a SSD drive but you still don't need to do it.

[Ian Bowden]

The purpose of defragging is to minimise the movement of the read write head as mechanical movements take time.
All defragging does is gather each file and put it continuously on the drive. Most start at the beginning of the drive and work through file by file (excluding system files), quite often moving data not yet dealt with to create space. On large drives (mainframe computers) there was a lot of effort put into how the data was mapped on the drive, now the average person would hardly notice the difference between a defragged drive and one that has not been defragged ever as the speed of PC's is so fast.

[Dorsetmike]

OK I've ordered a WD 250Gb SSD, should arrive later today. The laptop currently has a 500Gb  drive (nowhere near full), I'm hoping I can clone the C:\ partition only, for which I've downloaded Clonezilla and burnt that to disc. From what I've read it should only be necessary to clone that C:\partition, the rest of the data etc in other partitions can be copied normally

[Dorsetmike]

Tried to get the clone software to work but the laptop refused to boot from the Clone CD (supposedly bootable Linux) but only finally booted after I removed the hard disk, which rather defeated the object. I've now installed Win7 pro 64 on the SSD and will have to reload the other software; at least I can copy the data and images, or maybe just plug in the original drive in a USB caddy for most of it.

Ah well, keeps me busy and off the streets!

[Rabs]

Or just keep tapping the manual boot select hotkey (usually F12) when the PC powers up.  This should bring up a list of all the drives and ask you to select which one you want to boot from.

[Ian Bowden]

I had a similar problem. It turned out the drive was formatted but didn't have a system marker so it could only be used as a secondary drive. Reformatting fixed it. Loading a fresh install would also have fixed it

[Dorsetmike]

I did change boot order in BIOS, however it seems that quite a few PCs and laptops look for a Windows boot sector and ignore anything else. Anyway decided to take the "conventional route" and installed 7Pro from CD and will reinstall other software, not a lot as it's only a laptop.

I do the serious stuff on two AMD 10- series machines with 2Tb and 16Gb.