Upgrading to SSD

[97tbird]

The real joy is in double-clicking programs to open

It's like there's 0 sec's opening time.

BTW, Have you enabled the Rapid Mode?
(I haven't yet, on mine. Didn't really see a need for that yet)

 

[Hokiefyd]

I have not. I understand that it uses RAM, and I don't have a ton of it to spare in this computer. I don't know what the maximum allowable RAM is in this machine, but I have 2 GB of it now with no real plans to add more (if I even can). With Windows 7 and one or two applications open (especially either Chrome or Firefox), I'm beginning to get close to 1.5 GB of RAM consumed, so I have not enabled Rapid Mode at this point.

 

[Hokiefyd]

This is far from a real performance benchmark, but my Windows Experience Index score for hard drive performance jumped from 4.5 prior to the SSD to 7.1 with the SSD.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Hokie, you can use a free disk benchmark utility such as CrystalDiskMark or ATTO Disk Benchmark to see what max transfer speeds you're getting (read and write). Samsung's own Magician software can also run similar benchmarks, AFAIK.

Of course, it would have been more useful if you had tested your old HDD using these tools first, just to see the before and after results.

When I installed an SSD in my old desktop (only SATA II support), my transfer speeds increased 3x.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I ran the performance benchmarks in the Samsung Magician software. They are:

Sequential read: 142 MB/s
Sequential write: 136 MB/s
Random read: 16,157 IOPS
Random write: 15,053 IOPS

This is after I used the "Performance Optimization" (which didn't really do much for these speeds). "OS Optimization" is set to Maximum Reliability. This does things like disable hibernation to prevent the creation of hyberfile.sys (to prevent excessive writes to the SSD) and disable search indexing (which requires a large number of random writes).

This computer uses SATA, but it's from 2005 or 2006, so it likely uses SATA 1, which is limited to 1.5 Gbits/s, or 150 MB/s. I imagine that the physical architecture of this laptop is preventing faster data transfer speeds.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Windows' boot time is exactly 22 seconds. That's from the very first sight of the "Starting Windows" display with the circling orbs to a full desktop loaded and ready to work. This was well over 60 seconds with the mechanical HDD...probably closer to 90 seconds.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I ran the performance benchmarks in the Samsung Magician software. They are:

Sequential read: 142 MB/s
Sequential write: 136 MB/s
Random read: 16,157 IOPS
Random write: 15,053 IOPS

Sounds about right for SATA 1.

 

[L_Sludger]

The best upgrade ever is going from a spinning disc to an SSD. It makes the computer really feel many times faster.