Hard Drive Replacement for PC

If all you are going to put on a SSD is Win 7, 120-128GB is plenty big unless you are a gamer with a lot of large games that you want to put on the SSD. Some people use the argument that the larger SSDs are faster than the smaller ones, which is true in the benchmarks, but, in real world usage, you will never know the difference. Another argument I've seen is larger SSDs will last longer than smaller ones with the same amount of usage on each. Again, that is true but today's SSDs, no matter the size, will last far longer than you will want to be using them before upgrading to newer technology so what would be the point of spending more for something you are unlikely to use? The only reason for getting a larger SSD is, as I already mentioned, is if you have many large games to put on it or if you need to use the SSD for data storage as well as system files. An example of the latter would be my little notebooks. They have room for only one drive in them. To gain the advantages of an SSD for increasing boot speed and program loading and still have room for data storage, I have to use a 500GB SSD in them. For my daily driver, even though it is a fairly powerful machine, a little 128GB SSD is plenty since I use HDDs for data storage. For just data storage, HDDs are far more cost effective and the better HDDs (7200 rpm) are plenty fast.

Well said and to the point LF :)

ignatzatsonic said:

In the last 12 hours, I had an unconventional SSD failure, which I guess goes to show you that anything can happen.

I received a new fanless PSU and immediately installed it to be sure it wasn't DOA. I had to detach all drives from the old PSU power cable and then re-attach them to the similar cable on the new PSU.

I thought all was going well when I noticed that the small plastic L-shaped data connector on my Intel SSD was flopping around like a tooth about to fall out. I removed the drive and the piece fell out into my hand. The copper contacts were also obviously damaged. Not sure exactly what happened. The cable that was attached to the port is the type with a locking mechanism and my guess would be that it contributed.

So, I had to restore a Macrium image to an old spinner that sits in an external dock. Back to the stone age--temporarily. The Macrium restore didn't go as planned either, but I'm up and running and have a new SSD on order.

I'm going to rebuild this fall and hadn't figured on getting a new SSD. So much for planning. What's worse, I didn't need to get the new PSU either, but had upgrade-itis gnawing at me due to waiting on the next generation of Intel processors. If I hadn't bought the new PSU, I imagine I wouldn't have had the SSD problem either. I still don't know what happened with that connector.

Well, that was rude! Sorry about that! Was that the Crucial in your specs that broke? I've heard of that happening occasionally on Samsungs.

dazzlenet said:

Which should I purchase?

These (new SSD's) are on eBay:

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD MZ-75E250B/AM $99.00

Samsung 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E250B/AM 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Int. SSD $98.00

Samsung 850 EVO 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E120B/AM) $71.95



I didn't know these were vertical installation. I assume the listing is correct. Would it be wise to purchase one of each & use one for backups? Or, should the back up drive NOT be installed inside the computer? If not, then what is the most feasible to use, as in price & quality?

First, I wouldn't buy something like this from e-Bay. For starters, you may have warranty issues down the road. Also, some of e-Bays vendors are a bit dodgy.

The vertical in the description refers to the construction of the NAND, not how the SSD is installed. It can be installed in any position you want.

The size depends on what you need. If you are just going to install windows and some programs on it, 120-128GB would be plenty. If you are a serious gamer with numerous large games you wanted to install on it, you may need the larger size. When sizing a SSD, remember that, for best operation, you need to maintain at least 20-25% of empty space on the SSD.

Backup drives should NOT be installed inside the computer. Many of the things that can cause other drives inside the computer to fail—viruses and other malware, a failed PSU cooking the drives, etc.—can also affect an internal backup drive. Also, external backup drives should not connected to the computer except while updating a backup or recovering data from it.