Proposed hardware for cloning

zombiecmh · 12 Nov 2013

Hope you guys can help me out with this too. Im a software techie, but hardware makes me glaze over unfortunately.

This is the computer I started with:
Lenovo ThinkPad X131e 3372 - 11.6" - E2-1800 - Windows 8 Pro 64-bit / Windo - 33722VU - Notebook Computers - CDW.com

This is the hard drive I want to clone to, and then install into my computer as my primary drive.
Seagate Momentus STBD1000100 - hard drive - 1 TB - SATA-300 - STBD1000100 - Internal Notebook Hard Drives - CDW.com

I was toying with the idea of geting a hybrid solid state drive instead. Are they easy to manage? I was reading that you have to configure these drives, but the article didnt get into what configuring was required.
Seagate SuperSpeed SSHD - Solid State Hybrid Drive - 1TB - 2.5" - SATA - STBD1000400 - Internal Notebook Hard Drives - CDW.com

Regardless of what drive I go with, I expect to have 500 gigs of data on it in the end.

This is the enclosure I was going to use during the cloning, in case it makes a difference
StarTech.com 2.5in USB 3.0 SSD SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - storage enclosur - SAT2510BU32 - Single Drive Enclosures - CDW.com

thanks for your help!

whs · 12 Nov 2013

If you are going to a desktop, I would use a 120GB SSD for the OS and a HDD (maybe SSHD) for the data.

The problem with the SSHDs is that they are good for moving masses of sequential data but no good for the OS that reads small amounts of random 4K blocks. That's where the slow access time of the HDD part hurts and the SS part (which is really a buffer) only helps if the data that the OS looks for happens to be in this buffer.

Lady Fitzgerald · 12 Nov 2013

He has a notebook, Wolfgang.

The first drive you listed is a 5400 rpm drive and will not perform as well as the 7200 rpm drive already in your notebook. This drive, though costlier, will give you the same, if not slightly better, performance as your present drive. Even though it's SATA-600, it is backwards compatible with SATA-300.

SSHDs are highly variable to whether they will improve performance, usually dependent on how they are used. In your case, however, you are replacing a 7200 rpm drive and the SSHD you've listed is a 5400 rpm unit (as far as I know, they don't make 2.5" 7200 rpm SSHDs anymore) so it's highly unlikely you will gain any significant performance with it. It's possible you may even lose some, depending on how you use the machine.

Of course, a SSD will give you the best performance but even the Samsung 1TB 840 EVO will cost several times more than the machine you are using it in.

whs · 12 Nov 2013

Maybe I misunderstood. I thought he was coming from a notebook going to a PC.

linnemeyerhere · 12 Nov 2013

As you are imaging from a smaller capacity drive to a larger one you should have no difficulties. What software program are you going to use for the imaging?