SSD issue resolved

[Sandy]

Greetings, folks,

Tuesday evening I had an error message pop up on my system... Intel SMART status report saying my system drive (a miniscule 64gb SSD drive) was failing. I suppose it was to be expected, this SSD drive was several years old and had been in continuous use all that time. I had to wait until payday to buy a replacement drive, so I've been without any flying all week.

And for the record: Yes, I absolutely and whole-heartedly endorse the use of SSD drives for the operating system. And for any other use you care to put them to (I use a second SSD <128gb> to store and run P3D2.) The operation today only reinforced that opinion.

The fix? A new SSD drive, and one that is significantly larger in capacity, and being newer is almost twice as fast for read and write operations. What I bought via Amazon Prime was a Crucial M550 512gb drive, with next-day delivery (ordered Friday morning, delivered today, Saturday, about 8:45am local time.) Cost of the drive ($299) plus shipping ($21) : $320

Once I had the drive in hand, I followed the directions in this article: www.ssdfreaks.com/content/664/how-to-clone-hdd-to-ssd-with-windows-7s-own-software

I needed the HDD-to-SSD directions, since I had a large part of my Win7 operating system off-loaded from the tiny SSD to normal HDD. (I won't go into details of all that stuff)

The end result, after about four hours of in-depth geeking out, interrupted by a few family emergencies and a run to the grocery store, was a completely replaced operating system disk that is eight times larger and twice as fast as the old one, and I haven't had to reinstall a damn thing. My system acts like nothing has changed. Perfect!

Time for a well-earned beer!

[pivo11]

Sounds good, Sandy.  I'm about due for a new computer and I've been thinking about SSD's but the price puts me off, they're almost three times as dear as the old fashioned spinning ones. 

[Sandy]

I keep a few of the old fashioned ones around, simply for their much larger capacity. But the system boost from running the OS on an SSD can't be beat. That is, assuming you've got a new-enough machine that it has the 6gb/sec SATA3 disk connectors. If your machine still has the ribbon cables, an SSD won't do you much good.

[pivo11]

I dunno a lot about the technical stuff but my motherboard does have; "2 x Serial ATA 6Gb/s connectors".  Would that be what you mean, at all? 

[Deleted]

Fritz, those are the connectors you would use with an SSD.

To be honest, I have had two different i7 computers in the past few months; the first computer had SSD the second one not, and I never saw enough of a difference to be worth the investment. This is assuming your internal drive is the latest SATA 6.0Gb/s.

[Bushpounder]

Is it true there is no recovery for a SSD?

BP;)

[olderndirt]

At my age, hearing those old HD's grinding away is kinda pleasant - like hearing your heart beat every morning.

[Sandy]

Jul 13, 2014 14:37:47 GMT -5 Bushpounder said:

Is it true there is no recovery for a SSD?

BP;)

I'm going to say yes, that's correct ... but there's not a lot of recovery chance for a failed HDD either. Without spending lots of money for a "prefessional data recovery" service.

In my case I had to disable an Intel SMART system error checking doo-dad (technical term) from within the BIOS, then my original SSD operated (apparently) just fine. Well enough to make a system image and affect a complete recovery on a new SSD. I did take the precautionary step of not using my computer until I had the replacement part on hand. I didn't want that SSD to fail completely before I had a chance to make a complete system image. I loathe re-installing Windows and then all of my programs.

[Sandy]

Jul 13, 2014 19:49:22 GMT -5 olderndirt said:

At my age, hearing those old HD's grinding away is kinda pleasant - like hearing your heart beat every morning.

Wow, you've got better hearing than I do. All I hear are the fans, not the hard drives (I have four in my system in addition to two SSD's.)

[Bushpounder]

True. My IT guy told me that usually when a regular drive is going, you get a little warning. With SSD, it either works or it doesn't. I know they are nice, but I'm not sure they have my vote of confidence yet.

BP;)

[Sandy]

My little 64gb SSD has been running without a hiccup for ... three years at least, maybe four. Given how much time I spend at the computer, it's gained my respect for solid service. And the Intel SMART software (part of the Intel "Rapid Storage Technology" I use to control my hard drives - I could use it to set the drives up in RAID, but I use them more for mass storage than operational stuff) ... anyway, the software let me know as soon as something was amiss.

Anyway, I'm sold on SSD. If you want to see what SSD can do for you without making it your system drive, grab a small 64 or 128 gb SSD (those are getting cheaper every day, because everyone wants the larger capacity drives) and set it up as a cache drive. That in itself will yield some visible to the eye improvements on programs you use a lot (not just millisecond readings on a spreadsheet.) It won't be noticeable the first time or two you open a program, but on the third and subsequent program openings, you'll notice how much quicker the program comes to life. That's SSD caching at work.

[olderndirt]

Jul 13, 2014 22:00:14 GMT -5 Sandy said:

Jul 13, 2014 19:49:22 GMT -5 olderndirt said:

At my age, hearing those old HD's grinding away is kinda pleasant - like hearing your heart beat every morning.

Wow, you've got better hearing than I do. All I hear are the fans, not the hard drives (I have four in my system in addition to two SSD's.)

My FSX is by itself on a separate drive and I can hear it start when I click on the icon.  Maybe it's time for a lube job.

[Deleted]

Some hard drives are just plain noisy; such being the case with a couple of old Maxtor hard drives I used to use. Those you could hear in a multi fan environment even if you were hearing impaired!