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Computer upgrade


Barton

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  • 4 weeks later...

The finished product, with CPU cooler, video card and sound card installed:

 

IMG_20160110_161858801_zpsrt0bsarv.jpg

 

IMG_20160110_162346934_zpsdqwmgfwf.jpg

 

Working beautifully with stock speed settings (no overclocks).  However BIOS has been VERY buggy to make any changes in.  None of the "push button" automatic OC or XMP speed settings work; neither does the operating system setting for Win8.1/Win10.

 

For now just enjoying things the way they are, which is very fast, and improved game play, and stunning SSD performance.

 

Sorry for the crappy picture quality, my camera is loaned out so all I have is cell phone   :(

 

PS @ Dudley/Snagglepuss, upon reinstallation of game controllers and RoF, the controller I.D.'s came out the same.  So I lucked out and had no need to edit any controls maps in the game  :)

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  • 6 months later...

.....Installed Samsung 850 SSD  500g. it comes with clone software. tried it. crashed. tried loading from windows repair disk and system image. Repair disk does not like the SSD and the format of the image disk was not appropriate.  Spent 2 days trying to get it to work.  Finally saw video on another clone program  Macrium reflect.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh4uRhWwZT0  .

 

Worked fine. I plugged my ssd into a secondary drive slot. cloned my HD. took over 3 hours , 250 gig of data and my HD is slow. Unplugged the HD. switched the SSD to my Boot disk slot and it brought up windows in half the time it takes my modem to boot up.....

 

So my new machine with the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD is working extremely well.  It made my previous machine with a Seagate 1 TB magnetic HDD seem slow, even though it's got plenty of good memory and a quad core running at 3.6 GHz.  I've been thinking why not upgrade it to an SSD, and the standard SATA III ones are plenty fast, and not that expensive.  I'm sold on Samsung, in part because of the Magician software that has optimization, benchmarking, and a "Rapid Mode ".  I found the prices for the 850 Evo and the 850 Pro, and decided that since the Pro is supposed to have twice the life, and considering it wasn't terribly more expensive, I decided to go with the Pro.  I bought two 512 GB drives; one to replace the magnetic drive in my old machine, and one to add to my new machine.  512 GB is more than adequate for me, I've used only less than half of that, and the price compared to the 1 GB capacity is much less.

 

I remembered what Butzzell had said about the Macrium Reflect software, and saw recommendations for the free version online too.  I downloaded, installed, and even created a recovery drive with it.  But when the new drives arrived, I decided why not try the included Samsung migration software, it really should work, right?

 

So I installed the Samsung software suite, which included the Data Migration program, and the Magician software.  When I ran the migration software, it immediately found a newer version than what came on the disks with the new drives, so I upgraded to that before I started.  I ran that newer version, and it seemed a LOT simpler than what I saw of the Macrium software, but at the same time, it didn't automatically create some kind of recovery disk or drive.....it just went straight into the migration operation.

 

In any case, in all the videos I looked at online, and in the instructions that came with the new drives, it showed using a USB to SATA III adapter (not included) to connect the new drive to the computer, for migration.  I can't really understand why you need that instead of just connecting it directly internally; but I decided not to mess with fate and ordered one (it was about $12).  Once the new drive was connected via that adapter to my USB 3.0, the migration software was all set to migrate from C: (old drive) to C: (Samsung SSD).

 

I had around 190 GB of data on a 1 TB drive (less than Butzzell, I don't do all that skinning or mission building, etc.).  It took about 35 minutes.  The transfer rate started at about 56 GB/s, and by the end was at nearly 100 GB/s.

 

Then I disconnected the new drive, shut down the computer, and installed the new drive using the exact same connections as the old drive.  Booted up.....BOOM, she works!

 

(Not surprised?  Get this: when I was installing the new 2.5" SSD into the 3.5" drive bay adapter, I accidentally DROPPED the entire thing onto a CEMENT FLOOR from about chest high!  ARRRRGGHH!!!)

 

After it was up, I ran the Magician software and optimized the new drive for speed, then ran a benchmark test.  The various read/write speeds were a little less than half of the bar graph scales shown.....disappointing but still far faster than before.  I looked at the various parameters to see what I could see, and looked to enable the "Rapid Mode".  However, of the various requirements that are needed to run it, I saw that the program did not recognize the operating system, which needed to be Win 7 or above.  Well, since I had Win 10 it should have seen that no problem.  When I had started the Magician program, I didn't notice it checking for a newer version, so I googled "newest version Samsung Magician" and found a version that was a lot newer than what had been installed from the install disk.  After I had upgraded to this and run it, I could see that it now recognized Win 10 and that all buttons were enabled, so I turned on the "Rapid Mode", which required a reboot.

 

Booted up, restarted Samsung Magician, and re-ran the benchmark tests.   BOOM!  The speeds were now MAXED OUT on the scales shown, and the speed numbers were actually DOUBLE the bar graph limits.  Wow, helluva improvement.

 

So my old machine got some serious speed improvement and it now boots up almost as fast as my new one.  Later, I'll add the other new drive to my new machine and double the storage capacity, and probably use it for image backups, which should then go like blazes.

 

:)  

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S!

 

Sounds great.

 

With migration software you do not need a disk image as back up. I have a back up drive that is unplugged. Once a month I plug it in. I format it and then copy my primary disk to the back up. If the primary ever goes down or gets infected, I unplug it. Plug in the back up. Make it the primary boot. Then get a new disk for primary or format the old primary and copy the copy back on if it was infected. No need for going through windows recovery or ever being down for longer than it takes to plug in a sata cable.

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Wondering about the mechanics of what you're describing.  You format your backup, but in what manner do you copy your disk?  I didn't think a regular copy copies all the sectors and system areas that Windows uses.  I thought only a disk image is an exact copy.  Being an exact copy is why an image isn't workable for migrating from HDD to SSD, since how Windows handles storage on either differs and you'd just get an error if you tried to do that.

 

Also, when you make the replacement disk the boot disk, how are you doing that?  BIOS?  I thought the whole reason for recovery disks or drives was that they're bootable and you can work from there to restore your image.

 

Just wondering if you've ever actually used this to recover, and had it work.  There's a lot I'm ignorant about but I usually muddle through somehow.   ^_^

 

I have an external drive like you do, but what I've always done is just make a disc image to it periodically....and all my other machines too, once they're scanned and verified OK.  I've only had to recover with an image once.  It worked well, using the Windows recovery disk to boot to and initiate restoration with the external drive connected.  It recognized and restored the images without a problem.  If the new drive is bigger than the old one, it just has unallocated space on it when it's done, and then you just append it onto your main sector with the disk manager to utilize all the space available.

 

I think things might get more complicated once you have SSD's.  For instance, my 950 Pro M.2 has a special driver to make it work right, and I'm not sure what would happen if you replaced it with any other kind of SSD.  The only sure thing would be to get an exact replacement, and that's usually not possible once they stop making certain models.  Who knows what will happen?   :huh:

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S!

 

Yes , I have done it as a recovery.

 

The data migration software duplicates your disk.  I just have a second hard drive that I unplug. A real hard drive, not an ssd.  When I want to back up my existing system, I plug it in, format and data migrate.  Recently I had two viruses. All my virus programs were unable to remove them. All the help online was no good.  I just went to my back up disk and plugged it in. Un-plugged the primary and booted up. Made this disk the primary boot. Plugged in the original drive, formatted and data migrate. Then make that disk the primary again and unplugged the back up.

 

I used to back up to an external and make a bootable CD. Don't need to do that. The internal is bootable. No problem with bios, no handling file problems. Think of it as a semi parallel raid.

 

Now, remember, I used Marcium reflect not the Samsung magician. The Marcium reflect does make a full copy of the disk. The Samsung Magician is supposed to do the same thing.

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