Speed Up Your PC With An SSD
In a day when so many computer vendors save themselves $5 by installing an inferior, slow (maybe “green” – whooppee! [many seem to fail faster]), what you really want is for your computer to be blazing fast, right? Isn’t that why you buy a new PC?
I have been using SSD’s to speed up my computers (desktops, Eee PC’s and laptops) and client workstation for several years now.
As prices fall, we can afford larger capacity SSD’s.
Since I use several “virtual box” PC’s in my internet marketing business, I have filled up my 128GB SSD on my primary desktop computer. There is no need to upgrade my PC because, well, the new ones really aren’t all that much faster.
So I bought this Crucial m4 256GB 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT256M4SSD2
As always, the bottleneck is in the hard drive; so replace it with a no-moving-part SSD (Solid State Drive). It’s like a big memory chip that retains its information when you turn the computer off.
SSD’s do not get slower as they get full, like a conventional hard drive, and they don’t need to be defragmented (in fact, defragging can actually eat away at their useful life).
Here Are The Steps I Will Use To Upgrade To My New Crucial SSD
- Before I shutdown any PC for any kind of maintenance I always want to make sure any important data, or even configuration and settings info is backed up.
- I have my choice of either installing both the new and the old SSD in the desktop PC (can’t do that on 99.9% of notebooks or laptops) or use a Vantec USB Hard Drive Adapter to connect the new drive temporarily.
- Insert the Acronis CD in my drive and power up the computer, using the F8 key (on my PC) to select the DVD drive as my boot source.
- With Acronis, I will select my source drive – the 128GB SSD – and my target drive – the 256GB SSD – and proceed with the clone.
- After the clone is done, I will shut down the PC, remove the 128GB SSD and keep it for a couple of weeks until I know there is no problem with the new one; [it then goes down the food chain to another PC to speed it up considerably] install the 256GB drive if I haven’t already.
- Put the cover on and power up.
With cloning software this process is really pretty painless. Sure, it’s probably daunting to someone who has never done it, but I do have videos of this process you can find on YouTube (links coming!), and why you always want to make sure you have good backups first.
On the topic of good backups, you probably know my penchant for quality online backup services using the cloud and optionally a good external USB or firewire hard drive – check out OnlineBackupSpot for reviews.
As always, please share this post with others who may find it worthwhile, leave a comment or just G+ or give it an FB Like – thanks.
Get a blazing fast Crucial m4 256GB 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT256M4SSD2 at Amazon.com
This makes a lot of sense. I might even try it on one of my older computers. No harm done if I screw up
Looks like I have a lot to learn when it comes to computers. I really don’t even know what an SSD is or where it would go in my computer…lol But if you have video, then I bet I can figure it out. Thanks for sharing, my PC friend