Migrating to SSD

[Garbz]

Just this morning got a 'boot sector damaged or ....' message so I booted from a Windows Rescue Disk.
I had made a disk image after installing CC apps just 2 weeks ago and was able to restore from that successfully - thanks be to the image.

BUT............... should I take that as sign from the Computer Gods that my hard disk is on its way to hard disk heaven?

Should I press forward even more quickly with the conversion?

Chris, I thought the lack of trim resulted in physical damage to the drive by continually writing to the same "bits" or whatever? My understanding was that every time electrical charge was sent to a "bit" it was degraded in some way and that TRIM distributed that activity across the drive more evenly to avoid that condition.

What you're describing is wear levelling. That is a function of the controller and has nothing to do with the OS. All drives do this otherwise the drive wouldn't last very long. Yes writing to flash degrades the device.
TRIM on the other hand has to do with deletion. Flash can't write to a block that contains data. It needs to wipe that block first, and that is a huge performance hit since it's a very slow operation. Unfortunately computers never actually delete data. They just mark sectors on the disk as not in use (hence data recovery programs work). The TRIM command basically is a proper delete. The OS will mark the data as free, finish writing and then when nothing else is happening and the drive is idle, issue the TRIM command for the previously deleted files.

So without TRIM as the drive fills up because files are never truly deleted and when the drive is full every write operation comes with the overhead of a slow delete first.

 

[manaheim]

That is tooooooooooootally different than my memory of it. However, I have never known you to be wrong and I'm faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too lazy to go research it, so I shall bow to your greater glory.

You do realize you could probably tell me that the sky is plaid and I'd buy it, right? Do you realize the power you wield!

Oh the humanity!

 

[The_Traveler]

Help, help, help, help, help, help

I am just about to run the Samsung cloning program and I got a message that all files mist be closed or they won't be cloned.

So I will close my email client, my clipping client and database but what else do I have to be concerned about?
Do I have to go through my processes list and close everything I can find?

 

[SnappingShark]

I would close everything that is open (best bet is to restart, and go directly to clone).

You may have applications open which start when you open your computer - but these should be fine!

Remember, if you have backups, you don't need to worry

 

[The_Traveler]

It is the running processes that bother me.
All, and I mean all, my data is on a separate drive - email, copies of bookmarks, browsing history, all

 

[The_Traveler]

well, all that angst was for nought.
I followed the pictures instructions and in 3 hours it was done.

Blindingly faster, not a problem with install, I will check that 'Trim' is working and explore the Samsung disk management software and then accept it as a fait accompli.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Tiller]

Glad to hear it worked out. I've wanted to try an SSD.

 

[The_Traveler]

BHphoto has a great deal on Samsung 840 upgrade kit - 265 gb and all the cables, software you'll need.

These sites give a good background for doing it.

How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling Windows
How to Maximize the Life of Your SSD