Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question?

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rtucker55
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2012/07/21 07:03:59 (permalink)

Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question?

I would like to install a Samsung 830 128GB ssd in my laptop as the boot/system/program drive. It will replace a WD5000BPKT 7200rpm hdd. I really need to clone the drive due to the number of applications I have installed and don't want to go through the re-install/re-authorize processes that will take a couple of days...

My question is do I need to purchase the entire Samsung notebook upgrade package that includes the drive, Norton 15, Magician optimization software, and a USB to Sata adapter?

I already use Acronis true Image home 2012 (boot disk, not installed) to image/backup my drives. Could I not just purchase a USB to Sata adapter and use the Acronis to do the clone?

This will be my first ssd and I would like to do it right the first time but it seems like there is about a $30 savings between the bare drive and the upgrade package.

Also, the laptop is fairly new ASUS G74SX but it still only has a Sata II interface. Will I really be gaining much with the ssd?

Kind regards,
Rick

Purrrfect Audio DAW here.  Wow!...
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    slartabartfast
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/21 14:14:03 (permalink)
    You already have a 7200 rpm drive so the speed difference may not make much practical difference. Battery life may be a little longer. Bang for the buck is probably pretty low. Unless I was having some kind of real problem with the mechanical hard drive, I would not make the switch, and even then it is not clear that it would solve a problem.

    You can clone a drive with Acronis. You may not be able to move all of your authorizations with the clone regardless of what software you use to make the clone. The people who write the authorization code try to make it impossible to move the software to another drive in order to prevent unauthorized copying of the protected software.

    128 GB is not much storage these days. How many hard drives does your laptop support? 

    http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/expert/are-ssds-worth-the-money.aspx

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    rtucker55
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/21 16:52:12 (permalink)
    Two internal drives: one for boot/system/programs, the second, an identical WD5000BPKT 7200rpm hdd, for samples. I'm using an external Hitachi Touro 7200 hdd on USB 3.0 for audio.

    The drive I would be replacing is using about 70 GB. Really would not expect it to get much larger. About 12GB of that is pagefile...

    Purrrfect Audio DAW here.  Wow!...
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    kurrykid
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/21 17:09:27 (permalink)
    That article actually says that a SSD has quite a bit of performance over the 7200RPM drive: "A typical notebook hard drive, running at 5,400 rpm, delivers read transfer rates of anywhere from 35 to 45 MBps, with random seek times of 12 to 18ms. A faster 7,200-rpm drive usually improves on these numbers slightly... And then says: "By comparison, a high-performance SSD will have a read transfer rate of more than 100 MBps and a seek time below 2ms. One SSD we tested, the Intel X25-M, is rated at a 250-MBps read rate and less than 1ms seek time." It sounds like there would be some definite bang for the buck to me. Just my 2 cents.

    Dave
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    rtucker55
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/21 18:28:16 (permalink)
    I think the article was dated 2008. Hopefully the ssd's have become better/faster/more reliable over the last four years.

    I understand where slartabartfast is coming from but I would like to give it a try as a boot drive. If I like it I may try putting a 512GB ssd in to replace the current sample drive.

    Currently I have a small project using Trilian, 3 instances of Kontakt, RealLPC, and Superior Drummer. It takes just over 4 minutes for the samples to load into memory. Hopefully an ssd would cut that down to around 2 minutes?
    post edited by rtucker55 - 2012/07/21 18:30:24

    Purrrfect Audio DAW here.  Wow!...
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    slartabartfast
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/21 18:31:52 (permalink)

    That article actually says that a SSD has quite a bit of performance over the 7200RPM drive



    True enough. My comment related to a practical difference in speed. The specs for the hard drive give sequential reads as 160 MB/s, and the ssd 520 MB/s a difference of 3.25 times. Using the faster ssd would thus produce a significantly (statistically speaking) faster loading of a program laid down sequentially of close to that ratio. If you are waiting say, 30 seconds to load a program from the mechanical drive, you might shorten the load to 9 seconds using the ssd--a savings of 21 seconds. I am old, and time is getting short for me, but I still do not consider 21 seconds a practical difference for the cost. Actually the article concludes:



    "If you can afford it and you multitask frequently with hard drive–intensive applications, or even play games, a high-performance SSD can make a huge difference in your computing life. A quality drive...can give you back a significant amount of time every day that you would have spent staring at an hourglass and listening to your hard drive spin."

    It is interesting to see what some geeks consider a huge difference in their computing life. Unless the OP is spending a lot of time staring at the hourglass, my advice is still that it is not worth the cost. If the laptop is running music software without dropouts that would be enough for me.
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    rtucker55
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    Re:Samsung 830 series SSD in laptop question? 2012/07/26 22:16:12 (permalink)
    Just a quick update:

    I ended up getting the Samsung 830 256GB because it was on sale at Newegg for $199.99.

    Installed it in the laptop and plugged the WD system/source drive into the USB 2 port using a sata to usb adaptor. Booted up with Acronis true image home 2012 CD and did a clone in manual mode. Took about 40 minutes.

    Installed the Samsung ssd magician software and optimized the OS and drive then did a reboot. Everything seems to work great. Around 20 seconds from turn on to machine up and ready. Everything seems a lot more snappy.

    I did have to re-auth the Spectrasonics, Izotope, and Arturia stuff but, so far, that was it.  Now I really want a 512 for the sample drive...

    I think it is a matter of personal preference but the speed difference was worth the cost to me. I never realized just how much of a bottleneck the drive can be to an otherwise fast system.

    Kind regards,
    Rick

    Purrrfect Audio DAW here.  Wow!...
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