Move to SSD maybe

R

Rossi~

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Dec 8, 2008
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I'm thinking about moving to SSD, for OS only so i'm thinking of 60Gb, the OCZ Vertex 2E is looking to be the one for me for Price/Performance. I want to keep as close to £100 as possible and the drive will contrian OS + documents, pictures etc. all other media and games will be elsewhere.
There are a couple of things i want to know however (yes here we go)

1. I hear some people recommend leaving 20Gb un-partitioned, should i and why?
2. Do i set it up AHCI?
3. What is the lifetime of these drives roughly?
4. I am lazy, i don't want to go and setup the OS and everything again, can someone suggest a free imaging solution to copy onto the new drive?

Any help, opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)
 
1. From what I understand, unallocated space can be used by the drive controller for housekeeping/maintenance tasks, and can extend the overall lifespan of the drive.

2. This is not mandatory, but, certain features such as NCQ are only available using AHCI, and performance is also generally better.

3. Depends entirely on your usage habits, but theoretically, the drive should last longer than the case you put it in. They haven't been around en masse for long enough to know what to expect just yet, at least not for certain.

4. I will partially quote myself from another thread, in that if you do decide to go with an SSD, and you also decide to use an image of your current install, please research SSD alignment, starting with this thread.
 
1. Well it's actually more of percentage of the total size rather than straight up exact partition size IIRC. I think it's 15% to 20%.

2. Yes. Generally better performance

3. As cerwinvega noted, SSDs have not been out that long to get any sort of idea what their average longevity is like.

4. Yeah don't clone your OS over to a SSD. You're way better off just doing a fresh install. Key results of what happens when you don't do that is provided in the link cerwinvega provided.
 
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