Advice re: new hard drive

Tanya · 23 Nov 2019

I bought a new Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB drive a few weeks ago in an attempt to fix a problem PC. I may have to scrap the machine (as still cant be fixed) and i wanted to ask are these viable options for my new £76.50 drive.

1. buy a machine with an HHD and add my SSD drive as a boot drive (and format HHD as a data/spare drive)
2. buy a case(?) and use SSD as an external drive (I do need one but have no idea if this can be done)
3. buy a new machine with no HD & use the SSD instead (is this possible?)

ty in advance

Samuria · 23 Nov 2019

£765 for a drive i get 500gig for £50. Can't you fix your PC?. Any option would work it's down to money and you will need windows as well

Barman58 · 23 Nov 2019

Current price for 850 Evo 500GB on amazon is £74.97 so options are a lot different than with a £765 unit

Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB 2.5 inch Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Pejole2165 · 23 Nov 2019

There are several PC builders that will let you customise a PC unit to your specs, for example one my Dad uses is PC Specialist, they are a UK based system builder, they have always been good to my Dad, support is excellent and prices are good too.
The site is easy to use, just pick your parts from the list of items to build your PC. It should be possible to build a PC without any drives if you want to use your own, however if the version of Windows on your drive is non-retail (so OEM) you may not be able to activate it on the new PC.
I would play with the PC Specialist build page to see what you can get and for what price, you can build a system then save the quoted specs and price without having to commit to a purchase. There are other system builders to choose from, I only recommend PC Specialist based on my Dads experience.
Also £750 seems really excessive for a 500Gb SSD, where did you get that from?

Barman58 · 23 Nov 2019

I used PC Specialist to build my current main system (in my specs ), and can also recommend them as builders of anything from a basic unit up to specialist items like mine

They also do off the shelf items at very good value prices

ignatzatsonic · 23 Nov 2019

Of your choices list choices 1, 2, and 3, I'd say that the second choice would be mostly a waste of the SSD. In an external position, it would presumably be operating through a USB port and therefore you wouldn't be taking advantage of its primary advantage over an HDD: speed.

I don't know about the UK, but in the USA it would be quite unusual to find a new PC sold without a hard drive of any kind, so I'd think your choice 3 might be hard to find.

It's standard policy for PC builders to charge rather extravagant prices for SSDs, so it may well be that choice 1 is your best move. Buy it with an HDD only and then install your SSD, move Windows and applications to the SSD, and then re-purpose the HDD--either as another internal or as an external through a separately purchased dock or enclosure--perhaps intended for backups.

flhthemi · 23 Nov 2019

Is it a desktop or a laptop? A lot of laptops no longer support adding a second disk drive and most newer don't even have an access panel for the HDD! You have to open the case to make the swap from HDD to a SSD. You could connect the SSD to a USB port with an adapter and use some software to "Clone" the old HDD to the new SSD. Then open the laptop (if you can) and install the SSD in the HDDs place and reboot.

If it's a desktop PC and already has Windows 10 on it then it's just a matter of opening the PC and installing the drive and either "cloning" Windows to the SSD from the existing HDD and then making the SSD the boot drive. Or remove the HDD you have in it now install the SSD in it's place and install Windows on it. You can then reformat the old drive and use it as external or add it to your desktop as an additional drive.

BTW I hope that SSDs price is a typo!

Samuria · 23 Nov 2019

Ebuyer its £59 Samsung 860 Evo 500GB - SSD Ebuyer

Tanya · 23 Nov 2019

Samuria said:

£765 for a drive i get 500gig for £50. Can't you fix your PC?. Any option would work it's down to money and you will need windows as well

typo (have fixed it was 76)

cant fix (see this thread).
Unexpected reboot
tried everything (literally)

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ignatzatsonic said:

Of your choices list choices 1, 2, and 3, I'd say that the second choice would be mostly a waste of the SSD. In an external position, it would presumably be operating through a USB port and therefore you wouldn't be taking advantage of its primary advantage over an HDD: speed.

Ok- makes sense

I don't know about the UK, but in the USA it would be quite unusual to find a new PC sold without a hard drive of any kind, so I'd think your choice 3 might be hard to find.

I had looked and yes- couldnt find...

It's standard policy for PC builders to charge rather extravagant prices for SSDs, so it may well be that choice 1 is your best move. Buy it with an HDD only and then install your SSD, move Windows and applications to the SSD, and then re-purpose the HDD--either as another internal or as an external through a separately purchased dock or enclosure--perhaps intended for backups.

Thank you- yes this is useful

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flhthemi said:

Is it a desktop or a laptop?

Desktop

If it's a desktop PC and already has Windows 10 on it then it's just a matter of opening the PC and installing the drive and either "cloning" Windows to the SSD from the existing HDD and then making the SSD the boot drive. Or remove the HDD you have in it now install the SSD in it's place and install Windows on it. You can then reformat the old drive and use it as external or add it to your desktop as an additional drive.

perfect

BTW I hope that SSDs price is a typo!

Er yep!! lol!

Anibor · 23 Nov 2019

ignatzatsonic said:

Of your choices list choices 1, 2, and 3, I'd say that the second choice would be mostly a waste of the SSD. In an external position, it would presumably be operating through a USB port and therefore you wouldn't be taking advantage of its primary advantage over an HDD: speed.

Usually in an external HDD USB connection the limiting factor regarding speed is the HDD. Even a SATA SSD can operate much faster than a HDD installed in an external USB enclosure, as long as the USB link operates at Gen. 1 (USB 3.0) speed, better if it´s a Gen. 2 link. There are also USB enclosures for NVMe SSDs.