solid state drive Archives - Page 4 of 8

Review: Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SATA III Internal SSD

Posted on March 28, 2019

Thanks to the advent of 3D V-NAND and other new flash memory technologies, solid state drives are getting both larger and less expensive all the time.

While SSDs are still considerably more expensive than hard drives with the same amount of storage capacity, the cost differential is now smaller than ever.

A perfect example is the new Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SATA III Internal SSD (#ad), one of the largest commonly available solid state drives on the market today. I recently had the opportunity to check one out, and I came away quite impressed. [Read more…]

Review: Silverstone Tek 3.5″ to 2 X 2.5″ Hard Drive HDD/SSD Bay Converter

Posted on March 26, 2019

Most solid state drives sold today were designed to fit into a standard 2.5 inch drive bay.

This is perfect if you’re upgrading the hard drive in your laptop to an SSD. Simply remove the hard drive and slide the SSD into it place.

But a problem arises if you’re planning to add an SSD to a typical desktop computer. Most desktop PC cases don’t have an empty 2.5 inch drive bay, so an adapter bracket is required in order to make it fit properly into an empty 3.5 inch bay.

A few days ago I ordered a Silverstone 3.5″ to 2 X 2.5″ Hard Drive HDD/SSD Bay Converter (#ad) that I needed in order to install a Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD (#ad) that was shipped to me for review.

After working with the converter I came away very impressed. [Read more…]

Great news: You can now buy a 1TB SSD for about $100!

Posted on February 25, 2019

Regular readers of this blog know that I often recommend replacing your computer’s hard drive with a super-fast solid state drive (SSD).

As I explain in this post, SSDs have several advantages over spinning hard drives.

But unfortunately they’ve always had one major disadvantage as well: SSDs have always cost a lot more than hard drives with the same storage capacity.

Well, thankfully that’s rapidly changing.

[Read more…]

Get ready for the arrival of huge Solid State Drives (SSDs) at affordable prices

Posted on January 6, 2019

Solid State Drives (SSDs) have been around for a good while now, and it’s no secret that replacing a hard drive with an SSD can put most any computer on virtual steroids.

But it’s also well known that SSDs have one huge issue that has been holding them back from mass adoption in the PC marketplace…

Compared to traditional spinning hard drives, SSDs are both expensive and relatively limited in storage space. [Read more…]

How to install a Solid State Drive (SSD) in your laptop

Posted on July 18, 2018

A while back I wrote a post explaining the benefits of replacing your hard drive with a Solid State Drive (aka SSD).

Of course the greatest benefit is the amazing speed increase you’ll gain by replacing your hard drive’s spinning platters and read/write heads with an SSD’s lightning-fast memory chips.

You might recall that in that post I recommended paying a PC Tech to swap out the drives for you, but since then I’ve had a couple of emails from folks who really wanted to try upgrading their laptops themselves, prompting me to decide to write this post explaining the procedure.

But before we get to that, if your laptop was made in such a way that the entire case has to be partially disassembled in order to access the hard drive, I still strongly recommend that you hire a qualified PC tech to remove the hard drive and install the SSD for you. Just sayin’.

On the other hand, if your laptop’s drive bay is easily accessible via a small removable cover you can swap out the drives out yourself. Just follow the instructions below.

[Read more…]