I just got my comp W7-SP1 back from my local SOUP.
A technician installed a smallish -but big enough for my needs- SSD disk and cloned my old disk.
So I launched SC4 with the no intro thing and I hardly had the time to open a cold beer when I sat looking at my region en less than 1 minute and 20 seconds! I drank the beer in one gulp while laughing my head off...
With the price of the disk and the fee of the technician for less than €100, I say this the bargain of the year.
Folks, move to SSD and do yourself a great favor...
That sounds great. Enjoy it.
Welcome to the SSD owners' club huzman!
Have fun with your set-up!
Oh I do! I keep logging to SC4 with a clock in hand...
And yes, Less than a minute and 18 secs for logging in, in the last 3 or 4 tries, I'm thrilled!
I hope to see more about moving to SSD drives...
Specially from those with a mechanical drive...
BTW, How to save those old drives?
Quote from: huzman on June 20, 2018, 11:58:15 AM
BTW, How to save those old drives?
Before getting too carried away, one word of caution, if/when an SSD dies, expect no warning and a total data loss scenario. It's even more vital you have backups when important data is stored on an SSD than a HDD, due to the differences of how they work. Don't get me wrong, generally speaking SSDs today are very reliable, but not so long ago this wasn't necessarily true.
As for "saving" the old drives, unless you have deep pockets or little need for storing actual data, SSD drives generally lack sufficient capacity for most users needs. For example I run a 256GB SSD alongside a 4TB HDD. The O/S, Applications and SC4 data is all kept on the SSD, with the remaining files etc. on the HDD, such data doesn't really need the speed boost either.
In a modern system, the HDD (assuming it's a spinning disk type) is likely to be the system bottleneck. SSDs are needed to advance data transfer speeds to keep up with modern systems. Whilst SATA3 SSDs give around 550MB/Sec transfers, they also don't need to physically seek data, both factors that enable them to break the bottleneck. However, directly connected PCI-E SSDs can be even quicker, which at the consumer level works out best when using M.2 sockets, but can be add-in boards (usually more expensive). For example, recently Toshiba has launched a budget line of M.2 high-speed SSDs, the RC100 series, which offer reads of 1,600MB/Sec and writes of 1,200/Sec, these are very competitively priced if you have an M.2 socket on your machine. A 480GB variant of this monster is only $160 over on Newegg, so anyone thinking of an upgrade, I'd seriously consider this model.
The overall point being, even conventional SSDs are getting way faster, that's before considering Intel's Optane and other developments yet realised. So in terms of loading times and data access, there are further potential benefits to be had. Technical details of the
Toshiba SSDs can be found here (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/18/toshiba_nvme_ssd/), for those into these things.
mgb204: either you are reading my mind or peeking over my shoulder $%Grinno$%.
Your word of caution is the reason for my question about those 5 inches old mechanical disks.
Anyhow, thanks for your in depth explanations.
-h
Quote from: huzman on June 20, 2018, 11:58:15 AM
BTW, How to save those old drives?
Care to elaborate your question?
If you mean "Now that I am using a SSD, what to do with the old 3.5" mechanical drives?", I would suggest you to do a S.M.A.R.T status check. Click here (https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/) for the details.
If their health status are good and have little to no bad sectors, you can re-use them as data storage drives as
mgb204 suggested.
If they are about to give in and you have vital data not wished to be lost, then transfer the data into a healthy hard drive or consider purchasing a new HDD to retrieve those data.
Well... I now have TWO hdd disks that I rather save. One is the old XP, the other is the old HDD Win7.
I took a peek at your S.M.A.R.T tip and didn't make much sense to me. Mind you, it was a quick peek. I have to read that topic more carefully and see what's what.
hkboondoggle: Your suggestions about a new HDD are what I thinking about. Thanks for confirming that.