Upgrading laptop HDD to SSD

[BestB]

24 minutes ago, JamJar said:

 

It doesn't pertain to the OP's device. It's not limited to Samsung SSD. You problem was more likely linked to a whitelisted PCIe device or an incompatibility with NVMe modules.

 

The OP's device takes a 2.5" SATA 3 and thus there will be no issue with compatibility.

Of course it does not , fact that we both have a Lenovo and both have ideapad and Lenovo has a known issue makes no difference at all . That’s what I call a true expert ????

[MJKT2014]

17 hours ago, BestB said:

Can just get a shop to do it for 500 baht

Madness.

 

Get Macrium if a complex hard drive or better do a clean o/s install and use Clone App to get individual apps up and running with same settings as before quickly.

[tweedledee2]

I used Macrium Free to clone a 1Tb drive to a 500Gb ssd. Not having an enclosure box, I just used the data transfer cables and set the new drive on top the mouse pad. I transferred each partition separately, reformatting to add space for updates. When finished, I rebooted from the new drive to make sure it worked, before making the swap.    

[Farangwithaplan]

1 hour ago, JamJar said:

 

 

So you decided to call yourself out? ????  You should have left it rather than attract attention to it.

I'm almost afraid to point out that Shopee has only one 'P'. ????

 

 

Example here; https://shopee.co.th/Hard-Drive-Enclosure-2.5-นิ้วสำหรับ-Samsung-SSD-i.131624263.2020411547

Hopefully not arriving via China. Can't tell.

I said pedant police. You are being the typo gestapo. Different divisions in my book ????

 

Under 190 baht is not expensive. I'm not sure where you are coming from. There are cheaper models around and a similar model to the one you linked at is available at a local store for about 160 baht. The thing I would check is whether or not the interface is USB 2 or 3 on the cheaper models.

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

41 minutes ago, BestB said:

Nothing to do with comparability , Lenovo has a known issue , light research will show this to be common problem and again since I did it 10 or so days ago   I would say I know and understand little more what shops would or would not do instead of speaking in hypotheticals 

It's great that you know what you know.

So what do you suggest to the OP? Should he hope you know exactly what is compatible for his notebook and buy it and hope all will be alright?

Or should the OP just let a shop do that job. Because if they try and fail then he won't have to pay for a new incompatible SSD. He will only pay if the SSD is compatible and if it works in his computer and if the shop transferred everything correct.

Just in case the OP follows your advice and it does not work: Will you pay for the SSD? Or just say: I am sorry, that is your problem.

 

Some time ago I bought RAM for a customer's notebook which should have been compatible with that notebook. I looked it up on the manufacturers website. The dealer ordered it just for me. And when I installed it didn't work. So I had to buy some more RAM. It wasn't the customer's fault. It wasn't the dealers fault. I paid for that extra RAM from my own pocket. I learned from that...

 

 

[dddave]

18 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Cloning is no problem if the destination disk is the same size or bigger.

Some programs don't close the additional small (normally invisible) Windows partitions correct.

If you are not experienced it's probably easiest to look for a shop where you buy the SSD and let them transfer it.

Maybe it cost 100B more but it safes you a lot of possible headache. And you will be sure that the new SSD is compatible with your notebook.

 

My niece has an older Lenovo G480  4gb ram and 500gb HD.  I just ordered new RAM (4gb X 2), max for her model and a 240gb SSD.   Are you saying that it will be difficult to clone to the 240gb SSD destination drive from the old 500gb drive in the laptop?   If yes, is there a workaround?  I really don't want to have to lug this old monster to a shop and ask it to install and clone an SSD I purchased on Lazada.  Bit awkward, that.

[shady86]

 
Then that's a no, isn't it. Even if the cloning alone took ten minutes, there are all of the other operations involved. So cannot then be five to ten minutes. So that is just a no.
 
 

It's possible if cloning from ssd to anothrr ssd. I've done that a few times while migrating to a bigger ssd. With about 30GB data inside.

[JamJar]

1 hour ago, BestB said:

Nothing to do with comparability , Lenovo has a known issue , light research will show this to be common problem and again since I did it 10 or so days ago   I would say I know and understand little more what shops would or would not do instead of speaking in hypotheticals 

You cannot even spell it, let alone understand it....

[petermik]

8 hours ago, BestB said:

Nothing to do with comparability , Lenovo has a known issue , light research will show this to be common problem and again since I did it 10 or so days ago   I would say I know and understand little more what shops would or would not do instead of speaking in hypotheticals 

[JamJar]

1 hour ago, BestB said:

Of course it does not , fact that we both have a Lenovo and both have ideapad and Lenovo has a known issue makes no difference at all . That’s what I call a true expert ????

 

Since you are the one who took your laptop to a shop because a simple job is beyond you and we are the ones giving technical advice, I think that you should desist from arguing with one who knows.

 

Lenovo doesn't have a problem and you simply do not understand the issue.

The issue that you imagine is Lenovo's problem, is not a problem for them at all. It is by design.

The issue is whitelisting and it will not affect the IdeaPad 305.

 

[petermik]

Jamjar

There you go then as above it states "if you are able to access the current hard drive then you can swop it for an SSD"........currently my HDD is a WD blue 1TB...of which I use 80gb....I,ll be putting in a Kingston 400 240 gb without (hopefully) any issues

[JamJar]

34 minutes ago, Farangwithaplan said:

I said pedant police. You are being the typo gestapo. Different divisions in my book ????

 

Under 190 baht is not expensive. I'm not sure where you are coming from. There are cheaper models around and a similar model to the one you linked at is available at a local store for about 160 baht. The thing I would check is whether or not the interface is USB 2 or 3 on the cheaper models.

 

 

 

I wasn't referring to Shopee. I was referring to mainstream shops that sell them for perhaps 400 baht.

I then linked to an example from Shopee, which is what you recommended.

I added that I didn't know if that example to which I linked is coming from China. In addition, I am unclear about the postage costs.

189 baht delivered  would be a good price.

Obviously something got lost in the translation to you.

[JamJar]

2 minutes ago, petermik said:

Jamjar

There you go then as above it states "if you are able to access the current hard drive then you can swop it for an SSD"........currently my HDD is a WD blue 1TB...of which I use 80gb....I,ll be putting in a Kingston 400 240 gb without (hopefully) any issues

 

I've seen an IdeaPad 305 fitted with a Kingston 400. So I am sure that you won't have an issues for when it comes to compatibility.

[JamJar]

19 minutes ago, dddave said:

My niece has an older Lenovo G480  4gb ram and 500gb HD.  I just ordered new RAM (4gb X 2), max for her model and a 240gb SSD.   Are you saying that it will be difficult to clone to the 240gb SSD destination drive from the old 500gb drive in the laptop?   If yes, is there a workaround?  I really don't want to have to lug this old monster to a shop and ask it to install and clone an SSD I purchased on Lazada.  Bit awkward, that.

 

 

It's not a problem, as long as there is less than 231 GB(Ideally less than 200GB) of data on the 500 GB HDD.

 

Look here; https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/clone-larger-hdd-to-smaller-ssd.html

 

But I'm a big proponent on running a clean install to SSD instead of cloning. Then to put the old HDD into a caddy and using that as an external portable hard drive.

[Isaanbiker]

2 hours ago, BestB said:

Had it done less than 10 days ago and it took about 10 mins, extra 5 mins for me to check if all was working properly 

Impossible in 10 minutes. Are you using a 2 GB HD? You seem to be extraordinary fast. 

[BestB]

44 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

It's great that you know what you know.

So what do you suggest to the OP? Should he hope you know exactly what is compatible for his notebook and buy it and hope all will be alright?

Or should the OP just let a shop do that job. Because if they try and fail then he won't have to pay for a new incompatible SSD. He will only pay if the SSD is compatible and if it works in his computer and if the shop transferred everything correct.

Just in case the OP follows your advice and it does not work: Will you pay for the SSD? Or just say: I am sorry, that is your problem.

 

Some time ago I bought RAM for a customer's notebook which should have been compatible with that notebook. I looked it up on the manufacturers website. The dealer ordered it just for me. And when I installed it didn't work. So I had to buy some more RAM. It wasn't the customer's fault. It wasn't the dealers fault. I paid for that extra RAM from my own pocket. I learned from that...

 

 

If I had to suggest I would say not to buy ssd from internet so it can be exchanged. To be safe from my experience to get Samsung brand as it’s proven to work.

[JamJar]

41 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

It's great that you know what you know.

So what do you suggest to the OP? Should he hope you know exactly what is compatible for his notebook and buy it and hope all will be alright?

Or should the OP just let a shop do that job. Because if they try and fail then he won't have to pay for a new incompatible SSD. He will only pay if the SSD is compatible and if it works in his computer and if the shop transferred everything correct.

Just in case the OP follows your advice and it does not work: Will you pay for the SSD? Or just say: I am sorry, that is your problem.

 

Some time ago I bought RAM for a customer's notebook which should have been compatible with that notebook. I looked it up on the manufacturers website. The dealer ordered it just for me. And when I installed it didn't work. So I had to buy some more RAM. It wasn't the customer's fault. It wasn't the dealers fault. I paid for that extra RAM from my own pocket. I learned from that...

 

 

 

You obviously quoted the wrong person. Not your day?

 

I didn't guess. I knew. Because I checked.

No need for that rambling story about incompatibility and hypothesis after hypothesis. I've been working with Lenovo whitelists at BIOS level for many years now....and have never made a mistake concerning incompatible RAM.

 

[JamJar]

1 minute ago, BestB said:

If I had to suggest I would say not to buy ssd from internet so it can be exchanged. To be safe from my experience to get Samsung brand as it’s proven to work.

 

Ridiculous....

[BestB]

3 minutes ago, Isaanbiker said:

Impossible in 10 minutes. Are you using a 2 GB HD? You seem to be extraordinary fast. 

I was not the one doing it and did not realise anyone made or sold 2GB hard drives 

[BestB]

24 minutes ago, petermik said:

I just told you what happened with mine, what you do is your choice 

[BestB]

26 minutes ago, JamJar said:

You cannot even spell it, let alone understand it....

????????????

[JamJar]

1 minute ago, BestB said:

I just told you what happened with mine, what you do is your choice 

 

It's good that you understand that.

You've given your advice.

He has already told all that he will be fitting a "Kingston 400 240 GB".

He understands, from what I have written and from what he has read that there is no such incompatibility with his device.

 

Why don't you post the link where it states that Lenovo has a problem, so that we can all read and evaluate it?

 

[dddave]

3 minutes ago, JamJar said:

I've been working with Lenovo whitelists at BIOS level for many years now....and have never made a mistake concerning incompatible RAM.

The Crucial BX500 240gb SATA 2.5 SSD that I ordered from Lazada for my nieces Lenovo G480 arrived just now as I was reading this thread.  Talk about timing.   

It was indexed on Crucial's website as compatible for the G480.   Should I have any worries? 

[BestB]

1 minute ago, JamJar said:

 

It's good that you understand that.

You've given your advice.

He has already told all that he will be fitting a "Kingston 400 240 GB".

He understands, from what I have written and from what he has read that there is no such incompatibility with his device.

 

Why don't you post the link where it states that Lenovo has a problem, so that we can all read and evaluate it?

 

For an expert like yourself , you should not have problem searching google 

[JamJar]

1 minute ago, dddave said:

The Crucial BX500 240gb SATA 2.5 SSD that I ordered from Lazada for my nieces Lenovo G480 arrived just now as I was reading this thread.  Talk about timing.   

It was indexed on Crucial's website as compatible for the G480.   Should I have any worries? 

 

No, you won't have any problems. Best B's issue has to do with a completely different slot on the Motherboard.

[JamJar]

1 minute ago, BestB said:

For an expert like yourself , you should not have problem searching google 

 

I'm an expert on Technology, not searching on Google. I an unable to find any articles referencing what you state.

So I am willing to defer to your expertise on Google Search, in so that you can post us a link that illustrates what you describe.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, dddave said:

My niece has an older Lenovo G480  4gb ram and 500gb HD.  I just ordered new RAM (4gb X 2), max for her model and a 240gb SSD.   Are you saying that it will be difficult to clone to the 240gb SSD destination drive from the old 500gb drive in the laptop?   If yes, is there a workaround?  I really don't want to have to lug this old monster to a shop and ask it to install and clone an SSD I purchased on Lazada.  Bit awkward, that.

Some cloning software won't clone to a smaller drive. I never had to do it.

 

What should work is to make a full backup in Windows with the Windows software. And then restore that backup to the new disk. It should work but I never tried it.

[Farangwithaplan]

34 minutes ago, Victornoir said:

No worries Petermik, it will work.

 

For the connection, do not bother with a useless box. This kind of small cable for sale everywhere less than 100B is perfect.

 

 

At last, warnings about improperly installed windows are obsolete. Everyone can easily reinstall windows 10 in:
Settings - update - recovery - reset this PC.

Enjoy.

Such a cable works fine. It can be useful to pay a little extra for a USB 3 unit if time is consideration or you may use it a few times. A case/box is not useless if one is going to use the spare HDD as a portable HDD in future. If the old HDD will just be used as a spare mirror of the installation, and enclosure is not such an important need and will save approximately 60 baht.

 

To anyone else considering buying a new SSD to replace a slower HDD. You might like to consider future Windows 10 updates. They are getting larger and larger. Windows starts to compress files automatically when silently downloading updates if there is not enough free space. I expect Windows will be requiring more and more free space for future updates as time goes by.

 

I'll let others discuss the future requirements for free space to allow for trouble free updates as I don't want to open that can of worms here. But if you look at the minimum free space recommendation for windows 10 install and update download when it was first released and what that recommendation is now, it might give you an idea of future needs based on how long you will keep your current hardware.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, Farangwithaplan said:

I'll let others discuss the future requirements for free space to allow for trouble free updates as I don't want to open that can of worms here. But if you look at the minimum free space recommendation for windows 10 install and update download when it was first released and what that recommendation is now, it might give you an idea of future needs based on how long you will keep your current hardware.

I have an old Lenovo ThinkPad in which I installed a 60GB SSD a couple of years ago.

I have Office and a few other programs installed on that notebook, but not much. 

I recently updated it again to the newest version of Windows 10, all on the 60GB SDD. It works!

I wouldn't buy a 60GB SSD now, I am pretty sure it's impossible to buy them now. But my point is this is still big enough to allow all updates.

[Farangwithaplan]

34 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have an old Lenovo ThinkPad in which I installed a 60GB SSD a couple of years ago.

I have Office and a few other programs installed on that notebook, but not much. 

I recently updated it again to the newest version of Windows 10, all on the 60GB SDD. It works!

I wouldn't buy a 60GB SSD now, I am pretty sure it's impossible to buy them now. But my point is this is still big enough to allow all updates.

Yes, I realise 60gb will still work for an OS and scratch drive. But if people keep a lot of data they wont. And who doesn't keep a lot of data? My Office install is just about 3gb.

I said I wouldn't mention it but it seems I need to to make the point I was trying to get across. Windows 10 originally called for 16gb for an installation + extra temp space for downloading updates. That figure is now 32gb + the ever increasing amount of temp space for updates.

 

Add the need for more scratch drive space for day to day running and all of a sudden people's old estimates of what is required goes up. But the biggest issues is that when the silent downloads for the updates start, it looks for free space. Without warning, if it needs free space, the operating system starts compressing individual files without the user's knowledge. The only thing you see is a 2 little blue arrows on the the folder or file icon.

 

If your files get compressed during update, I believe you need to manually uncompress each file if you want them back in their original form.

 

I'm not telling you how much free space you need. I am just making comment that minimum space requirements have changed and likely will change over time. If it doens;t concern you, that's good. But I believe it will affect some either now or in the future.