SSD for new laptop?

[jhansman]

OK, don't want to start a pi$$ing contest here over what drive rocks or sucks; I've had nothing but great results from Samsungs in my desktop, but now I need to replace a 5400rpm spinner with a reliable, quick SSD in a new Core i7 laptop I got for the wife for Xmas. So, not knowing if choosing one for a laptop is any different than one for the desktop, I'm asking for suggestions *based on experience* please. Probably will keep it under 250GB, as she doesn't load her system up with much. Many thanks.

 

[Cerb]

Some don't idle too well, but even then, the differences aren't big. Any of the popular desktop models will be good notebook ones (Samsung, Sandisk, Crucial, Toshiba (new OCZ)...). Just in case, I'd make sure to get one that includes a shim.

 

[jhansman]

Her old HP has a Crucial M4 I put in when it was new, but I think it was overkill for the CPU (1.65GHz AMD E-450) and the SATA 2 bus that model was saddled with. This time round I wanted a model with a solid processor and a SATA 3 bus, and will likely swap out the drive it comes with. Just wondered if anyone has done this upgrade to their notebook and how much performance increase they now enjoy.

 

[Shmee]

Does your new laptop have an m.2 slot?

 

[Cerb]

Her old HP has a Crucial M4 I put in when it was new, but I think it was overkill for the CPU (1.65GHz AMD E-450) and the SATA 2 bus that model was saddled with. This time round I wanted a model with a solid processor and a SATA 3 bus, and will likely swap out the drive it comes with. Just wondered if anyone has done this upgrade to their notebook and how much performance increase they now enjoy.

Most SSDs from the last 1-2 years can and do saturate 6Gbps SATA. The practical differences between different models tends to be small to nothing, outside of chasing 4K benchmarks. It makes them perform just like desktops with SSDs.

 

[coercitiv]

Her old HP has a Crucial M4 I put in when it was new, but I think it was overkill for the CPU (1.65GHz AMD E-450) and the SATA 2 bus that model was saddled with.

You may tend not to believe this, but for normal users moving from SATA 2 to SATA 3 is a negligible performance win. The bulk of the performance boost we experience from SSD vs. HDD on normal machines (office, browsing, light games) comes from improved random 4KB reads/writes. Random IOPS sees no gain from the upgrade to SATA 3.

Another counter intuitive aspect is that low spec machines might actually subjectively benefit more from HDD to SSD upgrade than high end machines. As you move down from a CPU performance and RAM amount perspective, SSDs cut delays by a higher percentage than they would do on high end machines, hence user will experience a more noticeable (relative) improvement.

AFAIK the only thing the Crucial m4 is missing when compared to "modern" drives is DevSleep support, a feature which enables lower power usage while system is mostly idle (in your case the drive would go from 0.6W in idle to something like 0.05W). However, if your wife uses the machine mostly at home, this feature can safely be ignored, as it brings you virtually no benefit.

Nowadays the rule of thumb when buying SSDs for light usage is very simple: buy the cheapest proven drive (with regards to both reliability and decent performance) that offers enough space for your needs in the following 2 years. Higher performance numbers are irrelevant for light users.

If your m4 is a proven reliable drive, don't chase a faster drive until you need more storage capacity.

 

[arandomguy]

For a laptop there are some spacing considerations that you may not face for a desktop drive. Your laptop may only be sized for 7mm drives as such your existing M4, which is 9mm, may not fit without modifications.

I guess hardware encryption support could be something you might be more interested in if you were to want to leverage it due to the potential of losing a laptop?

Performance wise it is basically what has been mentioned. SSD performance deltas exposed in reviews and benchmarks don't really properly convey what the actual real world differences will actually be. The big user experience jump is still from a HDD to a SSD since some performance metrics are an order of magnitude or two higher.

 

[jhansman]

I may just pull the M4 from her old HP and clone the 5400 rpm spinner to it, just to see if there is much of a performance bump. I expect there would be some, but it's worth remembering that this M4 has been in her machine for a few years now, and may be on the backside of its wear lifespan. In any case, I want to the new machine to perform as best it can, and I would be genuinely surprised if a decent SSD (from the current offerings) wouldn't noticeably outperform the 5400 rpm drive. Still looking for deals on a 250GB 850 EVO.

 

[arandomguy]

Unless it was used in some very heavy write work load I doubt it. Lifespan would likely still be well above 90%. Mine is still at 97% for a 128GB version.

SSDs will be noticeably faster than HDDs, especailly 5400 rpm ones. SSD to SSD upgrades for performance on the other hand for the vast majority of users is a completely different matter.

 

[jhansman]

The M4 has a firmware update available, but I need to back it up before doing that. And, yeah, SSD->SSD upgrades usually don't show big performance boosts, but the 850 EVO boot drive I just replaced my 840 EVO with is doing everything noticeably faster; this makes me smile. Not expecting miracles from the M4 in the notebook, but it should help.

 

[coercitiv]

And, yeah, SSD->SSD upgrades usually don't show big performance boosts, but the 850 EVO boot drive I just replaced my 840 EVO with is doing everything noticeably faster; this makes me smile. Not expecting miracles from the M4 in the notebook, but it should help.

Allow me to disagree, or at least share a different subjective experience.

I went through an "upgrade" from 840 Pro to 850 Pro, and also have a PM 851 (OEM 840 EVO name) in another laptop, and have seen no subjective difference in machine responsiveness while doing common tasks. However, I must admit I did perform a data refresh on the PM 851 drive in the first weeks after getting my other laptop, and a subsequent firmware upgrade when that was made available by the OEM. Without these measures the TLC drive did have noticeable read performance issues. (minor delays that became apparent though comparison after data refresh)

The biggest jump in performance was seen on my home machine after doing a clean install (was running a Win 10 Insider build with several incremental upgrades). I did not quite believe this can be, but even after more than a month of usage, with all my usual software and drivers installed, system behaves better.