Replaced a hard drive with a solid state one

[TerryMcK]

My main processing PC had a system drive which was a mechanical one whereas the data drive I use for PixInsight is and still is a solid state drive. This worked quite well for a while but again Microsoft operating systems seem to slow down after every "update". The hard disk activity on the C drive for instance after a reboot could take ages to fall to 0% activity from 100%. I have a few other PC's that have solid state system drives and perform extremely well. So I have just replaced the mechanical drive in the beast for an all electronic one. 

 

First of all I removed all the extraneous files that seem to build up in downloads and documents. I have a file server that I keep all that on so deleting them from the C drive is no big deal. Once the drive was down to a suitable size I bought Partition Master 15 from EAESUS for a reasonable price. Then connected the SSD to a vacant connection within the PC. The PM software cloned the mechanical drive and it was all done within about 30 minutes.

 

After powering the PC off, removing the hard drive and replacing it with a SDD I rebooted. It was up within seconds and I was back in PI soon afterwards. I went down the route of Partition Master rather than rebuilding the PC fully as I have a lot of licensed applications on it and couldn't be bothered rebuilding it from scratch. The money spent was well worth the lack of hassle.

 

So the PC now is:

• HP Z420 workstation
• Intel Xeon CPU E5-1620 v2 @ 3.70GHz
• Installed RAM 64GB
• 2 x 1TB SATA 3 SSD solid state hard drives.
• Graphics card is the only weak point - an NVidia GT710 - ok but not brilliant. It seems that more powerful cards are in short supply having been bought up by people mining for Bitcoins!

 

Oh and running Windows 10 Pro 20H2 with the Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0 

The 2TB hard drive I removed has taken up residence in my server as some extra disk space. That server now has a capacity of 20TB! More than enough space for a couple of photos 😉

Edited March 19, 2021 by TerryMcK

[Stub Mandrel]

Have you considered setting up your server as a RAID with that much storage - it would give you redundancy in the event of a disaster.

[TerryMcK]

I already do Neil. The server is a proper HP Proliant server and I have it configured in hardware as RAID 1 for the important stuff. This is a pair of mirrored 8TB disks. The other disks that are now another 12TB are just configured as JBODs. Everything is backed up both locally and remotely to similarly size disk arrays everynight. Working in IT for donkeys years has taught me the value of good backups 😉 .

[TerryMcK]

If anybody is wanting to change system hard disks without reinstalling everything then using an application like Partition Master is the way to go. There are others on the market so pick and choose one to suit your requirements.

[Stub Mandrel]

On 3/20/2021 at 6:08 AM, TerryMcK said:

Working in IT for donkeys years has taught me the value of good backups 😉 .

 

I worked at a place and set the rule that everyone must keep their data on the fileserver which had RAID and incremental backups (to tape! with two sets kept off site - one in my glove compartment).

 

One employee kept everything on his desktop despite much pressure. He was smug when the server died and everyone was twiddling their thumbs for a day while it was resuscitated and we all lost a few hour's work.

 

He was less smug when his desktop's HDD died and he lost utterly everything, except key files he'd been forced to 'back up' onto the server.

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

If anybody is wanting to change system hard disks without reinstalling everything then using an application like Partition Master is the way to go. There are others on the market so pick and choose one to suit your requirements.

 

When I get a new desktop are the ~£30 utilities that claim to transfer all your licenced apps/programs over any good? If so is there one you would recommend. I really don't want to spend days finding old CDs and digging out licence keys from archived emails and paper files...

[ApophisAstros]

Those SSD`s are terrifically fast , when i bought my NUC i made sure it had a 1TB SSD and it boots up in under 10 seconds.

Roger

[TerryMcK]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

When I get a new desktop are the ~£30 utilities that claim to transfer all your licenced apps/programs over any good? If so is there one you would recommend. I really don't want to spend days finding old CDs and digging out licence keys from archived emails and paper files...

Yes Partition Master worked for me. Absolutely no issues at all. Everything licensed exactly as before.