SSD Archives - Page 11 of 17 - Rick's Daily Tips

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…]

Q&A: Will doubling the RAM in my iMac really make it run faster?

Posted on February 14, 2019

Question from Donna: I have a 27 inch mid-2011 iMac with 4GB of RAM. It’s running MacOS Sierra.

I’m thinking about taking it to the Geeks Squad and having them to upgrade the RAM to 8GB.

I was talking to them about it a few days ago and they said a RAM upgrade would help a lot since it started running slower after the upgrade to MacOS Sierra.

But the thing is they also quoted me a small fortune for making the upgrade.

My question is would the speed increase from an extra 4GB of RAM speed up the system enough to justify the expense?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I clone a large hard drive to a smaller SSD?

Posted on January 31, 2019

Question from Cade L.: My dad bought a 500GB SSD to go in his PC but he ended up deciding to install a 1GB SSD instead.

He gave me the 500GB SSD and I’d like to use it to replace the 750GB hard drive in my laptop.

The hardware swap will be easy so I’m not really worried about that. But how do I clone the hard drive to the smaller SSD? Any suggestions?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]