Getting new HD today

[Multibocks]

So I bought the SSD recommended in one of the threads here,120G OCZ, and I am curious if any of you could give me some pointers about installing it. I think I will migrate my OS over to it as well as WoW. From what I gather in the interwebs I can image copy my OS over to new drive and then make it the master drive. Is that as simple as it sounds? Or is there more to it? Any help would be much appreciated!

[Fef]

I run Windows Vista + WoW from a 60GB OCZ Vertex in my MacPro. Very happy with it. The drive is used only for that, and it's the only Windows drive.

Copying the whole system from one drive to another is very doable, at least when this is done using an imaging/cloning software. I never attempted any other way of transfering a system.

[Owltoid]

I'd suggest returning the 120GB SSD, getting a smaller one, and only running WoW off it. I run my OS on a 7200RPM drive and everything is smooth. The only time I need the performance of an SSD is with multiple instances of WoW. You probably paid a hefty premium for that size SSD and I'd suggest getting something that will work well for now, and in a couple years upgrading to the SLC SSDs which will have dropped in price significantly.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Cut and paste of the c: to a new drive and making that drive the primary drive doesn't really work. You might be able to pull it off, but you will need to do things like a fixboot and fixmbr and such because that information that makes it bootable, does not get copied over.

[Multibocks]

hrm ok guess I might just put WoW on the SSD.

It was only 270 or so, not too expensive.

[Multibocks]

Well hmm seems Im not up on the new cables for HDs. My computer has two raptors raided together in what looks like SATA II cabling. I have to check my motherboard to see if there are any open connectors as I cant see under the video cards to where they connect. This may have been a useless purchase, lol.

[olibri1]

Most motherboards have several connectors, so just look around where the others are connected.

BTW, to comment on what others have said above: Definitely run WOW from the SSD. I have a Samsung 64G SSD and it's amazing. The only thing though is that I also mapped my virtual memory to the SSD and I think that might have been a bad idea. I've been getting lots of computer hangs and I think that this is the reason.

[Multibocks]

Ok found a connector in my package of mb stuff. Question is: It leaves two pins open (nothing connected to them), anyone know if thats a problem?

[Multibocks]

Ok so I decided to just go for it and plug it in. Well the computer recognized something was connected to the SATA port, but it wouldnt boot after that. I dont know why that would stop the machine from booting. I disconnected it and it boots fine. So either those two pins are something important (maybe they need to be jumpered together or something) or I have the wrong cable.

[Multibocks]

Wow this HD is turning into a major headache. The support forum is telling me I need to remove all drives from SATA and plug in my SSD and also reset my CMOS. This is the "first try" at making it work. They have other lists of things to try as well and some are unbelievably complicated. I thought shit these days were supposed to be plug and play....

[olibri1]

That's a ridiculous suggestion. Going to the BIOS menu to make sure that the drive is there is a good idea, but resetting your CMOS is crazy.

SATA drives are hot plug, so what I would suggest is to boot your computer, then plug in the drive. After ~1m it should show up.

[Multibocks]

It's not showing up, and if I wait it will attempt to boot to windows but hang and never get there. Another person suggested I go through the wiki boot sequence for the drive. However I have yet to find their wiki. Brilliant tech support.

[jak3676]

Hmm, If your two other drives weren't raided I'd suggest unplugging one of them and then plugging in the SSD in its place - at least then you know the cable and the connection are good. I guess you could unplug both normal drives and just plug in the SSD and boot to BIOS or CD-ROM - just to make sure the SSD is working.

All the SSDs I've seen have the standard cable connections (i.e. 1x SATA power cable straight from your power supply and 1x SATA connector cable from your motherboard), unless you got a PCIe drive or something weird. But the OCZ Vertex drives should plug in as normal drives.

[Multibocks]

If I unplug my raided drives will that screw up the drives? I mean will all my data be lost?

[Multibocks]

Ok so it's working today. It's possible that I didnt connect it fully, but Im sure I jammed that thing in there. Here's hoping it kicks ass!

[Multibocks]

Just wanted to provide some feedback on this drive. It's fast, but it has massive issues. First the install wouldnt work (BIOS didnt recognize) and now it appears to be corrupting my WoW data. Waste of 300 bucks imo. Ah well, maybe it will play my mp3 collection real fast. /twirlsfinger

[byte]

oh yeah....OCZ is just a pain. they use those JMICRON controllers, not a fan of them at all. Guess i shoulda mentioned that before.

[Multibocks]

Crap I wish I knew that beforehand =(

[falsfire3401]

Yeah I'm awaiting the arrival of my SSD, I specifically bought a Corsair Extreme series one because it uses the Indilinx controller and Samsung NANDA for the data storage. Paid a bit of a premium ($145cdn for just a 32gb), but I think it will be worth it.

Here's hoping mine works out better than your story so far! Should be here by Mon/Tue...

Oh and yeah, I need to find another short-plug or right-hand plug SATA cable so it'll fit underneath the vid card.

[jak3676]

oh yeah....OCZ is just a pain. they use those JMICRON controllers, not a fan of them at all. Guess i shoulda mentioned that before.

Um.. No. They were the one origninal company (other than Intel) that doesn't us JMicron stuff. They use the barefoot controller form Indilinx.

Source.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3608
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3608
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_vertex_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd

[Ess]

oh yeah....OCZ is just a pain. they use those JMICRON controllers, not a fan of them at all. Guess i shoulda mentioned that before.

The Vertex series uses the INDILINX controller. I have a vertex ssd in my laptop which is working fine. The only tweak I had to do is turn off all the magnetic disk optimizations in the bios.

The only thing that is actually better is the Intel SSD, mostly because they handle small writes faster but I doubt this will have much effect on real life experience as this is a feature mostly of use to server use.

[Krycek]

On the left is my new SSD (Intel G2) and right one is my old hdd...
http://www.legioprofennia.net/tupu/c-mark.pnghttp://www.legioprofennia.net/tupu/d-mark.png

Got to love that new drive...

[jstanthr]

to copy all the contents of your primary to a secondary ur gonna need some 3rd party software, i like norton ghost, or seagate discwizard, it copies everything u need bit per bit, and the drive is bootable when done.

[suicidesspyder]

Ok my question is if i did this and say bought a smaller ssd and connected it to my laptop and ran only wow out of that would that boost performance any or should i just save my money for a desktop.

[alcattle]

When you are running the max toons your system will handle. look at your system monitors and see where the bottleneck is at. CPU or RAM nearing 100%. SSD won't help much.

[rahven32]

Got this sitting in the shopping cart trying to decide if i should get it or not lol. I'm starting to gather parts for a new system and pretty sure I want a ssd in this one. Think this one would be decent to hold win7 and wow?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233090

$175 doesnt seem to bad for a 64g ssd. (after rebate)