Be Excellent To Each Other

These things have actually got to a price point that interests me now.

I've ordered one of these for the HTPC
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004W2JKWG
Crucial CT064M4SSD2 64GB M4 SSD for £60

and i'm currently faffing around with the gaming PC to see if I can get away with 256GB as i'm thinking about ordering one of these
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005OK6VLS
Samsung SSD 830 2.5inch SATA III 6GBps 256GB for £140

What I really need is a replacement drive for my iMac, and as I have the model that only has space for one drive in it, that means a replacement for the current drive and all the faff that comes with that. Also 256GB just isn't enough, it would have to be 512GB at a minimum and even that is pushing it, and prices for them are still pretty high. Give it a year though...

I'm going to use the following guide
http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-m ... ate-drive/
to migrate my windows boxes, as that seems the safest option, and I really don't want to start from scratch...

Make sure you do your checks on the M4 as they can carry a 5000 hour BSOD firmware.

No, it doesn't. You can cram a second 2.5" drive in there. I did it to mine.

Only by replacing the optical drive as i understand it, mine is a late 2009 model that doesn't have any space for a second hard drive.
Happy to be proved wrong on that though!

Hopefully it should already be version 9 of the firmware, as it has been out for a while, but i'll check

I've had a 256gb for a while now. Most meaningful PC upgrade in a decade. Sure, nicer graphics are great, but it's only really ever been an incremental improvement.

Will probably get a 500gb/1tb one when they're under £100.

Oh, yours is older than I thought. You'll be right then. Carry on!

Although: why not replace the optical drive? I did that in my MBP. Worked great.

Faff is the main reason I've read through the instructions and it seems like a ballache to do the whole process.
Plus I still use it every so often, so i'd probably need to buy an external drive really.

The chassis I bought to house a 2.5" drive in the optical bay came with a second housing that turned the optical drive I had just removed into a USB unit.

Cool, any links for where I should buy this stuff.
Although I do refer you to the first of my two reasons

http://eshop.macsales.com/ probably have something. I used http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ when I did it to my MacBook Pro.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDMMCL0GB/

"(iMac instructions are not provided
due to degree of installation difficulty.)"
"*Professional installation of Data Doubler into an iMac is highly recommended due to degree of installation difficulty"

Before Amazon could even pick this, I cancelled it.

Ordered this today instead.
http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung-64 ... ssd&src=16
Samsung 64GB 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD Basic Kit for £50

It'll probably go down to £40 next week...

Wish I'd got a 256GB, but the prices were still too high for comfort when I jumped in so I got a 128GB M4.

Fucking juggling with free space on the thing all the fucking time.

64GB will do for a 'pure OS' build, but for anything that's being used in anger, 128GB is a starting point and 256GB is the comfort point IMO.

The 64 is for my HTPC, which current uses 30GB and that isn't going to change.
I agree for anything that is actually being used as a proper computer though, no way I could have lived with 128GB.

Try living with 40GB, its a right pain in the arse. Doesnt help with windows storing all kinds of shitty backups/old versions of files and drivers wasting valuable space.

I really want a new one, however I think I'll have to wait a bit longer for the prices to drop even further. Ive already been waiting months for the prices of normal hard disks to drop.

I've lived with 30. Mind you, it was easier then because I was still on a 32 bit 7 which uses way less space due to only having one PF folder.

My MBP has a 64 GB SSD as its only drive. It has about 25 GB spare. It's very much a secondary machine, but it still has a fair bit of stuff installed. 64 GB is ample if you know it's ample, IYSWIM.

Everyone else: this is nonsense, please disregard.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... SignedIn=1

Oh, it's bigger, alright. It's nothing to do with having two Program Files folders.

Erm, yes, it is. The reason the 64 bit version takes up more space is because it has to have two program files folders. One for legacy 32 bit stuff and the other for 64 bit apps. I installed Windows X64 just last week and before I even started the Program Files X86 folder had 2gb of shit in it, with the Program Files folder having the same. It was all Windows junk and nothing I had installed.

I know this very well because I made the mistake of installing X64 Windows onto my 32gb SSD and running out of space before I was even done updating. Upon comparing the two the main culprit of all the extra space was the doubling up of the Program Files folders. I then ran them side by side, and once again I had an extra PF folder with 2gb of stuff it in before even installing a single update.

A base install of Windows 7 X86 has a single PF folder with around 2gb of data in. A base install of X64 has two, exactly the same size. Then of course there are extra files in the System folder to make sure that it can not only run X64 apps but X86 ones also, given that a lot of apps are still only released in 32 bit format.

Ed, it has been a while since I looked but there are also two system folders. System, and System 32

Amazing.

Oh, and having just done a base install of Windows 7, the total of both PF folders is just over a gig and a half, and that's after installing Lightroom, which is 900MB.

Has it done updating?

A small hint for you: Take a simple program. Build it in x86, then build it in x64.One is 7.5k, one 8.5k

Guess which is which.

OK and you'd probably be correct given that I didn't know that. However, what I said is also correct. If you take a look at this screen shot I just took you will be able to see that many of the folders found in Program Files X86 are also duplicated in the X64 Program Files folder. If there was only one PF folder there would only be one version of each of the duplicated applications.

Wait -- you mean JC isn't subtracting the hidden System64 folder?

You're right, they do. But the sum total of data in those duplicated folders is pretty miniscule. Most of it is libraries that need to exist compiled for both 32-bit and 64-bit apps and take up next to no room. It's certainly not the reason that a 64-bit win7 install is significantly larger than a 32-bit one.

Oh my.

Right?

Fuck you Dell and your fucking awful pile shitfuckincrap machines!

HTPC, no problem, clone drive, repair the MBR and away we go, done in 30 mins.

The Dell gaming machine? No chance, it is simply impossible to clone the boot disk of a Dell machine due to their bullshit boot managers and recovery partitions.
The only way to use the ssd is to format everything, delete all the partitions and install from scratch. What should have been a 30 minute job is going to turn into a day long epic. Joy.

Never again Dell, never again...

The other day I had to use the recovery partition of a Dell - I was quite glad of it then.

How is it an "all day" job, though? Just use Drivermax to save all your drivers, re-install/format and put the drivers back, and bosh.

Drivers aren't the issue, its all the game reinstalls, app reinstalls, etc...

Plus, I'm being overly dramatic because I just am ok

True Image thinks it can do it.

They all think they can, and if you aren't using the Dell bootmgr they all can. Easus Partition manager thought it could do it, but couldn't. Norton Ghost thought it could do it, but couldn't.
Copying the drive image isn't the problem. Making the Dell BIOS stop looking for the Bootmgr in the original location is.

A mid-2011 iMac (21") can't be SSDed up without removing the existing HHD and/or optical drive, right?

The 27 can, not sure on the 21. Doccy G will be along presently I expect.

Pretty sure you can do it in the 21.5" too. Google is your friend, though -- I've only done it to the 27".

Edit -- yup -- here's an (overpriced) kit: http://www.ifixit.com/Apple-Parts/iMac- ... -DrT2t5mSM

So, in my ongoing quest for silence, I have done the following over the past couple of weeks.

SSD in the HTPC
SSD in the gaming PC
low noise fan in the NAS
low noise fan in the Drobo
low noise fan in the HTPC
low noise CPU cooler in the HTPC

It has made a serious difference in noise levels, however I have a problem. I seem to have picked up and ongoing obsession with making things quieter. In the front room the loudest thing is now the fans on the TV, which even though they are quiet, now piss me off as I can hear them Can you even replace TV fans?

I should have posted this in the 1st world problems thread.

Turn the telly up.

TVs have fans? Well I never.

I quite like them.

Some do. It's a relatively old plasma, which is getting noisier as it gets older.

I can't hear them when something is actually on the tv, but I know they are there, whirring away, ready to pounce on my ears if I press the mute button...

Get a can of compressed air on them.

Hel's Panasonic plasma has about half a dozen fans which irk me in quiet things, but it has several holes the saame shape that indicate older models had even more.

I gave it a blow with a can of air last night and a LOT of dust came out

Mine is a Panasonic too. It was totally silent for the first couple of years, but has steadily been getting been getting noisier since.

One of the fans on our very first plasma was hecka noisy, I took it back to the shop for a replacement unit the day after I'd picked it up.

I imagine you could replace a noisy fan yourself if you so wished, but it might be tricky....

I put an SSD in my AMDx2 3800 'rig' and that has made it feel really snappy again... even for an old girl. Enough to postpone upgrading for a while yet. I think I'll put one in the laptop too.