I currently image my laptop computer's C drive to an external Hard Drive (HD) 3 to 4 times each week. To speed things up a bit, I am considering buying an external Solid State Drive (SSD) -- namely, THIS one. I am totally inexperienced in buying & using SSDs. Thus, I will greatly appreciate any and all comments &/or advice. Aloha to all.
Is the hard drive in an enclosure? How is it connected to your machine? Because even so, you can get an SSD by itself and just hook it up via USB adapter. An SSD doesn't have any moving parts so it isn't fragile like an HDD. I use an enclosure for my HDD, then unhook it and keep it in a box or something. That SanDisk you linked is on sale so you should make up your mind kind of soon. But you can get a regular SATA 2 terabyte SSD for a little more--plus the additional USB adapter. However, the data transfer speed would be only as fast as your USB connection would allow. A 1 TB SSD would be a little cheaper than the one in your link--around 80 USD or so. Samsung is a good one. If you look around online, using an internal SATA SSD as external storage is a very common and good way to store data and then keep it offline. People salvage stuff to use like this all the time.
Based on comment by @plat I have switched my preferred portable/external SSD to THIS one. Thanks, plat, for suggesting Samsung. I much refer made in S. Korea to made in that other place.
@xxJackxx -- Thanks in 12 different languages for endorsing the Samsung -- just the push I needed. I just now ordered it from Amazon.
Excellent, I think you'll be pleased with it. As for your initial choice I can say we have had more SanDisk fails than any other brand. As for their SSDs 100% of them failed. We have had better luck with their SD cards and flash drives.
I would probably refrain from using any defragging or optimising tools on an ssd...Just the trim command should be sufficient.
Agreed, especially for an external drive for backups. It would just be extra wear for nothing. @bellgamin You're gonna enjoy the speed increase of a SSD. My backups only take about 10% of the time they did with a mechanical drive.
i never would buy SSD for external backup solutions. hdd only and kept cool and dry. for internal use i bought two samsung ssd (evo).
I would agree if I were making 1 backup and locking it away for years but for daily use I see no problem. Have fun taking hours to do what I can do in minutes.
backups take only time in few minutes. but i also sync several data between computers. and for sure, hdd is currently the best medium to keep backups for a longer time. there exists several comparisons - magnetic fields, mechanical structure, temperature. ofc ssd can keep data for 10 years, but the reguler usage of ssd dont exists for 10 years, this is just assumption based on some measurings. hdd is reliable and can exceed 10 years with ease. and the costs are much lower when it comes > 1TB.
From what I understand, bellgamin has a somewhat older laptop so wouldn't the data transfer rate via USB be a factor? For just small data storage like documents, bookmarks and pictures, an external HDD is fine. Shoot, i have a five year old once-internal one @7200 rpm and it's perfectly fine. But if I needed to move larger blocks of data, I would switch to SSD. There is no comparison.
Absolutely. My external drive only transfers at 125 MB/s on my desktop but is much faster on my laptop. Still faster than a mechanical drive, especially after you have exhausted the buffer. ---The description from Amazon- "SAMSUNG T7 Shield 2TB, Portable SSD, up to 1050MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen2". I get those speeds on my laptop but it is fairly new.
There is an Ars Technica article warning about suspiciously cheap 16 TB portable SSDs like for 70 dollars. Oh, it's Amazon. Do not walk--run in the opposite direction. It seems at least some are actually 64 GB micro SDs with likely fake firmware to make Windows see it as 16 TB. People still fall for these things, it seems. https://twitter.com/arstechnica/status/1615485500617367552
This is very common. Probably at least as much so on eBay. When shopping Amazon for items make sure the seller is authorized to sell the item. If they are not, even if the item is legitimate the manufacturer won't honor the warranty. It is also much more likely an unauthorized seller will send you a counterfeit item.
When deciding on internal vs external SSD, one must be cognizant of the type of USB that is on the system as the transfer rates vary greatly, and may or may not exceed that of a SATA connection.
Wonder if I can use a new Samsung portable SSD T7 shield (external) to install and run a Linux distro? When opening it I see three options. 1. Setup for MacOS 2. Setup for Windows 3. Android application Would it format to EXT4 for linux either through USB Stick Formatter (whole SSD being formated to EXT4) or using GPARTED and creating partitions? I don't want to format it unless I know it's compatible for Linux and I am able to boot the SSD from the external USB port. Connection is USB 3.2-C to A cable. If it does format then I assume it will erase the 3 options listed above.
Yes, you can However new file system creation Ala formatting will occurr during Linux distribution installation, so no need to format in advance. Be wary that both internal and external drives may be seen as choices in install dialog - choose with caution! Booting from external drive may require some changes to boot order in UEFI or pressing F12 early in the boot process
Thanks for info. After writing from Linux Mint 21 ISO file to the portable Samsung T7 SSD I did receive error message about unable to open, however it did seem to write the files for a bootable USB Mint install. Maybe original setup files were encrypted or I didn't have the permission to open them on the SSD. I tried the boot options and was able to test run Mint 21. Clicked on Install Mint, but decided to quit the installation after a few steps. I rebooted and now I see 2 mountable volumes on the screen. The original Linux Mint 21 and also one called "writeable". Most likely it's there because I started the Mint install. Can I erase the 2 volumes without messing up the SSD since I'm thinking about trying a different distro. I'm use to erasing just one volume, but now I have 2 volumes on the same SSD. I know I could format both volumes probably to EXT4 but is there another way to create JUST ONE blank volume and then start over from the beginning with another distro to try?
I don't think you can "mess up SSD" that easily*. I only would worry if these both volumes are really on extrnal SSD, and not on internal mass storage device, because that will cause data loss by overwriting present files. *Except probably losing power during firmware upgrade etc
