| Standing screen display size | 10 Centimeters |
|---|---|
| Hard Drive | 250 GB Solid State Drive |
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SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E250B/AM)
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| Digital Storage Capacity | 250 GB |
| Connectivity Technology | SATA |
| Brand | SAMSUNG |
| Special Feature | Portable |
| Hard Disk Form Factor | 2.5 Inches |
| Hard Disk Description | Solid State Drive |
| Compatible Devices | compatible with SATA 3Gb/s & SATA 1.5Gb/s interface) |
| Installation Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Color | Black |
| Hard Disk Size | 250 GB |
About this item
- Storage Capacity: 250GB Solid State Drive
- Form Factor: 2.5 inches drive
- Interface: SATA 6Gb/s Interface (compatible with SATA 3Gb/s & SATA 1.5Gb/s interface)
- Sequential Read Speed: 540 MB/s
- Sequential Write Speed: 520 MB/s
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This item SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E250B/AM) | SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/AM) | Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E1T0B/AM) | SAMSUNG 870 QVO SATA III SSD 1TB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive, Upgrade Desktop PC or Laptop Memory and Storage for IT Pros, Creators, Everyday Users, MZ-77Q1T0B | SAMSUNG 860 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E250E) | SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/EU) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Rating | 4.8 out of 5 stars (10444) | 4.8 out of 5 stars (10090) | 4.8 out of 5 stars (75811) | 4.8 out of 5 stars (18731) | 4.7 out of 5 stars (186) | 4.8 out of 5 stars (13938) |
| Price | $94.95$94.95 | $92.81$92.81 | $149.95$149.95 | $68.34$68.34 | $46.99$46.99 | $106.99$106.99 |
| Sold By | 212 Distributors (blue light serial #'s recorded) | Sab Computer | Slam-Dunk | Triplenet Pricing INC | Priority Sales Inc | LittlePiggy_Tech(SN Recorded) |
| Compatible Devices | compatible with SATA 3Gb/s & SATA 1.5Gb/s interface) | Desktop | PC, Laptop, Desktop | Laptop, Desktop | Desktop | Laptop |
| Data Transfer Rate | 6 | 6 | 78 Gb per second | 560 MB per second | 6 Gb per second | 520 Mb per second |
| Device Type | Solid State Drives | Solid State Drives | Internal Solid State Drive | Internal Drive | — | — |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 250.0 GB | 500 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB | 250 GB | 500 GB |
| Hard Disk Form Factor | 2.50 inches | 2.50 inches | 2.50 inches | 2.50 inches | 2.50 inches | 2.50 inches |
| Hardware Interface | SATA 6.0 Gb/s | SATA 6.0 Gb/s | SATA 6.0 Gb/s | Solid State Drive | SATA 6.0 Gb/s | SATA 6.0 Gb/s |
| Hardware Platform | PC | PC | PC, Mac | PC | PC | PC |
| Item Dimensions | 3.94 x 2.75 x 0.27 inches | 3.94 x 2.75 x 0.28 inches | 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.27 inches | 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.27 inches | 3.94 x 0.27 x 2.76 inches | 2.75 x 3.94 x 0.27 inches |
| Item Weight | 2.33 ounces | 1.92 ounces | 1.80 ounces | 1.60 ounces | 0.00 ounces | 1.59 ounces |
| Model Year | 2014 | 2014 | 2018 | — | 2017 | 2014 |
| Optical Storage Read Speed | 540 | 540 | 540MB/s | — | — | — |
From the manufacturer
Unlock Your Computer's Potential
Samsung's 850 EVO series SSD is perfect for everyday computing. Powered by Samsung's V-NAND technology, the 850 EVO transforms the everyday computing experience with optimized performance and endurance. Designed to fit desktop PCs, laptops, and ultrabooks, the 850 EVO comes in a wide range of capacities and form factors.
Uncompromised Performance
The 850 EVO optimizes performance for your daily computing tasks, boasting sequential write speeds up to 520 MB/s with TurboWrite technology and sequential read speeds up to 540 MB/s. Plus, RAPID mode to further boost performance for up to 2x faster data processing speeds by utilizing unused PC memory as cache storage.
Capacities Range up to 4TB
More storage options that are just right for your needs. Samsung offers the 850 EVO in a full range of capacities up to 4TB. With the first 4TB SSD for client PCs, you can store more data on a single SSD than ever before.
Multiple Form Factors for Almost Any Need
Samsung has designed the 850 EVO in multiple form factors with compatibility in mind. The 2.5-inch size is designed to fit most desktop PCs and laptops, while the SATA-based M.2 and mSATA are ideal for ultra-slim mobile computing.
Product guides and documents
Product Description
Unlock Your Computer's Potential: Samsung's 850 EVO series SSD is the industry's 1 best selling SSD and is perfect for everyday computing. Powered by Samsung's V NAND technology, the 850 EVO transforms the everyday computing experience with optimized performance and endurance. Designed to fit desktop PCs, laptops, and ultrabooks, the 850 EVO comes in a wide range of capacities and form factors. Uncompromised Performance: The 850 EVO optimizes performance for your daily computing tasks, boasting sequential write speeds up to 520 MB/s with TurboWrite technology and sequential read speeds up to 540 MB/s. Plus, RAPID mode to further boost performance for up to 2x faster data processing speeds by utilizing unused PC memory as cache storage.
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Product information
Technical Details
| Brand | SAMSUNG |
|---|---|
| Series | 850 EVO |
| Item model number | MZ-75E250B/AM |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows 7 and above |
| Item Weight | 2.33 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 3.94 x 2.75 x 0.27 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 3.94 x 2.75 x 0.27 inches |
| Color | Black |
| Computer Memory Type | WRAM |
| Flash Memory Size | 250 |
| Voltage | 5 Volts |
| Manufacturer | Samsung Electronics |
| ASIN | B00OAJ412U |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | December 9, 2014 |
Additional Information
| Customer Reviews |
4.8 out of 5 stars |
|---|---|
| Best Sellers Rank | #815 in Internal Solid State Drives |
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After installing the drive and booting up the computer, it did not show up anywhere at first. I gave it a second reboot and I could see it in Disk Management. Check. I had read a few things about cloning your OS from the old hard drive to the new SSD and basically you have to shrink your OS volume with any programs you'd like to keep on the SSD to be less than the size of the SSD. So I did that, moving all my media (Pictures, Videos, Music) to my backup drive temporarily. the new size of the volume was about 92 GB, which included everything except my media (Programs and OS files). I also had to account for about 25 GB for the recovery partition, so in total I was looking at ~117 GB to copy to the SSD from my old drive.
The Data Migration software that came with the drive is a big disappointment. I had read mixed reviews about it, mostly bad, but was hoping it would go well for me just to make things easier. Well it never got close to working. There was barely any chance to customize the cloning and it kept listing the SSD's name as the source even though it displayed the size of my 1TB HDD. Every time I would try to start the cloning, it would say that the source disk had been disconnected 5 seconds after clicking "Start". A co worker had previously mentioned Acronis for drive/OS cloning and I had also seen some good things about it online. So I purchased a copy for $50 from their site. Totally worth it! Setting up the cloning was a breeze, plus it gave me options to customize every aspect of it. This software also has many other great features like backup which I have not yet had the chance to experiment with but I am definitely looking forward to, so I highly recommend it.
After setting up the options for the cloning, I clicked on start and asked me to restart. After booting up, it booted to Acronis' cloning screen, since it obviously can't clone the drive while you're running the OS. The process took a little bit less than an hour. The computer booted again and was still booting to the old HDD but I noticed I could see the SSD clone of my C: drive and the recovery partition. Now I needed to figure out how to tell Windows 10 where to boot from, which isn't as easy as in previous versions. I have yet to see an option to boot up to the BIOS or other pre-OS settings. Windows 10 has a setting that lets you choose where to boot from, whether HDD/SSD, USB drive, or CD. When you ask it to let you pick it does a reboot, then a menu comes up with the mentioned options. I chose HDD/SSD but it didn't let me pick which one!! DOH! so it booted up again to my painfully slow HDD. I turned it off again, opened up the back of the laptop, disconnected the HDD and booted.....WOILA! it booted so fast to the SSD that I was a little dizzy haha. Seriously, it was incredibly fast. I signed in and that also was ridiculously fast. The OS was ready to go within a second of signing in, with everything loaded. I checked the drives and the new partitions were there, beautifully set up as C: and D: for OS/Programs and Recovery partitions. I turned it off, plugged back the HDD, and booted...incredibly fast again. I knew my SSD had stayed as the new permanent boot drive at that point. Signed in and I saw my old partitions there as F: and J: which were the names I had given to the SSD partitions originally. So the letter switching happened all on its own, which I was kind of stressing doing myself.
So that's it! I tested opening up things and man.....what a freaking difference. This is the best upgrade you can give your PC if you have a slow HDD, 5400 rpm in my case. But honestly, it'll be a 200x difference even with a 7200 or 10000 rpm HDD. Amazing. I currently have 8 GB of memory and plan to take it to the 16 GB max in the next couple of months, but I am good to go with this beauty for now.
Hope this was helpful.
So I opened up my Toshiba underneath and inserted the SSD into drive bay #2. Booted laptop back up. The drive comes with a CD which has the Samsung migration software on it. Install the software and it will recognize your main drive and your new SSD drive. I ran the software and it took just 35 minutes to clone my original hard drive to the new SSD. That was about 116 Gigs of data total. If I hadn't put 24 Gigs of RAM in the laptop first then I think it may have taken about 90 minutes to migrate everything.
Once cloning was complete, shut laptop down unplug everything (remove battery as well) and move the new SSD from bay #2 to bay #1. I put my old drive aside and did not install it in bay #2 yet. Put laptop back together and booted it up with the new SSD.
Super fast! My laptop boot time went from about 30 seconds to 6 seconds. Reboot time went from about 50 seconds to about 18 to 20 seconds!
The O/S and all applications are blazing fast now compared to the regular HDD with just 8 Gigs of RAM. Upgrading to 24 Gigs of RAM also was a big plus for running multiple apps at the same time. My laptop runs much faster, much quieter, and much cooler while producing less heat out of the fan on the side.
After playing around with things a while to test out the new drive to make sure everything migrated properly and it was running properly, I then shut everything down (shutdown time is now just 5 seconds also). Flipped laptop over, opened it up again and I re-installed my original 750 Gig HDD into drive bay #2.
Put back together again and booted it up. My system now recognizes both drives. C: drive is now the Samsung SSD Evo 850 with 250 Gigs. And now my original 750 Gig HDD is recognized as drive E:
Opened up 2 sessions of Windows Explorer side by side and started comparing all files and folders between both drives. Identical. I deleted all big music and video files, etc. from the new SSD so that it's as clean as possible with mainly just the O/S Windows 8.1 Pro and my applications.
Everything else is still stored on the original HDD since it has 750 Gigs of space on it.
I was initially weary of trying to do this upgrade because I read so much online about people having all kinds of errors and other issues getting the migration software to work or getting their PC's to boot up in the correct order, or having to make a bunch of BIOS settings changes.
Maybe I got lucky, because this whole upgrade process barely took 90 minutes with testing everything out.
I did not have to make any boot or BIOS or any other system changes at all for that matter. I did not run into any errors. The migration software from Samsung worked perfectly the first try. So far this whole upgrade has gone flawlessly, so maybe I got lucky compared to others I read about.
So if you want a blazing SSD as a primary O/S and application drive, I'd say this is definitely the one to go with. The speed boost is awesome, and of course you just get more reliability and safety with SSD compared to HDD which has moving parts and will break down much quicker over time. Your laptop or PC will last longer too as it will produce less heat and the fan won't have to run as much.
If you have a laptop with 2 drive bays then this is the way to go while using another drive in bay #2 as a storage drive.
Oh...and copy speed between the drives is also blazing fast. Having 24 Gigs of RAM helps as well. So you can copy a few big movie files from drive 2 over to drive 1 to play in no time at all. I'd rather play them on the SSD so that my HDD isn't spinning and making noise and heat, etc. Then you can just delete the movie files from the SSD when done so that you don't take up much room on it.
My Toshiba Satellite P75-A7200: 17.3" 1080p, i7 Quad-Core, Win 8.1 Pro, 24GB RAM, SSD 250GB primary, HDD 750GB back-up
The new SSD replaced the HDD in my laptop, which now boots up 5 times faster. It's a powerful gaming computer and some games which take 3 minutes to load now do it 5 times faster! Love this SSD!
I am here cutting and pasting some info from Avsim forum (a flight simulator forum) which helped me:
I'm posting this so a forum search by someone may help them install a SSD in their system.
Having changed my Windows system and FSX installations from HDD to SSD the speed increase is tremendous in: 1) system reboot and 2) booting up a new flight in new location with heavy scenery.
Here's the web place that goes through how to do the HDD to SSD upgrade painlessly:
How to Migrate Your Windows Installation to a Solid-State Drive by Matt Klein
Google Search the line above, Amazon does not allow direct links in reviews.
====================
First, make a Windows recovery drive (takes 3 or 4 minutes):
Windows recovery drive: you will need a dedicated USB thumb drive to make it. I needed one badly it turned out and had one all ready. So buy a cheap USB thumb drive (any size) when you buy the SSD.
1) First boot the system into BIOS and make sure the system boot choices include a USB drive and the computers hard drive. You need to make sure the system will boot from a USB drive or you can't use the recovery drive which is on the USB thumbstick.
2) To make the recovery drive follow the links from Klein's article above to do that. Different links for Windows 7, 8, and 10 in his article.
==================================
I had the following 3 problems not mentioned there, here's how they were solved (thanks to Samsung online chat tech help).
The new SSD did not show up in Windows explorer:
There were two reasons for this:
1) I had the SSD plugged into a USB3 port, it turns out a new SSD often needs a USB2 port. (For a similar reason that when booting up to BIOS, instead Windows, you may need to use an USB2 port for the mouse or keyboard, not USB3, or BIOS might not see it).
2) The new SSD was not initialized in Windows Disk Management. Some SSD's do not require this, mine did (Samsung EVO850 SSD). Otherwise Windows and the computer will not see the new SSD drive.
In order to initialize the new SSD disc you run diskmgmt.msc
Windows 8.1: type WindowsKey + R or from the desktop open the Start button and type in diskmgmt.msc
Windows 10: simply right click the start button and Disk Management is a shortcut to choose
Click open diskmgmt.msc
the new SSD drive icon is going to say unallocated, Now you right click on it and select, “new simple volume”.
This basically takes you through a Windows wizard which prompts to format the unit properly to get the drive recognizing in windows explorer and disk management properly as a healthy partition. This is the initialization process and only takes a minute to do.
3) After following all the steps on Kleins page to clone the HDD image to the SSD, I removed the HDD from laptop and plugged in the new SSD there. The system would not boot ! :(
Here's where the Windows recovery drive (on the USB thumbstick) saved the day. Just turn off the laptop with its power button, insert USB thumbstick you made the recovery drive on and boot. There will now be listed choices from what to boot Windows from: A USB drive, the new SSD, and maybe other choices. Choose the new SSD drive and Windows booted up fine.
From then on, the recovery drive thumbstick will not be needed to use the computer, but keep it in a safe place, and label it for what it is. No other files should ever be added onto that thumbstick.
+++ Crystal disk mark - 840 EVO 120 GB
* seq q 32 red/write: 547/518
* 4k d32 read/write: 213/116
* seq read/write: 521/502
* 4K read/write: 31/60
+++ Crystal disk mark - 850 EVO 250 GB
* seq q 32 red/write: 543/534
* 4k d32 read/write: 200/180
* seq read/write: 520/478
* 4K read/write: 35/66
Not a big difference, right? Except for the relatively irrelevant in home applications 4K depth 32 queue write, all the values are within the error margin. Which is pretty big, by the way. Running the test multiple times on the same SSD produces numbers up to +-10% different.
Now for HD Tune benchmark. Here I could only use 2 tests: sequential read, and random read. For write tests the SSD has to be wiped out.
Results:
+++ HD Tune results - 840 EVO 120 GB
* Sequential read
* 154 avg, fluctuates between 32-380.
* long sequences of ~60mb, then long sequences of ~330mb.
* access time: 0.17 ms
* Random read
* 4 KB 5800 IOPS, 0.18ms lat avg, 21 MB/s
* 64 KB 730 IOPS, 1.37ms lat avg, 45 MB/s
* 1 MB 80 IOPS, 12.5ms lat avg, 80 MB/s
* 53 ms max access time!
* That's terrible and much sower than what crystal mark shows!!!
* 4K read is just 21 MB/s, not 60 as in crystal mark!
+++ HD Tune results - 850 EVO 250 GB
* Sequential read
* 380 MB/s avg, fluctuates between 368-410.
* access time: 0.08 ms
* Random read
* 4 KB 12800 IOPS, 0.078ms lat avg, 50 MB/s
* 64 KB 4800 IOPS, 0.208ms lat avg, 300 MB/s
* 1 MB 492 IOPS, 2.030ms lat avg, 492 MB/s, 3.38 ms max access time
* 3.38 ms max access time!
*850 EVO is vs 840 EVO*
* 2.5x faster in sequential read
* 2.4x faster in 4K random read
* 6x faster in 64K random read
* 6x faster in 1MB random read
* way more constant across all speeds and latencies:
* 11x better worst case sequential speed
* 15x better worst case latency in 1MB read sequences
Pretty shocking, isn't it? No numbers available on the net show so big differences. Repeated the tests multiple times on both SSDs, got pretty small variations.
Conclusions:
- 850 EVO beats the crap out of 840 EVO. Newer 3D NAND in 850 memory not only improves endurance, but far outperforms the old planar 19 nm TLC NAND in 840 EVO.
- Most SSD benchmarks are crap. Just check the results available on the net. I tend to believe HD tune results are trustworthy. At least because tests take longer on HD Tune, so there's less chance of them being limited by interface transfer speed rather than actual SSD speed.
Maybe someone has an explanation?
I did hours of research online about SSD technology, manufacturers and the best rated drives. The Samsung 850 EVO is consistently rated at the top, with the premium price paid for the bleeding edge absolute best not worth the minor increase in performance that most users would not notice.
I am using this for the C drive of my computer with a one terabyte WD Blue HDD for storage as the D drive. The operating system and programs are on this drive and I moved the Libraries to the D drive so all documents, photos, etc. go to the storage drive by default. This is very simple to do in Windows 7 and appears seamless to the user. You still go to the same places to save and retrieve files; they appear to be stored exactly as if you had one drive with everything on it. In my case this leaves well over 120 GB free on the SSD after Windows and all programs are installed.
My motherboard is from 2011 and uses the H67 chipset. This drive was recognized the same as any HDD would be with no further steps required in the Bios or Windows. Depending on the age and brand of your particular hardware you may need to change certain Bios settings to get the drive to work at its best. Windows settings may also need changed if you are cloning a working operating system from a HDD.
The drive runs fairly cool and is silent. I did not have an adapter to secure it to the drive bay of my case, so I used two zip ties to fasten it to the chassis so it doesn't flop around, which could theoretically work loose the SATA and power connections.
My son got one of these drives for his new laptop. After initializing Windows 8.1 on the laptop, we cloned the HDD to this SSD drive using Macrium Reflect and a USB 3 drive enclosure. We then removed the HDD and installed this SSD, which took about five minutes. After installing this drive his laptop boots to a working desktop in about 7 seconds and shuts down in about 4 seconds. Programs open instantly. Loading all the updates and installing the rest of the programs went about twice as fast as the last time we did the same thing using a regular HDD on an almost identical laptop. There is a minor decrease in weight and apparent increase in battery life over the manufacturer spec. The result is a mid level laptop made as fast as a top end machine for about $400 less.
250 GB is enough storage for most laptops, but if more is needed you could use a flush fit USB 3 flash drive or an SDHC card in the internal card reader that is part of most laptops. SDHC cards are available up to 128 GB right now. Along those lines, my son is buying a $20 USB 3 drive enclosure and making a one terabyte external storage drive out of the perfectly serviceable (if relatively slow) HDD that had been installed in the laptop.
This drive is lightning fast! Even though I initially had only Windows 7 pro installed and no other programs, it was literally 20-30 seconds from the time I pressed the power button to the time Windows was finished loading! I highly recommend this drive! No problems from instalation of the physical drive into the laptop or from Windows finding it and installing the necessary drivers. That's what we all want: a simple, easy installation with no problems!
Unfortunately, the cloning software included with this drive gave me some problems. First, the included cloning software could not replicate my Recovery Partition. Even the Samsung Help files within the software stated this was a possibility. It was in my case. In fact, my Recovery Partition is formatted FAT32 and Samsung's software formatted it to NTFS automatically during the cloning process. Second, the only drives and partition I had on my HDD was the Windows C: (over 400 GB), the Recovery D: (6 GB), and the hidden Windows Partition (also 6 GB). Samsung's cloning software messed up ALL drive and partition sizes, badly! And there was NO option to resize them before cloning! The new SSD would have had a 90 GB C:, a 60 GB Recovery D:, a 60 GB Windows hidden partition, and the leftover space was Unallocated! Sorry! Can't have that! So I had no choice but to look for an alternative cloning software, hopefully something that will replicate my Reovery Partition, the CORRECT drive and partition sizes, and get it right the first time. And I want to stress again, I was going from a 500 GB HDD to a 250 GB SSD, so I needed this new program to compensate for this difference. Luckally, I found such a program....and it was FREE!
The program I used was called AOMEI Backupper Standard FREE! Not only did it sucessfully replicate my Recovery partition so I could boot into it, but this software also gave me the option to MANUALLY move(!) and resize(!) my drives and partitons before cloning! In fact, I had a small 100 MB Unallocated space. I moved this space to the end of my C:, then I could click on my C: and extend it, making this unallocated space part of my C:! It gets better! This program, while cloning, compensated for the differences in disc sizes, and shrunk the sizes of each drive and partition without affecting the files on those drives and partitions! It took maybe 40 minutes to clone the HDD. After I installed the new SSD into my laptop, I booted it up into both Windows and my Recovery mode. Then I checked the layout of the drive in Windows Disk manager. Everything looked just the way it should, and the way I wanted it to! I hope someone else who wants to retain the data integrity of their System Recovery partition and proper drive and partition sizes will benefit from using AOMEI Backupper Standard in case the cloning software included with their Samsung SSD doesn't work for them. So in the end, I am very pleased with my overall experience of cloning to and using my new Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD!
SSD Hardware
Pros
-Easy to mount into my case. Connections were firm and the product itself is built well.
-Recognized by Windows without a hitch
-Boosted my Windows Index from 5.9 (Seagate Barracuda 7.2k) to 7.7
-Boot up times are seconds instead of the usual minute
-Games are running smoother (need to do more testing on this end)
Cons
-The instructions - All pictures, no text. Shows a SATA-USB cable as the "only" way to transfer files, which is incorrect for desktop. Made me think I forgot to buy something.
-Misc other papers (warranty explanation) didn't seem to be in English. Found that odd. There's a link to the English webpage at least.
Samsung Software
Pros
-Easy to install with the CD provided
-Samsung Magician does have nice but not essential benchmarks and optimization features. It does take up system resources, so I wouldn't keep it on all the time.
Cons
-Samsung Migration tool! The reason I docked a star on my review. What a mess. I attempted to migrate 3 times - all failed. First time, it got to 91%, program stopped responding, and eventually gave me "Failed to retrieve source disk Error 205500 [0322bc]." Not to mention, it didn't error out until an hour or two after it stopped responding. Before my second attempt, I made sure my original HDD was defragged (which it was, didn't take long) and ran a full chkdsk. No errors detected. Started up the second attempt before I went to sleep. Woke up 4 hours in, checked the migration, and another error! I decided to give the tool one more chance, and I ran it for the third time. Again, same result, another error. Last two attempts did get to 99%, which made it all the more worse to see it error out. I decided to go for a free trial of another HD migration program. Got it right the first time.
My SSD has only been up and running for 2 days since I got it recently. I'm still testing it out and will update my review if anything happens.
Some tips:
-Avoid the Samsung Migration Tool - If you really want to give it a shot, just give it one go. It may be better with other Samsung products or SSDs.
-When migrating your old HD, backup all of your data. I had a trusty external HD around just in-case.
-Make sure you have your Windows recovery CD handy just in-case the SSD didn't have a successful transfer of the booting requirements.
-I chose to clone my original HDD since I worked on getting it below 250 GBs. The program I used copied all partitions, including the System partition that you usually don't see but it is essential for getting Windows to boot up and work. I then fed back my backed up data into my old HDD after I reformatted it. The Samsung Migration Tool didn't notice the System partition from what I could tell (of course, I never got it to work with my main partition)
-Only reformat your old HD after you are certain you are booting from your new SSD (assuming that is your goal).
-Finally, check your motherboard's SATA connections and also the specs online. I knew beforehand that my older motherboard would only support SATA II, so I would not be taking advantage of SATA III capabilities. You will still see a noticeable difference than a regular HDD.
The first went into a 3.5 year old Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook. I was considering replacing this machine as it had gotten a bit slow over the years, but was otherwise still functioning perfectly. The upgrade was really easy. Plug the SSD into an external USB case, run Samsung software. It took about 1.5 hours. Open the back panel, do a 1-1 swap. Wow. What a difference. Boot time went from about 2-3 mins to under 15 seconds. Applications used to take 20-30 seconds to launch after bootup. After the upgrade, practically every app launched under 2 seconds. Ran Samsung Magician to futher fine-tune the settings. I set it for "Maximum Reliability". Final result -- This ultrabook is good for a couple more years!
The 2nd and 3rd went into 2 similar desktops. Asus motherboards from 2011 with iCore3 CPUs, Windows 7. Upgrading these was more difficult since both had 1TB drives, with lots of music, pictures, videos.
First, I had to partition the drives into C: and D: using "Disk Management".
Then, from the users directory, right-click each on "My Documents", "My Music", "My Picture", etc and change each location to D: drive. This copied the large folders onto D: drive. When done, C: drive was <150GB. This portion took the most amount of time.
Next up was plugging the SSD into an available SATA slot on the motherboard. I didn't have a 2.5 inch mounting bracket, so I just used double-sided tape to secure the drive to the inside of the case. Cloning the C: drive was straight-forward using the Samsung software. After cloning, I swapped the SATA cables for the hard disk and SSD just for good measure. After booting, go immediately into BIOS to change the boot order to start from the SSD.
Everything booted fine. The old C: drive was remapped to some other drive letter.
The speed increase was unbelievable.
Samsung Magician however indicated that the drives were running in IDE mode, rather than AHCI.
If I simply set the BIOS from IDE to AHCI, windows would not start, it would keep rebooting.
The fix was to run regedit, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero). It was previously at 3.
Immediately, reboot and change the BIOS to use AHCI. Windows on starting recognized the new AHCI setting, installed drivers, and then rebooted once again.
After that, everything worked well.
Final step (optional) was to use "Disk Management" once again to shrink the size of the original C: drive, and enlarge the D: drive. So now, I have a 250GB SSD as by C: drive, and all the user data is stored on a 750GB partition on the original 1TB drive.
Speed wise? Wow. As with the ultrabook, these 2 desktops are good for a couple more years.
If you're hesitating -- this is the best $100 investment you can make to upgrade your PC.
I plan to order more for friends/family. :-)
-I wanted to start fresh, so I created a bootable USB Mac OS X El Capitan. (This takes about 2 hours to download the OS if the installer file isn't already on your computer)
-I backed up all of my files to the iCloud (I used an iPhone too, and I pay for 200GB of storage from Apple for $2.99 month. This works for me because I tend to switch devices frequently, so there's less transferring to worry about.)
-I made sure I dragged my Photos folder (and legacy iPhoto photos folder) to an external disk, just to be sure I had them in case iCloud decided to go crazy.
-I installed the Crucial brand memory upgrade and rebooted to be sure that worked properly.
-IMPORTANT: I deauthorized my computer in iTunes and logged out of all my Apps. All of my music and movies are in the cloud because I pay for iTunes match (for my CD collection that I imported over the years) and specific downloads (now I use Apple Music too)
-For Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Home edition, I didn't do anything to deactivate and such and had no trouble reinstalling with the same license on my Mac after I finished this process)
-Then, I installed the Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD using a Youtube video. It was really easy, and honestly the shortest part of this process!
-I inserted the USB bootable El Capitan, turned on the computer and held "Option" and selected "Disk Utility" to format the SSD BEFORE installing El Capitan. This was SUPER important and a step I almost missed! Again, thank you Youtube! :)
-Lastly, installed the OS X from the installer USB (This took a long time, and it stayed on "About one second remaining" for about an hour. I read reviews that this was common. BE PATIENT.
-Then, I followed the prompts and set up iCloud and iTunes,etc.
-My MacBook Pro FLIES now!!! I wish I had done this MUCH sooner!!! I'm glad I went with the drive instead of Crucial SSD brand.
I went from a 750 GB HD to this 250GB SSD, but I'm happy with that decision. I also purchased an external portable hard drive (WD for Mac) and placed all of my large old design and video files on there. I could have got this in 500GB or larger, but I knew it was better for me to have those legacy files on an external disk anyway so I could transfer them easier in the future and just access them on an external drive.
After the SSD install I am using 32GB and have all of my common files and apps that I use regularly. I'm glad I got this! Thank you to the prior reviewers too who helped me make this decision. I hope this helps others, too.
SSD? Whats that?
An SSD (Solid State Drive) is a storage device for a PC. Its just like a normal Hard Drive but different. A HDD (Hard Disk Drive) works by having a piece of metal spin in circles and there is a small reader and writer arm like that of a record player. As you could imagine that would degrade and parts would break, and that's what happens. A SSD aims to get rid of those problems by storing data digitally rather than mechanically. If you have ever seen what RAM looks like, it uses the same technology for storage. This means that the SSD will not slow down over time, has a longer life-span, and also is faster. This leads to a higher cost of course but over the past three years prices have dropped massively to the point that buying one is no big deal.
Should this replace my existing HDD?
No, definitely not. While it is faster and better it still cannot hold the same storage capacity as a normal HDD. Unless everything your doing the cloud-based and you have next to no programs or files on your PC, keep your HDD. What SSD's are currently intended to be used for is a boot drive or for video editing. A normal HDD would take 1-2 minutes or more to boot your PC up, however with my PC with this SSD it takes 15 seconds max to boot, log in, and open chrome. Also if you do video editing it makes your loading and exporting times much shorter and time is money. What a HDD would be used for is storing your games, most programs, and any documents / pictures. It will take a while to get used to storing stuff on a different hard drive and not spamming the next button on all installers, but its worth it.
Whats all this 3D V-Nand stuff that they are advertising?
Words. That's all it is. You don't need to do any research about their technologies or software. All it means is that its an SSD and its trying to look fancy.
I'm a gamer. What does this mean for me?
Good. I'm a gamer too. This means nothing for you, it does not equate to more FPS or shorter loading times. I found that when upgrading my CPU I saw a lot more performance. Focus mainly on a CPU or GPU if you want better performance. Does that mean that you should not buy it? Of course not! This can make loading programs such as Chrome and your OS boots faster. AKA you can get to gaming sooner.
So, Should I buy this?
Yes, its one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get more performance and lifetime out of a PC. If you need help installing it feel free to ask me a question or watch one of the many tutorials out there online.
I was worried that the process to copy all data from original disk to new would be complicated, but luckily it was a breeze!! This SSD comes with a CD containing the migration software and Magician (for performance improvements). If you don't have an optical drive on your laptop, like me, you'll need to find another PC to copy the installation software to a USB drive or upload somewhere to the internet. I didn't find the migration software on Samsung website. EDIT: Gohanrocs12 comment provided where to find the migration software on Samsung website: [...]
I also bought an external case from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H98AXOE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It was used initially with the SSD to migrate the data and now I use it with the HDD that was originally in my laptop.
The migration software was really easy to use. I just picked the 2 existing partitions from original 1TB HDD and it set the two partitions on the 250GB SSD. I was able to readjust the size of the partitions and then it started the copying process. It took a few minutes to copy around 60GB of data. I believe under 10min,
After it was finished I just removed old drive, installed the new one and everything was working. Didn't have any problems booting Windows 8 or anything else.
I then ran the Magician software and asked to optimize disk for Performance and enabled the RAPID feature. I was running the Magician performance tests and they significantly improved after enabling RAPID.
Now everything loads blazing fast and I'm very happy with my laptop and this SSD.
UPDATE 19-mar-2015: There were some questions about ability of the migration software to copy the factory recovery partition to the SSD. Gohanrocs12 clarified it. Here is his comment:
"...Limitations of the software:
6. OEM recoverypartitions, generated at the factory by computer manufacturers, cannot be replicated"
As another customer noted in the comments, it may be a good idea to keep the original HDD around just in case you need to recover from disaster.
Since this was going in a desktop I purchased a 2.5” to 3.5” HD adapter so the HD could be securely mounted in the case. I could have used Velcro or something similar to secure the 2.5” drive to save money but the adapter only cost me $7.00 so it was no brainer for me. Once I mounted the SSD in the adapter I connected it to my desktop via a SATA to USB adapter (not included, see note below). I loaded the supplied Samsung software which by default only prompts to load the Samsung Magician application. After about 15-20 minutes of attempting to figure out why this application could not find my SSD and why there was no menu option for the data migration tool the instructions talked about, I checked the supplied CD and discovered a separate application for Data Migration. Once launched the Data Migration application found my SSD and gave me the option to make a clone of my existing HD. Since I am somewhat tech-literate and was not looking forward to reloading the Windows OS, re-activating it through Microsoft’s arduous process (calling in with seven groups of five alpha-numeric combinations), applying the updates, reloading all of my existing software and recovering my data from backups, I decided to attempt the cloning process. About 2½ hours later the process was done. I powered done my desktop, installed the newly-cloned SSD, disconnected my old HD and booted the computer. Amazingly, everything came back up perfectly without any glitches.
Boosted by the successful cloning operation I launched the Samsung Magician application and configured the SSD for maximum performance and enabled RAPID (an SSD performance enhancing feature from Samsung). Everything is purring right along with a noticeable boost in performance from my previous HD. I have replaced many primary system hard drives over the years and this one has to be at the top of the list for a hassle-free replacement.
I should note that to make this work it was necessary to have a SATA to USB adapter which I just so happened to have since I work on computers. This adapter is not included with the drive and must be purchased separately (currently $10-$25 on Amazon). I suspect if you had the requisite knowledge and your computer had the required connections, you could install this as a second HD and perform the same procedure above. However, having the aforementioned adapter sure was uber convenient and in my opinion worth what I paid for it.
I transferred the Samsung 850 Evo into my laptop, SATA3, AHCI, and enabled the Rapid Mode. I had 4GB of ram (I have since upgraded to 8GB) and Rapid Mode takes a full 1GB of my memory about 15-20 seconds after booting up, the ram cache is how the read and write speeds are almost triple the standard speeds most of the other SSD's claim to get while using SATA3. Turning off Rapid Mode stops the takeover of the 1GB of ram and my read/write speeds fall to regular 550MBs as stated. As I understand it, Rapid Mode can take up to 4GB of memory if your system has 16GB or more available. I had 4gb of system ram and Rapid Mode only took 1GB (letting me sit idle at 2.5GB used on a fresh bootup), after upgrading to 8GB of system memory Rapid Mode still seems to take the 1GB but uses more as I begin working (I now regularly use 3.5-4GB of system ram doing normal activities and my older 2nd gen i3 laptop is now lightning fast for daily duties.
The Samsung Drives come with a software you can use for cloning your drive, I tried it and it works just fine. It is easy to use, each step is clearly described as it guides you through the process. The SSD also comes with another Samsung software called Samsung Magician, this is how you enable Rapid Mode, and this did not work on my AMD machine that used nVidia storage controllers. The drive worked fine, and at full speed, but I was not able to get Rapid Mode speeds like I could on my Intel based storage controllers.
This SSD came in a retail package with a driver disk and some warranty information and installation/owners manuals. It did not come with any cables or caddy/adapters.
All in all, this is one of the best SSD currently available for consumer use, it's fast, energy efficient, light, stays cool, and easy to install... no drama.
I had purchased a new notebook with the i7 processor, but with a standard HD spinning at 5400 RPM. I returned it and am perhaps only missing the touchscreen. I say perhaps because my notebook is so fast now that I'm glad that I returned the touchscreen computer.
Some other notes: When I first received this, I thought the box was empty. The SSD is so light, its incredible! Installation was a breeze and cloning was also so easy with the included software and an Anker external enclosure. My notebook is a SATA 1 and when I run Magician, it tells me that I won't realize full performance since the drive is SATA 3. So even though SATA 3 is backwards compatible, just remember that you can't obtain full performance from the drive. I can't but wonder what it would be like if I had a SATA 3 interface. Still I'm very happy with the increased performance. I plan to test the battery life as that should also be improved with the SSD. Finally notebook seems to be running cooler. I haven't done all the checks yet as I just finished installing this and am so excited about what I've experienced so far. By the way, score for the HDD was 5.9. Its 7.2 for the SSD.
More experiences: Word and Excel documents open instantly. Before you could watch the messages as the program opened. Even PDF files open instantly. Before even after Adobe Pro opened the document it wasn't immediately available. Now no hesitation and the file is also available immediately!




















