I was skeptical about SSDs until I finally got this one installed and , man, now am I believer. If you have the skills to install one of these, you should order one right now! Here's why: I have a old Lenovo Windows 7, i3 desktop that took forever to get going from a restart or cold boot. The hard drive would grind away for 20 to 30 minutes on every mandatory "update" restart. All resources consumed. The keyboard would barely work. I just had to walk away and come back a half hour later. It was maddening, especially with the endless updates Microsoft sends out (You MUST reboot....) Sound familiar? . So imagine my surprise (and delight) when I booted for the first time to this SSD and Windows logon screen appeared in just 10 seconds! 10 SECONDS!!!! I could barely believe it. I log on and my desktop is up and running in another 5 seconds. Un-fricking-believable! Of course all apps also launch almost instantly now too (well, except for browsers, which are faster but still pokey thanks to all the calls on nearly every web page). If you want to breathe new life into your PC, this, without question, provides the best bang for the buck. Mine is now much MUCH faster than it was when new.
Almost anyone with even moderate skills can install a SSD in a desktop PC but here a few tips that will smooth the process.
1. First, make sure your equipment is up to the task. That means SATA II or III system, with open sockets to plug this thing into (Look where your current hard drive is plugged into the motherboard or controller. There should be empty adjacent sockets). And an extra power lead from the power supply. Most desktops of the last 3 or 4 years are probably OK but open up the case and check before you order. Also make sure you understand how to get into the BIOS settings, since you will have fiddle with the boot order during the install. (In my case, press F1 during boot)
2. Save yourself a lot of time and just buy an SSD with enough capacity to cover whatever content is on your drive. I cannot stress this enough. That makes it super simple to clone the existing hard drive to the SSD with the included Arconis software and you will be up and running in a few minutes. I tried to go cheap and get a smaller drive and spent hours moving music, movies, pictures, etc onto an external hard drive. And uninstalling programs. And even then I struggled to get content down to the level needed to clone. Be aware that although the capacity of this drive is 240G, you will need to get your hard drive content down to about 220 or less to clone it. And don't forget to include all the extra partitions, etc. That became a major pain for me. Save yourself the trouble. Just buy the bigger capacity SSD. The time and aggravation it saves you is more than worth it.
3. If you insist on going cheap and downsizing, begin by downloading a program called WinDirStat, which is free at downdload.com and other sites. It will show you how much content is in each directory. That makes it easier to determine where huge amounts or content are hiding. Then you can easily reduce the content to the level you need. I had about given up on reducing content to the necessary levels until WinDirStat discovered a special directory the manufacturer used to store a complete backup of the original Windows 7 install and all included software and drivers. 45 gigs! Once I removed that, I was good to go.
4. Once you install the SSD and get it up and running, go to system settings and force it run a new Windows Experience Index. This apparently makes a few technical changes (Trim) that makes the SSD much faster. The cloning software also has this option but you can do in Windows and also immediately see the improvement in the speed of your hard drive. I went from the low 5s before to 7.6 after SSD installed (7.9 is the max score possible)
5. The mounting bracket that comes with this SSD kit can only be securely mounted if your drive cage allows drives to be mounted to the SIDE rails. Screws must come in from each side. My case had some odd BOTTOM mount setup (but thankfully had an open bay for second drive) and no holes lined up on the mounting bracked. Be prepared to improvise if the hard drive cage does not have correct configuration. Not a big deal. This thing is very light and could probably just hang loose inside the case. But if you want a proper install, this is something to be aware of.
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I replaced the HDD in my Gateway NV55C (5400 rpm 500GB) with the Kingston 120 SSDNow V300 drive. OS is Win7 Home Prem. 64bit. Cold boot to login screen went from about a minute+ to less than 20 sec and login screen to desktop was also dramatically increased (31 to 8 sec).Going from 500GB to 120GB required me to remove a lot of "junk" that accumulated on the laptop over time. Much of it could be housed elsewhere or just removed. If you are going to clone your drive, you will want to consider the recovery partition as well as your OS partition. What I mean is that you will need to be using less than the capacity of your new SSD drive on your source drive before cloning (if you want to include the recovery partition on your new SSD). I made this oversight the first time around and was informed by the Acronis software that I needed about 13 GB more space freed up on my original HDD. Aside from that the process was painless. The most time consuming part was cleaning up the old drive. I must point out that although I ordered the Notebook kit I was sent the Desktop kit. The drive is the same but the accessories are different. I luckily already had a suitable external enclosure so that did not prompt me to return the product. I was able to install the new SSD without the spacer but it would be an additional security step to have it in place. This laptop has a sturdy drive mounting bracket and this machine does not see much travel so it probably will not be a big deal. Only taking one star off since the incorrect product was shipped.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2015
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2015
Capacity: 120GBStyle: Notebook BundleVerified Purchase
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Sahuaro
Precio calidad
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Michael
hervorragendes Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis
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I HIGHLY recommend this Drive.
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Excelente rendimiento después de 7 meses de uso
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Elder
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Reviewed in Mexico on December 19, 2016Capacity: 120GBStyle: Notebook BundleVerified Purchase
