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    SSD Upgrade

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by gijoe4us, May 13, 2012.

  1. gijoe4us

    gijoe4us Notebook Consultant

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    Don't know why this did not post......


    Hello all! Purchased a new SanDisk 240 Gig SSD for 279. Tried to use my saved image from Win 7 Ultimate, 64 Bit, but it would never write it to the SSD. Looked online for solutions and found one program, $50, but it had way to many steps. Found software at Paragon.com for $20 and bought a ThermalTake BlacX dual Sata/eSata drive dock. Wow, this was easy. I just hooked up the BlacX, put in my drives, ran the Paragon software, and voila!!!! Burned the image to the new drive. Before, the drive showed up as 5.7 on the Windows performance scale, now, 7.9!!! The SSD is way faster, nothing changed in the BIOS, the BlacX and my extra drives I have now are my extra storage!!! There may be other ways to do this, but I have found this was a good way to do it and give me added storage capability! The BlacX will work on most all OS's and the software will run on everything since XP. I even transferred my XP OS to the Hybrid drive I moved Win 7 from.

    Happy Toughbooking!!!!!
     
    gijoe4us, May 13, 2012
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  2. toughasnails

    toughasnails Toughbook Moderator Moderator

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    NBR is having problems with the forum software and sometimes when you post it also posts 2 empty threads too which I just deleted...they are working on the problem.
     
    toughasnails, May 13, 2012
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  3. MD2Colo

    MD2Colo Notebook Enthusiast

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    dude i used acronis disk migrate.... free and it worked great, no issues.
    google it.

    went from 500gb seagate to 256gb Samsung 830 SSD, fyi. Not a clean install of win 7, either, just a straight copy.
     
    MD2Colo, May 14, 2012
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    TheSpiritOfRadio likes this.
  4. mnementh

    mnementh Crusty Ol' TinkerDwagon

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    Does either of these products perform the SSD Offset Alignment procedure which windows 7 & 8 do as part of the install process? Or did you use a 3rd party Utility to do that before making the copy?


    mnem
    *SSDelicious*
     
    mnementh, May 14, 2012
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  5. theoak2

    theoak2 Notebook Evangelist

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    Paragon Alignment Tool will align drives to 4k even after image is loaded to SSD. Also, if you have Apricorn's SATA to USB adapter, their software will copy an spinning hard drive to SSD and align the copy all at the same time if you select 4k alignment box in setup. Only caveat is their free software (EZ Gig IV) will only work if you use one of their adapters.
     
    theoak2, May 14, 2012
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  6. gijoe4us

    gijoe4us Notebook Consultant

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    Acronis in it's current trial version doesn't allow it, downloaded it, they wanted $49.00 for the full blown program.... Thanks though.....
     
    gijoe4us, May 14, 2012
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  7. gijoe4us

    gijoe4us Notebook Consultant

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    Paragon did everything automatically on my Windows 7 Ultimate image.
     
    gijoe4us, May 14, 2012
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  8. findit

    findit Notebook Enthusiast

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    If your original drive is a Western Digital or Seagate, you can get a rebranded version of Acronis from your drive manufacturer for free. (The software varifies that it is dealing with thier drive.) [Have not tried this]

    Here is a guide that looks useful. I plan to follow the procedure outlined when I upgrade. http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/
     
    findit, May 26, 2012
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  9. gijoe4us

    gijoe4us Notebook Consultant

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    Yep, checked into this one. Man, that's a lot of steps and time. The other program I mentioned does not have to do any of these steps. Bam, just preps and writes. Yeah, you have to have a way of transferring via cable or the dock, but it was so much easier, so much faster, and works like a charm. Then, in the end, you use the dock and your old drives and have a mass storage capability. I guess it is a choice of how much you want to spend time and money versus how much you want to save in time, and money. Plus, SanDisk does not have Acronis.
     
    gijoe4us, May 27, 2012
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  10. findit

    findit Notebook Enthusiast

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    I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about hybrid drives and ssd drives, since you have used both in the same laptop. I have a Panasonic W8. I would like to upgrade my drive to a 750GB momentus xt or a ssd drive (around 250gb).

    PS win 7 64bit, 6gb ram, 320gb 5400rpm drive (Hitachi Travelstar 5k500.b)
     
    findit, May 28, 2012
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