Which SSD to buy?

[stratman]

Excellent info. Thanks Peter.

My thoughts...

I could do a clean install of Win 8.1 on the new and empty SSD. I was never asked for a key.

As you suspected, this computer's appears to have the Product Key stored in the UEFI, so no need for you to manually enter it in when clean installing Windows 8 or 10.

It came with Win 7 Home Premium 32 bit. and has twice been upgraded to Win 10

Once this computer was upgraded to Windows 10 then the Product Key from Windows 7 was converted to a Digital License and that license stored on Microsoft's Activation servers. No need to re-enter manually the Key/License if clean installing Windows 10 again when changing the hard drive to a SSD. You might have an activation issue if you change out the motherboard and/or CPU as this is an OEM copy of Windows. In that case, a phone call to Microsoft may allow for activation as long as your explanation is proper, ie you are not using the license in another computer altogether and the tech you speak with is not too grumpy.

When upgrading to Win 10 I installed the OS to the harddisk I had formatted. I had to enter a key and the key I had used when I upgraded it to Win 7 from Vista was accepted and the Win 10 install started and Win 10 is activated.

If I understand correctly, you were installing Windows 10 on a formatted , ie empty, hard drive, that once contained Windows 7. If you had merely upgraded from an intact Windows 7 then you would not have needed to enter a Product Key as the installation routine would have found it in your Registry and completed activation without any further input from you. If you were still using Vista then you would not be able to either upgrade or clean install since a Vista Product Key is not accepted by MS to exchange for a Digital License, which is needed to activate Windows 10.

I installed Win 7 on the laptop and later upgraded it to Win 10. I installed Win 10 to a formatted harddisk and had to enter a key. The Win 7 key I had used was accepted and Win 10 is now activated.

In this case, the Windows 7 Product Key was not in the UEFI and so you had to manually enter it when installing Windows 10 on a formatted hard drive.

The free program Speccy

I had forgotten my old friend Speccy. The "Serial Number" Speccy reports for the Operating System is different than that shown by the other apps I've reported in this thread, which all show the same Key.

BTW, Speccy and Belarc Advisor are very similar in reported info.

One thing in Speccy's favor is that there is a portable version which does not require installation. While standalone apps, such as ProduKey, which are only a single executable file requiring no installation are my favorite kind of utilities, a portable app that only requires copying or unzipping files into a folder without installing are my second favorite kind of apps.

A selection of portable apps here.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you got your systems up to W10 and running, here is some more about keys - activation keys, product keys etc by the company which created all these complex scenarios

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12440/windows-10-activate

open the 'show all' tabs to get to more details

and if it is all not working with W10 as expected Microsoft has lots of answers for you

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/search?q=activate+windows+10

Links removed by Moderator...

So be happy with your win 10 systems and just do the regular security patches/updates

 

[mikling]

Years ago, I discovered something not covered in benchmark testing nor in descriptions.
I had a Sandisk SSD that had failed within the one year warranty. As it turned out that particular model was an MLC type memory. What Sandisk wanted to send me was a newer consumer model that was TLC as a replacement. I pointed out that the difference was significant in durability. As a result they agreed to send me an OEM TLC model that was geared for commercial use. I understood their predicament and accepted that.
Well both SSDs on paper were very similar in speeds etc. However I was using the SSDs on older SATA2 connections. As it turned out the newer one was significantly faster in the real world on the older SATA2 connection....as if it was optimized for it. I was pleasantly surprised as I was not expecting this.
I no longer believe fully in benchmark specs when it comes to SSDs. The controller and firmware with OS and chipset is a highly complex subsystem and I suspect that benchmarks do not fully show what is likely to occur and in fact sometimes misleading. Is there a better alternative? No. But beware of conclusions as sometimes it could be different in actual use. The only sure way is to actually test it in how it is to be used but that is highly impractical and near impossible. In the future, I am going to tend to purchase the Pro level for consistent performance. Even with the old SSDs, the Pro segment seem to be much more consistent in performance.

However my next SSD might be a long while away, I am still using an OCZ Vertex3 in my near ten year old laptop. Most times good quality SSDs will last a long time ...long long time once you get past infant mortality possibility.

Here is what I have put through my hands on SSDs. 8 Sandisk SSDs, 2 of these are Pro Level ranging from 3-6 years old, 2 Seagate 240 Pro MLC SSDS, about 6 years old, 4 Samsung EVO SSDs 3- 860 sata and 1 M.2 960, Patriot SSD, Corsair MLC SSD., OCZ Vertex3 - Approx7-8 years old.
The only one that failed early in warranty was a 120GB Sandisk Extreme SSD.

None ever produced any data errors. Despite their complexity, they are the only way and far superior than spinning rust.

 

[stratman]

I suspect that benchmarks do not fully show what is likely to occur and in fact sometimes misleading.

Maybe, maybe not. Sure, these benchmarks cannot see into the future for your system, though there are websites that torture test SSD, but that's not what the consumer benchmarks are for. If you use a respected benchmark app then you will get data for your drive based on the components of your computer. Nothing fake there. However, there are more variables that can alter results than you've stated, for instance, the # of GB's of the SSD impact performance as well when all else is equal.

One way to determine how your SSD and computer perform in the grand scheme of things is to use a benchmarking site that has many user's own benchmarks using the same app.

Since you did not state the size of your SSD's, I compared tour model EVO and M.2 Samsung's of 500 GB size to give an example of what a large data sample can provide.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...g-960-Evo-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m428560vsm204072

Mix and match your SSD of interest. Also, you can benchmark or read about other hardware (CPU, GPU, RAM, etc)

Just know the apps are not fortunetellers or detail the performance-robbing weakness in your computer hardware.

 

[martirosyan]

Hi OP! I think it's a great decision to install an SSD into your PC. I have recently installed one on my laptop, and now it runs five times as fast as it did before. I use this one AMD Radeon R5 Series 120Gb R5MP120G8. and all I can say so far is so good. It has never failed once, and the PC boots much faster than it did before. I cannot even compare it to my old PC, which crashed because of a critical error in the hard drive. At that moment, I have almost lost all the data From my computer. Thankfully I was able to find a PC repair service to perform data recovery near me. However, from that time on, I preferred SSDs, and I also tried to keep all my data backed up on an external hard drive.