Informed Webmaster

Right now I have a nicely configured, but 5-year old Lenovo ThinkCenter desktop PC. My son just bought a screaming gaming PC. So, I'm inheriting his current 3 year-old Dell Inspiron desktop. It's currently configured better than my own, with a 120GB SSD (SATA), with a faster processor, better than average GPU (Did I mention he likes gaming?), fairly upgraded 16GB of ram, and a 2TB HDD.

Because the SSD is so small (he's running it at about 85% capacity), I decided to get another internal SSD to install my programs on, thereby utilizing the speed of SSD, and freeing up space on the 120GB SSD - just for the OS.

My reasoning went like this: To negate having to clone the existing 120 over to a newer, larger SSD, then install programs - OR - go the route of reinstalling the OS on the new SSD, and then programs, I've decided something different. I thought I'd buy a new, larger SSD, then just install my programs on that new SSD, connected via SATA plug on the board, leaving the existing SSD to contain and continue to use/manage just the OS.

So, yesterday I ordered a Samsung 1TB SATA internal SSD. Although no drives this size and at this price are anywhere near perfect by any means, from what I've read, it's a reliable drive, and I got it at a decent sale price. None of the drives come with any installation hardware, so I also purchased a kit with power cables, SATA cables and frame to install the drive on and affix to the chassis somewhere. Maybe in the disk slots - we'll see.

The drive is scheduled to arrive on Sunday, but the cables and housing may not because they are not from the same seller. If they both do happen to arrive at the same time, it should be a very interesting day.

Stay tuned...

I hope you fare better with your post office than I did with mine. A package they received on 12/18 waited until 12/31 for a 5 mile trip. That is a lousy way to run a business.

I bought it thru my son's Amazon prime account so that it would "supposedly" get here faster. It's supposed to be here by Sunday, but I'll not hold my breath. My other son is returning a rather formidable GPU piece of hardware that we think is malfunctioning on his new system. It got to the border over a week ago, and from that point, it seems to be in limbo - not moving. His RMA he opened expires in a few days too. smh.

I got the drive and housing stuff yesterday, a day early. Strange for this time of year. :shrug:

Looks thought I'm going to wait for the Dell system to be decommissioned by junior before I can install the new drive.

Interestingly enough, I found that Samsung offers free cloning software, so I can take the contents of the 120 SSD and clone it (OS and all) to the new 1TB SSD. It'll have to wait till junior gets his GPU returned from the manufacturer before he'll let go of the system. Right now, the GPU is sitting at the border, and has been for the last 5 or 6 days, so I might not get the Dell till at least the end of the month - maybe.

Wait it gets worse. A seller shipped me a package on 11-30-20 from Cali. After two weeks I complained and got a refund.
The stupid postal service delivered the package today. These guys deserve to lose their jobs. The pony express did a better job.

Well, the GPU from junior's borg machine could be faulty, and an RMA was initiated and the GPU was shipped back to Cali. However, if I have my info correct, California is now in a total shut down? I know the premise is that people are being asked to stay home, and so it goes that general store shopping is not happening. But I wonder if you have purchased something online, and have to return all, or part of an item (in this case it's a GPU that appears to be faulty and needs to be checked out) whether these returned items can be successfully returned/accepted at the point of delivery?

We sent the item back about three weeks ago. It sat at the border for about 5 or 6 days. Junior just got a notice the package was "undeliverable" (nothing else) and that they'd try again today.

I have a feeling it's going to be returned here, which would be a journey that started maybe three weeks ago. And who knows when it'll get here.

Schiesse!

That sucks!

Re: the initial topic: I cloned from my HD to SSD with zero problems. I imagine your experience will be the same.

According to the Samsung software, the process looks pretty simple for cloning a small SSD to a larger one. Time will tell.

In case I didn't mention it elsewhere here, I've finally gotten my own cloning software working and managed to clone my internal drive (Lenovo machine) to an external 2TB. I think the problem I had before was that the target drive I was using (1TB HDD) for cloning externally, had errors on it. When I purchased a new 2TB HDD, the process went pretty smooth - didn't even have to reboot into the safe clone zone. Weird. I guess the only way to know if the clone was successful is if I plugin in the external cloned drive inside the box, then boot it up. Maybe another day.

Update: The GPU going back to Cali was received by someone at the computer store yesterday, so depending on how many techs they have working at the store (which is probably not that many if things are all shut down there) it could be another 4 weeks before they test it, and hopefully send a new one so junior gets his system going.

If the GPU tests "OK", then it's the motherboard - maybe the box was kicked around in transit. Thing is heavy - had to have other Junior help bring it in the house.

As an aside, youngest junior put me on to a bit of software that monitors internal temps, cpu load/temp, GPU load/temp, and file processes going on inside the box. It's called NZXT Cam. It'll give you system specs as well.

Fun to see the internal temps of the CPU jump when watching video or opening/closing programs. Junior first discovered this issue (CPU temps jumping) especially when participating in online-gaming. His CPU would sometimes jump to 80C at least temporarily, and couldn't get a better CPU cooling fan for is dell, which is why he bought the new "gaming" machine. My machine will jump to low 40C when opening and closing programs. When not doing anything hard, it'll sit at around 26C - the temp of a warm summer day.