Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Easy and Effective Upgrade
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2014
The solid state hard drive (SSD) is generally faster, more reliable, cooler, and quieter than a conventional hard drive (HD). Until recently, the barrier has been price. A good SSD was expensive and inexpensive SSDs did not perform noticeably better than HDs.
The Samsung 840 EVO has broken the SSD price barrier. It is reasonably priced, very fast, and easy to install.
This is the KIT, which includes the two other items necessary for installation: a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch bay converter to mount your SSD in your computer, and a USB to SATA cable to transfer data. If you later decide to upgrade another computer, you can save some money by just buying the drive itself (not the kit) and the bay converter, which is about $10.
The included software creates a clone or image of the existing drive and copies that image onto the new drive. Cloning programs can be hit-or-miss, but I have performed this process with the 840 EVO 3 times now, and every time all programs worked perfectly. That is, I have not yet had to manually install any programs. Samsung has made the data transfer process easy and reliable.
Once the data is transferred, you have to open your computer case, remove the existing HD, and install the SSD. For some, this prospect may seem daunting, but on most computers this can be done with few or no tools and only takes a few minutes. Be sure to read up on safety precautions before doing this for the first time.
All 3 of my home computers now have SSDs, and all of them run noticeably faster. Rebooting -- which used to be a tedious process -- now takes about half the time that was required with the conventional hard drive, and web pages and programs load almost shockingly fast. It is too early to determine reliability, but unlike conventional HDs, the SSD has no moving parts to wear out. I am confident that these drives will outlive the machines in which they reside.
I really wish that computer companies would make the SSD an option on new computers. Until they do, the Samsung 840 EVO is a simple, relatively inexpensive, and worthwhile upgrade.
