Now THATS funny. My wife always get's a kick out of that as someone is always asking me "what do I do for a living" and they usually get the same answer about growing up. But, keeps me young thinking.
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>My wife said "You can't do both."
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>>It's funny you said that, I often tell people I haven't decided what I want to do when I grow up....:)
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>>>I admire your discipline in following the routine for a long time. When I grow up I want to be like you <g>.
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>>>>What I do is save "everything" I work on into two folders. EVERYTHING of any importance is in these 2 folders including program setup's I have downloaded, etc. I then copy these two folders to a regular HD that is also in the computer (it's drive E for me)- and I do this about every day if I have made any changes to speak of in my work. I also have made a "image" (using Paragon) of my working computer after I first setup the computer (programs, etc.).
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>>>>In case of a failure, or just to "speed up the computer back to when it was first setup" I restore that Paragon Image, then copy those two folders back to the working HD. This keeps me current and safe. Obviousely at this point I have to update the AV and Windows, etc. but that is no big issue. I actually restore the Paragon Image (which wipes out the HD and replaces it with the Image I have created) every couple months to keep the system running at top speed, and I will update the orginal Image if I need to install new programs, etc. When I restore the Image, I then just copy those two main folders and I am ready to go to work. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes for the computer to do this, so I just let it work while at lunch or whatever. Everyone is always amazed as to why my computer(s) work like a new one, and it is because of this simple solution and procedure.
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>>>>I have been doing this for about 10+ years now and it sure has made my life easier.
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>>>>>All that you are saying is new to me (I am another hardware dunce). With the RAM and faster CPUs today I am not sure I will go for additional performance enhancement that SSD brings at the price of worrying about drive failure. Even if you have a good backup, restoring takes time and not always smooth.
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>>>>>>They also fail as they can "only be written to a certain amount of times" as they are designed that way. They just wear out. Sure, it is in the millions "writes" but they will fail. Also, some brands are known to fail even more than others because of the way they "write". I personally look at them as a "fast but more prone to fail technology" that is great but require much more frequent backups as they are gonna fail in a shorter amount of years.
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>>>>>>>I too am surprised that SSD fails more frequently. I thought the opposite; that the main reason to switch to SSD was due to higher reliability. Better performance is nice but if it comes at the price of hardware failure(s), I am not so sure (for me) that this is the best course of action.
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>>>>>>>>Andy -
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>>>>>>>>Thanks very much that is very helpful. I was think of not only leaving the Win install on the old drive I will be moving to the secondary bay but using my Paragon Suite to do mirror backups from the SSD to it (as well as keeping mirror images on an external HD)
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>>>>>>>>I did not know about a higher failure rate on SSD - will look into that. I guess I figured since they seemed more shock resistant it would be the opposite, but I suppose the cause of failure it some other issue. I am a bit of a hardware idiot.
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>>>>>>>>Glad to hear the performance gain is worth the candle. All the goodies should be here today so I can start playing with it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Hi Charles,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Replacing the primary drive in my Lenovo T500 with an SDD drive over 12 months ago has been the best hardware upgrade I have ever made. Cold boot times went from over 3 minutes to useable to less than 20 seconds. VS2010 performance is no longer an issue.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I moved the existing HDD to a caddy in the ultraslim bay and installed an Intel SSD as the primary drive. I did a fresh install of W7 64bit on the SSD and can now boot to either drive if required via a function key on startup.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>A caveat though - make sure you have adequate backups. SSDs seem more prone to failure than HDDs - see
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Mine failed after 13 months and was replaced under warranty. Reinstalling, restoring and reconfiguring was a pain but once you get used to the performance you wouldn't go back,
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>>>>>>>>>regards,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Andy
