You really can't go wrong with WD Blue. WD Green is more budget-friendly but doesn't have as good performance or lifespan. All SSDs degrade with use and so have over-capacity designed in. Green is made with less over-capacity than Blue, so its useful life is shorter. (Of course your eight-year-old computer has a limited lifespan as well.) Other SSD manufacturers have similar product tiers. In general you want to stay with the major players; WD and Samsung are the top tier to my knowledge, but perhaps slightly below them are the likes of Kingston, Crucial, Micron etc.
No problem at all with 2.5 vs 3.5-inch size. As far as mounting, an inexpensive bracket like this one is really all you need, just to keep the SSD from lying loose in the case.
@dresdenron - You can also check out Crucial and Samsung for compatible SATA SSDs too. Compare $ per GB, read/write speed, warranty, included accessories - if any (eg, mounting tray), ratings, etc.
You could install the new SSD in the PC and then use something like Macrium Reflect (free) to clone the HDD onto the new SSD, so you won't have to reinstall everything.
Then unplug the HDD from the motherboard and move the SSD's data cable to the blue SATA port (#15 in motherboard pic) where the HDD is connected now. PC should then boot directly from the new SSD.
NOTES: You will have to buy a SATA data cable to connect the new SSD to the motherboard. if new SSD has larger capacity than the 1T HDD, you'll have to increase the size of the C: partition on the SSD during the cloning so it can use all the extra space.
NJDave
2 Intern
•
406 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2022 11:00
You really can't go wrong with WD Blue. WD Green is more budget-friendly but doesn't have as good performance or lifespan. All SSDs degrade with use and so have over-capacity designed in. Green is made with less over-capacity than Blue, so its useful life is shorter. (Of course your eight-year-old computer has a limited lifespan as well.) Other SSD manufacturers have similar product tiers. In general you want to stay with the major players; WD and Samsung are the top tier to my knowledge, but perhaps slightly below them are the likes of Kingston, Crucial, Micron etc.
No problem at all with 2.5 vs 3.5-inch size. As far as mounting, an inexpensive bracket like this one is really all you need, just to keep the SSD from lying loose in the case.
RoHe
10 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
0
November 2nd, 2022 16:00
@dresdenron - You can also check out Crucial and Samsung for compatible SATA SSDs too. Compare $ per GB, read/write speed, warranty, included accessories - if any (eg, mounting tray), ratings, etc.
You could install the new SSD in the PC and then use something like Macrium Reflect (free) to clone the HDD onto the new SSD, so you won't have to reinstall everything.
Then unplug the HDD from the motherboard and move the SSD's data cable to the blue SATA port (#15 in motherboard pic) where the HDD is connected now. PC should then boot directly from the new SSD.
NOTES:
You will have to buy a SATA data cable to connect the new SSD to the motherboard.
if new SSD has larger capacity than the 1T HDD, you'll have to increase the size of the C: partition on the SSD during the cloning so it can use all the extra space.