Crucial M4 SSD with data transfer kit
Benchmark results
Before upgrading the old hard disk, we timed our Sony Vaio FW11E and it took exactly 60 seconds to boot to the Windows login screen. After cloning the hard disk and booting (from cold, just as with the hard disk test) from the SSD, we saw the Windows login screen in just 19 seconds. We weren't expecting such a huge improvement: that's three times quicker.
As you can see from the Crystal Disk Mark results below, the Crucial M4 is vastly faster than the Hitachi 5K250 it replaced. The disk span at just 5,400rpm, which is typical of laptop hard disks.
First: the results from the Hitachi:

And, the figures we hoped we'd see: the Crucial M4:

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Comments
Gabriel Feleacu said: maybe this will help httpadflyP1BEC g
Anon said: From what Ive heard SSDs use less power than HDDs
sparkyva said: Just upgraded my Acer Laptop 4 years old to SSD Went from 320 GB to 500 GB Note it is very hard to move down in memory size You need to plan how you are going to clone your existing drive I removed my HD from my laptop and hooked it and my new SSD into my desktop and then used Macrium Reflect software the freeware version - it is slick Didnt use Ghost because I have it in for Norton after I lost 15 years of data from their flawed Norton Backup software The cloning took about 90 minutes to complete Then I had to go into Windows disk utilities and expand the C drive partition into the unused space on the SSD By the way I am using Win7 64 Professional version There are several reasons I did this 1 I have been running an SSD drive on my desktop for 6 months now and have built up a degree of comfort with it 2 My laptop is getting long in the tooth and I fear a hard disk crash is coming soon 3 I need the additional space for the latest compilers software programmerWhile you always worry when the computer files are your livelihood and back up everything a dozen times over Network USB drive amp Carbonite it was really easy The hard part was finding a way to mount both SATA drives on a working computer with decent speed Used my 6 core AMD at 4 ghz to make it move If you just have the laptop itself you are going to need some special cabling and it will take longer Or you might need help from the GeekSquad And the final answer is Windows Experience Disk Drive 77 I noticed a slight drop off in memory speed and graphic processor speed so we may be pulling some amps here and dropping the system voltage a hair The SSD I am using is from OCZ Sata III and Sandforce driver My desktop has a WE Disk drive of 79 and has all the power supply it needs