Installing a New SSD in the Computer

— Posted inTechnology — 3 min read
SSD and cable

The Prime van delivered the new SSD and cable meaning installation would soon be happening. Since I needed to clone the old drive to the new drive I also ordered a SATA III – USB cable. but In hindsight I probably would have been smarter to buy an enclosure which I could have used to house any future SSD’s I’d buy and use them as an external drive. Such is life.

Cloning complete

The Samsung Data Migration software worked like a charm. After watching a couple of YouTube videos I turn a few things off on the computer, VPN and virus protection, turned on airplane mode, then ran CHKDSK to make sure the HDD was good to go. The cloning took a long time but in the morning I turned computer back on and and soon saw this screen. Success!

Removing HHD

Removed the drive case from the computer , it was much easier today after having done this before, and four screws later the HDD was coming out.

SSD in case

The new SSD slid right into the case. I wasn’t sure whether it was the same thickness as the HDD.

SSD

The screw holes lined right up and it was quickly fasted in the case.

SSD in computer

The case was a little difficult to push into its slot and I didn’t want to force it. I lifted it out and used a flashlight to make sure there wasn’t anything keeping it from sliding into place. I placed it back in the computer, used a little more force and it locked right into place. Next would come the big test. What would happen when I turned the computer on for the first time with the new SSD installed.

Success

Success!!! The whole experience was far easier than I thought it would be. Dual monitors make for a far easier workflow. My browser of choice is Vivaldi, Duck Duck Go is my search engine and all photos are edited with Affinity Photo. I can’t believe how much faster everything is with the SSD compared to the HHD. I am so glad I decided to go this route to replace the failing HHD.

One last thing. I reduced the size of all the photos in this post before uploading them to WordPress after reading about how they would load faster on readers computers. Looking at the as I post, I don’t think I will be reducing them as much as I did as they are definitely not nearly as sharp as the originals. I take about half of them in RAM mode and to have them turn out like this seems wrong.

The same image uploaded without being reduced by me. Maybe when WordPress reduces them there is no difference in the end?

Our Palm Gets Descaled

— Posted inOther — 1 min read
Palm tree

Our palm is 11 years old and has never been descaled, though the high winds on the past few weeks have had it descaling itself.

Closeup of tree

The reddish areas are where the scales have blow off.

Descaling

A utility knife makes quick work of the lowest section.

Bucket

To reach higher up a bucket is used for access while a machete is used to initially descale followed by a utility knife to trim up.

Scale pile

Clean trunk of our palm and the scale pile. Two more trees are being decaled in the background. So why is our palm so much taller than the neighbors? For several years we had a small unknown water leak near the palm and when palms get water they grow and grow.

Which Computer Hard Drive to Buy?

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read
SSD

I thought picking which replacement hard drive to buy to replace the failing HHD in my computer would be easy. Was I ever wrong. I had a few criteria I wanted to meet. I wanted to go with a solid state drive. I wanted at least 1TB and preferably 2TB’s due to all the photos and videos I take as well as the photo and video editing I do. I also wanted something that was of good quality and lastly, I wanted it to be easy to clone my failing drive and then install in my computer.

Since my computer is an older one, I decided I didn’t need the latest and greatest SSD, I just wanted one that did the job and had a decent life expectancy. I have a NAS on our network as well as a number of external hard drives I use for redundancy. We are highly invested in genealogy and family history and we don’t want to lose any of the decades of research we have done.

I deciding which SSD to buy I looked at the major review sites, the manufacturers sites, the major online retailer sites and my old standby, YouTube. Sifting through the reviews on the retailer sites it was clear to me that Samsung had the best ease of cloning. As to which one I picked, in the end I went with the 2TB 870 QVO. I liked how the review sites would write about how much better the more expensive EVO 870 was compared to the QVO 870, then down near the end of the article they would indicate that the typical user probably wouldn’t really notice much difference between the two. Time will tell if I made the right decision. It is interesting that Samsung had the same price as Amazon, while Best Buy was higher. Installation post hopefully coming in a few days.