Which Computer Hard Drive to Buy?

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.

No Pride of Workmanship

This post shows two of the worst problems with our recent fence installation.

gate bottom

The chain link extends down so far beyond the bottom rail of the gate into the pergola area that it drags on the patio after only opening this far. The frame of the gate has a terrible welding job and it is not square. The installers obvious never tried to open the gate to this side after installing it, or they just didn’t care if it didn’t open all the way.

top of outside gate

This is the gate into our side yard. It was installed upside down. Those sharp ends should not stick up above the rail.

This is the gate into our neighbors side yard, and is only a few feet away from our gate. This is the way the chain link should terminate at the top of the gate. There are other more minor problems in other areas of our installation. They are coming out in a few days to inspect it. Once it is fixed to our satisfaction they will be paid for the installation. I hope they realize the degree needed to satisfy my wife is very, very high.

HDD Imminent Failure

Having the above warning show up on the monitor of my HP Envy 27 Recline K350 all-in-one computer, it was time to see how easy it would be to replace the HHD. My first stop was to that greatest of all how to fix something websites, YouTube. After watching a few videos I knew where the HDD was located and how to remove it.

Computer

The computer laid out on cloth pads on the kitchen counter. The back cover has been remove revealing where the HDD and RAM are located. (I’ve already removed the hard drive cage).

closeup

The RAM is located in the left side compartment. The arrow points to the button that was depressed to release the hard drive cage on the right side. Sliding the cage to the left allowed it to be be removed. It took some force to slide it, but there is a stop so it can’t hit the RAM compartment.

HDD

Four screws hold the hard drive in the cage. The Seagate 1 TB spinning HD exposed. I wanted to be sure exactly what the existing HDD was which was why I removed it. With the price of Solid State Drives being so low and their speeds being so fast I decided that was only way to go with a replacement. I will do a future post on what my research will uncover about the best SSD to buy for my needs.

Adding a Chain Link Fence