DanHamilton Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Just a couple of SSD's Anyone else putting SSD's in the PC's at their school computers? - We buy a bunch every time there is a deal. - Eventually upgrading the entire school.
NokiX Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 I wish we would/could but frankly a lot of our hardware is poor and an SSD won't really help much! That said the hardware that can benefit from it we try and upgrade where possible but we don't have anywhere near that amount! We would however like to know where you got them from since we may buy some next time a good deal is available!
synaesthesia Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Ooooh I feel sorry for you. That plastic packaging! We had 100 of the Kingstons in a few months ago. We have another 50 or so turned up today, and in easy to open (with your bare hands!) cardboard packaging! Bliss! And whilst 120gb drives are £30 each (and slightly less with most suppliers) it's a good time to do it.
Arthur Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Almost all of our PCs have SSDs, although the only photo I can find is the following. We mostly buy Samsung 850 EVOs now. http://vgy.me/Tsmz1d.jpg
Steve21 Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Still debating what way to go with ours. A lot of ours still have 2GB RAM etc (2x 1GB stick to be annoying), so not sure if the cost of SDD/Mounts/RAM + our time would make sense still upgrading them if you can get nice shiny refurbs etc for not much more How do people find Core2Duos with 4GB/SSD compared to new i5 with normal HDDs? Steve 1
achedgy Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 I've got a lot of old core 2 duos, with 2gb of ram and a 120gb SSD, work really nicely. Personally I would rather have a core 2 duo with an SSD than a i5 with a HDD. An SSD makes a huge difference to performance, even on very old kit. Given new leases of life to a lot of kit that was just going to be thrown.. I'm upgrading far more than replacing these days... 2
Steve21 Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 I've got a lot of old core 2 duos, with 2gb of ram and a 120gb SSD, work really nicely. Personally I would rather have a core 2 duo with an SSD than a i5 with a HDD. An SSD makes a huge difference to performance, even on very old kit. Given new leases of life to a lot of kit that was just going to be thrown.. I'm upgrading far more than replacing these days... That's good to hear Wondering whether it makes more sense to get 1 suite of shiny refurbs with nice spec (Comp Sci lab), and then just upgrade the rest and use the saved wonga on network aspects (switches etc, seeing still most 100mb) Steve
3s-gtech Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 We did it over the last few years - new machines would have them as they were bought, then we started to roll them out to existing stock. We finished this year, with around 1000 machines done. Best thing we've done - our oldest Core 2 Duos with 4GB RAM are absolutely fine now.
DanHamilton Posted December 11, 2015 Author Posted December 11, 2015 Almost all of our PCs have SSDs, although the only photo I can find is the following. We mostly buy Samsung 850 EVOs now. http://vgy.me/Tsmz1d.jpg Damn nice. Samsung drives are very reliable. Instead of replacing an entire IT suite with new computers we just replaced the hard drives with SSD's and the performance increase is fantastic. Boot time, Photoshop and everything is much better. We actually didn't tell the students and let them go on the computers and we had lots of them asking why the computers are so fast SSD's are definitely the cheapest way to go about getting a performance boost.
sonofsanta Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 We're all SSD all over now C2D with SSD is better for most people than i5 with HDD. Video editing, maybe the i5, but for internet & Office, go C2D + SSD, much quicker subjectively and powerful enough for what you're asking it. 2GB RAM isn't even as limiting once you have an SSD, because the speed penalty for hitting the virtual memory is so much less painful on an SSD than on a HDD. If it's got a SATA port, put an SSD in it. The only debate you should be having is how many you can afford right now. 2
DanHamilton Posted December 11, 2015 Author Posted December 11, 2015 We're all SSD all over now C2D with SSD is better for most people than i5 with HDD. Video editing, maybe the i5, but for internet & Office, go C2D + SSD, much quicker subjectively and powerful enough for what you're asking it. 2GB RAM isn't even as limiting once you have an SSD, because the speed penalty for hitting the virtual memory is so much less painful on an SSD than on a HDD. If it's got a SATA port, put an SSD in it. The only debate you should be having is how many you can afford right now. "The only debate you should be having is how many you can afford right now." - I like this. That's it, I'm buying some SSDs. Look out for deals, eBuyer run lots of deals and Amazon dip their prices often 120gb is the perfect size too, 240 is too much and 60 just isn't enough. 1
Steve21 Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 That's it, I'm buying some SSDs. Until April 0 haha Steve
googlemad Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 I love SSDs and have been a long term supporter, obviously I got one first in my office PC for 'testing' (Back then, £130 for 128GB!) Annoyingly we bought about 100 new media PCs around 3 years ago which only have 64GB SSDs and obviously struggle for space which need swapping for 128GB, sadly at the time too expensive!
Dos_Box Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Nice, I've just brought one of those Patriot 120GB drives to ressurect an old socket 775 media pc. £30 From Amazon was too good an offer to turn down and it seems to be performing rather well
Dos_Box Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) Just remember folks, when SSD's eventually do die (although the lifespan is getting much better now) you get little or no warning, so be warned for those on staff laptops and kit where users files may be stored locally. Edited December 11, 2015 by Dos_Box
jamin100 Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 We're just about all SSDs here now. Money is that tight I'm buying refurb machines (Dell C2D, 4GB RAM) for £50 and adding a £35 120GB SSD The machines are a drastic improvement to what's being replaced - look brand new too
Steve21 Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 We're just about all SSDs here now. Money is that tight I'm buying refurb machines (Dell C2D, 4GB RAM) for £50 and adding a £35 120GB SSD The machines are a drastic improvement to what's being replaced - look brand new too Where you getting them that cheap at £50? Steve
jmak Posted December 11, 2015 Posted December 11, 2015 Where you getting them that cheap at £50? Steve This! I think I'm going to be cornered into having iPads for teachers, so I'm going to need to find savings somewhere....
markwilfan Posted December 13, 2015 Posted December 13, 2015 We trialled about 20 Kingston v300 128gb and 20 ocz arc 120gb drives and as everyone has said even c2d pcs are amazong for the average user. Be wary of the cheap drives though. The v300 drives have a bait and switch problem http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews The ocz trion are basically cheap toshiba drives with ocz packaging. You could argue for the price it doesn't matter but I prefer to get bang for buck with public money and the Samsung evo seems the best for performance/price/reliability at the moment. You can get the 250gb on amazon at the moment for about 50 quid ex vat, they come with a 5 year warranty and are rated at 75tb total writes. With this in mind we are buying the ssds now, popping them in old pcs and will just switcheroo them when new hardware is bought. 45 arriving next week yay
3s-gtech Posted December 13, 2015 Posted December 13, 2015 I only buy Samsung EVOs now but we have a real mix of brands, including over a hundred post-switch V300s. They were cheap, and the speed loss didn't matter in SATA 2 equipped machines. Reliability wise, the only failures we've had were a few Crucial M4s but it seems they were a poor batch as we have hundreds more that are fine.
nikaso Posted December 14, 2015 Posted December 14, 2015 I've been doing SSD as the cheap 'refresh' option for a few years, I try and then use the 'refresh' budget to get other needed improvements such as new switches etc. but my concern is the SLT will hear/see 'oh, you refreshed 200 PCs for only £40 each instead of £300? Excellent, we'll reduce your budget, good job.' 1
Steve21 Posted December 14, 2015 Posted December 14, 2015 I've been doing SSD as the cheap 'refresh' option for a few years, I try and then use the 'refresh' budget to get other needed improvements such as new switches etc. but my concern is the SLT will hear/see 'oh, you refreshed 200 PCs for only £40 each instead of £300? Excellent, we'll reduce your budget, good job.' "Temporary Upgrades" until they're replaced is the phrase Steve 2
Novalee Posted December 14, 2015 Posted December 14, 2015 I can't believe the difference SSD's has made to our old kit. They're like new machines...!
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