AJWhite1970 Posted June 2, 2019 Posted June 2, 2019 We got a 10m reel of Velcro from our local dressmakers shop for less than £10 and have used it on hundreds of HDD to SSD conversions without any issues. Have also always used the original SATA cables. Would always recommend SSD first and then RAM second as an upgrade path when budgets are tight (but stay away from 64GB SSD’s as they are very tight for free space once Windows, Office, Adobe are installed plus local profiles...)
FN-GM Posted June 2, 2019 Posted June 2, 2019 Why bodge it when you can buy the brackets for just over a quid each? 1
AJWhite1970 Posted June 2, 2019 Posted June 2, 2019 £600 vs £10 when budgets were already very tight on the upgrade project 1
DrBeaker Posted June 2, 2019 Author Posted June 2, 2019 Why bodge it when you can buy the brackets for just over a quid each? What supplier are you using for those? I use the Kingston SSD brackets as I've found they seem to fit every case I've worked on so far. £600 vs £10 when budgets were already very tight on the upgrade project That's the saying "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right" Personally I'd sooner make sure they fit and are mounted properly so it doesn't cause my any problems down the road. But everyone's different. It might save me a few quid upfront but cause problems later on.
3s-gtech Posted June 2, 2019 Posted June 2, 2019 Never had an issue with a loose mounted SSD in a PC. Obviously in a laptop it needs to be secured. Don’t over think it - if you really want the work and cost of mounting them all on brackets do so, but it won’t affect normal use. You can usually pop a single screw into the SSD from the case if you want to compromise.
DrBeaker Posted June 2, 2019 Author Posted June 2, 2019 Never had an issue with a loose mounted SSD in a PC. Obviously in a laptop it needs to be secured. Don’t over think it - if you really want the work and cost of mounting them all on brackets do so, but it won’t affect normal use. You can usually pop a single screw into the SSD from the case if you want to compromise. We've had some in the past where we suspected the loose-hanging SSD bracket may have shorted out some units. It just made me a bit more weary. My own office PC didn't have a case on for over 6x months, so mine I'm not so worried about
FN-GM Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 What supplier are you using for those? I use the Kingston SSD brackets as I've found they seem to fit every case I've worked on so far. eBay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-to-3-5-Adapter-Bracket-SSD-HDD-Notebook-Mounting-Tray-Caddy-Bay-Post-New/391963073673?epid=21014595044&hash=item5b42d1dc89:g:ysUAAOSwryBaXqnm
FN-GM Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 £600 vs £10 when budgets were already very tight on the upgrade project I still can't see that as a justification for cutting corners. 1
localzuk Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 We got a 10m reel of Velcro from our local dressmakers shop for less than £10 and have used it on hundreds of HDD to SSD conversions without any issues. Have also always used the original SATA cables. Would always recommend SSD first and then RAM second as an upgrade path when budgets are tight (but stay away from 64GB SSD’s as they are very tight for free space once Windows, Office, Adobe are installed plus local profiles...) Yup. This is how we did it too - we've got a good 150 devices with SSD's held in place with velcro. No moving parts, nothing to go wrong.
HTCPCP Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 I've used velcro before - it does the job, and not only is it quicker, it's also considerably cheaper. Same way, I've put a couple of screws to hold in an SSD before now on builds and even screwed them into front drive bays. If it was a side windowed PC, with perfectly neat cabling, then, yes I would use a bracket. Similarly, old fashioned mechanincal drives are ones that I would use brackets for. But SSDs don't weigh very much, and have no moving parts, so why over engineer it? Use some of the money saved for an electric screwdriver if you haven't got one already and save getting RSI too.
AlanD Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 I agree, Ssd will be better than more ram. Although 2gb doesn’t work well with win10... I am concerned that you might not be doing yourself...or the school...any favours by propping up these 2nd gen i3 PCs. These are 10 years old. Even with lots of ram and a fast Ssd they are going to beep slow. Painfully slow. Slow enough to put off students and teachers from using them. Yes, faster than before installing the Ssd...a lot faster...15mph is a lot faster than walking at 3mph...but it’s still slow compared to 150mph that you would get with a current generation device. You will get the blame when these are still in use 3 years from now. There is money for stuff in schools..lots of it ...despite what they would have you believe, but they often choose to spend it differently...and you need to make sure the SMT understand that what you are offering to do with SSDs is not a long term solution...they still need to budget for replacements. 1
sonofsanta Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Eh, we have 2nd Gen i3's with 8GB RAM and SSDs in and they're fine. I mean, we are replacing them this summer, but only on the basis of "they're 7 years old and living on borrowed time", and these are the main IT suites, but honestly I wouldn't have an issue with sticking them in an office somewhere. New PCs are in no way 10x faster than these ones; for most tasks, tbh, there's no difference at all. CPUs haven't progressed that much considering the time difference, and most people never push a CPU anyway. Plus you'll upgrade way more PCs with SSDs for your money than you'll replace outright. We did this back in 2013--skipped replacing old machines to upgrade loads more to SSDs. We've been fully SSD since about 2014 and it makes so much difference. Plus, if you ask nicely, Stone, Novatech and VeryPC will all quote you replacement PCs on the basis of you sending in your own SSDs harvested from the machines you're replacing--so buy them now, and when you come to replace you can re-use the SSD anyway, so no money wasted at all 1
localzuk Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Just to put this out there - the i3-2100 gets around 3700 Passmark CPU score, vs 8000 ish for the i3-8100. So, realistically its only about double the speed. I only just upgraded my personal i5-2550k in the last month, and that was capable of playing any modern game I threw at it. So, I would say that a 2nd gen i3 is still perfectly capable for general office type use. We are still using third gen devices all across the Trust without issue.
3s-gtech Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Speed is dependant n the workload. For running Office and Web browsing, a Sandy Bridge i3 is more than sufficient. If you’re doing heavy PS and rendering work, perhaps not. I’m still rocking mostly C2Ds here. Lots of RAM, SSDs in all, no worries. I don’t get complaints about the speed.
Ditto Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Just to put this out there - the i3-2100 gets around 3700 Passmark CPU score, vs 8000 ish for the i3-8100. So, realistically its only about double the speed. I only just upgraded my personal i5-2550k in the last month, and that was capable of playing any modern game I threw at it. So, I would say that a 2nd gen i3 is still perfectly capable for general office type use. We are still using third gen devices all across the Trust without issue. I tend to agree. That generation of chip was a significant lift, but since then, the change feels more incremental. I find the i3's are a little stretched sometimes, but the i5 more than adequate. My kids PC's run well enough on i5's, but got talked in to upgrading to i7-2600 recently. Next step is SSD which I know will make a good difference to game load times. I just need to Google the process as these are the Win 10 free upgrades (digital licence?), but I fancy a clean install so need to check the steps. 1
DrBeaker Posted June 3, 2019 Author Posted June 3, 2019 I tend to agree. That generation of chip was a significant lift, but since then, the change feels more incremental. I find the i3's are a little stretched sometimes, but the i5 more than adequate. My kids PC's run well enough on i5's, but got talked in to upgrading to i7-2600 recently. Next step is SSD which I know will make a good difference to game load times. I just need to Google the process as these are the Win 10 free upgrades (digital licence?), but I fancy a clean install so need to check the steps. I've got an i5-3210M in my laptop. Laptop is over 6x years old, still runs fine (touch wood) Everytime I've looked at newer ones for the money I can't find a decent power-£ ratio and the newer i5's look far weaker by comparison. The older CPUs have the raw power the newer ones don't seem to get near. 1
Ditto Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Agreed. My 'travel' laptop is an Lenovo i7 x220. I imported 2nd hand from Belgium and replaced the keyboard. It's a good few few years old but it's probably the slickest device I have! I have bought an IPS screen, which I haven't got around replacing yet, to give it a little extra sparkle. I ended up getting a second one which my sons uses at school (due to mild dyslexia) and slowly he and the staff have realised just how well it does it's job. One of his friends is now thinking of getting something similar for home use.
Oaktech Posted June 4, 2019 Posted June 4, 2019 I've just replaced 4 Pentium G series Novatech's with Lenovo M58p 3.1ghz C2D with 4GB Ram and SSD and 1803. We got the PCs donated! The staff are absolutely wowed by them. They build off SCCM in about 20 minutes, and sure, they're power hungry compared to a newer PC, but as we already run electric heating, it's but a drop in the ocean to our electricity bill! SSD Every time. 1
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