Switch to SSD without reinstalling everything
Kingston recently held a press event in Sandton to demonstrate the impact of switching from a typical mechanical spinning hard disk drive to one of their solid state drives (SSD).
The memory company didn’t just show off how fast SSD technology is, but also how to use their SSDnow upgrade kits.
These kits aim to make switching out your old hard drive for a Kingston solid state disk as painless as possible. Essentially it aims to save you the trouble of reinstalling your operating system and programs from scratch.
The kit comes bundled with Acronis True Image backup and disk imaging software. A user who is technically minded enough to be performing a physical hard drive swap out themselves, should have no trouble coming to grips with the slightly technical features of the Acronis software.
As long as one’s current hard drive has less data on it than the maximum capacity of the SSD one is upgrading to, the cloning procedure is usually quite automated. Acronis does have a manual mode for those who want (or need) more control over the process.
Once the used space on one’s current mechanical hard drive has been reduced to below the maximum capacity of the SSD upgrade, the machine can be powered down and the blank SSD installed.
Upgrade kits also contain an external drive enclosure. This is essential to the upgrade, but also useful thereafter to turn one’s previous mechanical drive into an external USB drive.
The original drive goes in to the enclosure whilst the blank SSD should be installed in the machine. It’s advised that one should unplug their PC from power, and in the case of a notebook, remove the battery.
With the hardware ready it’s time to boot Acronis from the CD included in the upgrade kit.
When Acronis has loaded, the cloning of the original drive can begin, connected through USB, to the SSD installed in the machine. Depending on the size, type, and contents of the drives this can take from half an hour to a few hours.
Should the cloning procedure complete successfully the external drive may be disconnected and the machine restarted to test booting from the newly installed SSD.
If one is upgrading from a spinning magnetic disk to a solid-state drive, there should be an immediately noticeable difference in bootup speed. In some cases however, Windows took a long time to boot when first started after the upgrade, but was faster on subsequent boots.
Kingston have supplied the following manufacturer suggested retail pricing for their solid-state drives and kits.
| Kingston SSDNow V100 Solid-State Drives | |
|---|---|
| Capacity and features | MSRP |
| 64GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 1 325 |
| 128GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 2 520 |
| 256GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 5 639 |
| 64GB 2.5″ SATA SSD desktop upgrade kit | R 1 499 |
| 128GB 2.5″ SATA SSD desktop upgrade kit | R 2 650 |
| 256GB 2.5″ SATA SSD desktop upgrade kit | R 5 799 |
| 64GB 2.5″ SATA SSD notebook upgrade kit | R 1 499 |
| 128GB 2.5″ SATA SSD notebook upgrade kit | R 2 650 |
| 256GB 2.5″ SATA SSD notebook upgrade kit | R 5 799 |
| Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 Solid-State Drives | |
|---|---|
| Capacity and features | MSRP |
| 64GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 1 725 |
| 96GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 2 129 |
| 128GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 3 029 |
| 256GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 6 899 |
| 512GB 2.5″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 14 599 |
| 64GB 2.5″ SATA SSD complete bundle | R 1 850 |
| 96GB 2.5″ SATA SSD complete bundle | R 2 350 |
| 128GB 2.5″ SATA SSD complete bundle | R 3 150 |
| 256GB 2.5″ SATA SSD complete bundle | R 6 999 |
| 512GB 2.5″ SATA SSD complete bundle | R 14 999 |
| Kingston SSDNow V+ 180 Solid-State Drives | |
|---|---|
| Capacity and features | MSRP |
| 64GB 1.8″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 1 749 |
| 128GB 1.8″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 2 999 |
| 256GB 1.8″ SATA stand-alone SSD | R 7 099 |
SSD upgrade without the reinstall << Would you use a feature like Acronis?
MyBroadband thanks Kingston for providing us with a 128GB SSDnow V+100 upgrade kit to test.
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