Thinking about another SSD

[Beerislife]

Right now I have a Crucial MX500 500Gb SSD fitted in my Thinkpad Edge 14. I've been thinking of replacing it with a WD Blue 1Tb and giving to MX500 to the boss! I just had another thought though! What if I bought myself a 120Gb Crucial BX500 just for KDE Neon and use my external pocket size 2Tb hard disk formatted as /home for my data files. That way, I can just unplug the drive if there's an emergency or go on holiday an all my data will be with me or in a safe place until I get back!

The BX is on;y slightly slower than the MX series and it's a good size just for the OS!

Am I mad?

[GreyGeek]

The only change I'd suggest is in the size of the drive -- 250GB or bigger, instead of 128GB. (For me, the 70GB of pictures I had on my iPhone which I moved to my Kubuntu Focal increased my backup requirements to 140GB.)

Four things made significant improvements in the speed of operation of my 2012 Acer Aspire 17" laptop:
1) Replacing my 30 Mbps Copper wire Internet connection with a 300 Mbps Fiber Optic
2) Replacing my /dev/sda spinner with a 500GB SSD, and adding a 2nd for backup. My spinner now sets in an HDCaddy which replaced my CDROM, but it has 16 bad sectors and is probably on its way to the bit bucket in the sky.
3) Taking advantage of Nvidia's improved support for my GT 650M and making it my primary GPU
4) Running Kubuntu 20.04 , which is considerably faster than previous releases due to improvements in Plasma's speed and footprint.

IF I had to add a 5th reason it would be systemd.

[jlittle]

... use my external pocket size 2Tb hard disk formatted as /home for my data files...

If you have /home on an external drive, you can't log in without it. I suggest /home itself internally, with sym links to the external drive for directories with those important bulky files.

[Beerislife]

Scratch that, I was doing some reading of benchmarks and lifespan between the BX and MX series and the MX is the clear winner. The price difference between a 250Gb and 500Gb is so small it hardly makes sense going with the smaller drive. I'll just get another MX500 500Gb for the boss and carry on as usual. It's not worth getting a 1Tb drive because I have 3Tb of 3.5" external hard drive and the 2Tb pocket size 2.5" external. I will back up my files and /home config files and repartition my own SSD though. I'm not satisfied with the current setup.

I wish I could afford a desktop PC with a better graphics card (for Flightgear) but alas, I've been stuck using the Thinkpad since my desktop died. I can't justify buying a new or refurbished machine just for that!

Let's see how thing turn out in the next few days. I'm about to lose quite a bit of money if we decide to cancel our Cambodia trip scheduled for next Friday. Damn this Coronavirus, I was looking forward to going for the first time!

[Beerislife]

In the end I got anther MX500 500Gb. I just backed up her /home partition and when I get time I'll take out her HDD and replace it with the SSD and mount the HDD in a USB3 case I bought and use it as a backup disk. I'll do an install of Kubuntu 18.04 LTS and upgrade it to 20.04 LTS when it's released in April.

[Beerislife]

And Now thinking about another one!

Funny, in the nearly 10 years I've had my Lenovo 0578CTO ThinkPad Edge 14, I never knew it had a mini PCI-Express slot under a cover on the underside. I always wondered what that cover was for.

So, it got me thinking, how about a smallish mini PCI-Express SSD, say about 128Gb to use as a system disk and delete the system from, and expand the Crucial MX500 to contain only files!

128Gb is not terribly expensive!

https://is.gd/wjdeM2

[oshunluvr]

You might want to verify that connector and it's specs before you pull the trigger. You said "mini PCIe" then posted a link to a mSATA drive. They look the same but are not pin compatible.

https://superuser.com/questions/6889...faces-and-ssds

[claydoh]

Do make sure that slot actually supports drives, and is not just for 'readyboost'. If it is like a few older Dell latitudes I have had, they very likely don't.

[Beerislife]

I just downloaded the manual and the slot will take a wireless WAN card or an M.2 SSD.

I'm guessing this:

https://is.gd/xd6Bcw

I need to to insert a screw to hold the Crucial SSD in place. It was missing from the hard drive and I didn't have one at hand! They must have forgotten to put one in! It'll have to wait until Thursday then I can also check the pins in the Mini PCI-e slot!

[jlittle]

I need to to insert a screw to hold the Crucial SSD in place.

Double-sided tape has been used...

I was organizing a pile of e-waste today. There was a dead laptop in there, and I scavenged every screw I could find in it.

[Beerislife]

I've got lots of screws from the three desktop computers I've built in the past. They are in a bag somewhere up in the loft! I always scavenge bits and pieces that might come in handy one day. This obviously does not please the boss!