Question 1

Does this hard drive already have an operating system in it?  And what  OS does it have?

Accepted Answer

No, of course not. Hard drives and solid state drives, or ANY storage media, NEVER have any operating systems on them. At MOST it will have some type of ghosting program designed to make an exact copy of your current drive to copy over to this one. However, that is NOT to say all of them do.

Question 2

I have an SSD in my PC. Can I use the same SATA cables for this Samsung?

Accepted Answer

Yes, they should work. I used mine in several PCs with both SATA III and an older SATA II. Hopefully you have SATA III for max speed.
WE have Samsung C: drives in 2 laptops and two desktops. They are great. Their Magician software also kicks performance up.

Question 3

this ssd says it's vertical memory , my computer doesn't have vertical memory bays. it has horizontal 3.5" bays.  can I use this SSD horizontally with an adapter ?

Accepted Answer

Gary H, this SSD can be installed in any orientation, in a desktop or laptop as the part you were concerned about has to do with the chips inside the SSD. Samsung physically built this SSD to be more efficient, so feel free to read more below and install this awesome SSD in any computer you choose! Cheers!

3D V-NAND Technology

Samsung’s innovative 3D V-NAND flash memory architecture breaks through density, performance, and endurance limitations of today’s conventional planar NAND architecture. Samsung 3D V-NAND stacks 32 cell layers vertically resulting in higher density and better performance utilizing a smaller footprint.

Question 4

is this drive for a laptop or a desktop?

Accepted Answer

Either.  When installing in a desktop, you can buy a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch drive adapter for a few dollars so it fits more cleanly, or you can just let it hang by the cables.  Having the Operating System (OS) on an SSD really improves performance.  For my desktop, my OS is on an SSD and most of my data files are on large capacity 3.5 inch drives.  Replacing an existing OS drive with an SSD requires "cloning" the old drive to the new drive.  There are utilities to do that and you need the old OS partition to be small enough to fit on the new drive.  Buy the capacity you need that your budget allows, but the 250 GB drives may be the sweet spot for capacity and performance.  Cheers.

Question 5

Is it compatible with a sata II system?

Accepted Answer

It will run on Sata II. You won't get great performance, but improved over HDD. Also, if you do not have Sata III why not by the 840 model if still available for less?? Unless you plan to take this to SataIII on a new box as I did. I am running to 840s on SataII--one on a 10 year old Dell Pentium D. Don't forget to get an adapter for 2.5" if using a desktop.

Question 6

Does this come with any USB to SATA cables or cloning software?

Accepted Answer

This product does not come with any cables.  It does come with a CD that contains the Samsung Solid State Drive One-stop Install Navigator.  Documentation that comes with the drive indicates the One-Stop Install Navigator has a Data Migration component.  I have not used the software.

Question 7

I'm new to the whole SSD thing and I don't really know how to make things run faster because of it.  I was thinking you drag the program into the drive and it just runs faster but I may be terribly wrong.  Can someone please explain it to me?

Accepted Answer

Hello,

I'm not an expert first and foremost.  The SSD (solid state drive) is a storage device just like a normal hard drive.  The difference here is the upload and download speeds of the SSD verse the hard drive.   You can look at the specifications and see on newegg's website.

I don't know if you can drag the program off another drive to the SSD.  I've never tried to do that.  Let's just say you can drag the program into the SSD or you uninstall from your current drive and reinstall onto the SSD.  I would say that when using the program you should see increased performance but how much............... I wouldn't know.  It would make sense that you would.  You would definitely see a big difference if you transferred a large amount of data.

Hope this makes things a little more clear.  I recommend looking at the many videos newegg has.  I built my first desktop computer and viewed a newegg video that helped.  I also recommend Google.

Thanks Josh

Question 8

With brackets can I use this with my Sony desktop?

Accepted Answer

You really don't need brackets, many used Velcro to hold the SSD in place, or simply places it in an area like that were an extra optical drive may slide in (the power cable will keep it there). Being that my PC has two SSD's, as well as an mSATA, and a 500GB data drive, I place SSD's wherever. Just as long as it's going nowhere.

Question 9

I'm reading that it comes with a data transfer app. My question is will it clone windows 8. Acronis can't. So is this app limited like Acronis, or can it clone the drive it would be replacing?
My guess is it can't but you never know.

Accepted Answer

I had win7 home premium so I don't know. I want to say yes as it's win8 supported. I would recommend a fresh install. After I cloned I had to edit the registry quite a few times to get rid of feezes and blue screens. If your mobo supports ahci enable it. If you cloned, your os might not boot. It will likey crash like mine because, The cloned win7 was in ide from the old hdd. Edit the registy will force start both or ahci drivers on boot. Fixed boot issues. But noticed my pc was way quicker from a fresh install with the same software installed and junk moved back.

Question 10

Is a 6 Gbps SATA cable included with it?

Accepted Answer

No, neither is a 3.5 inch mounting bracket if you plan to use it in a 3.5 inch drive slot of a workstation.  Sata cables and mounting brackets are inexpensive.  A straight instead of a right angle Sata cable of appropriate length is a safe bet.

Questions & Answers