Any thoughts on these Samsung 2TB SSD drives?

Samsung 850 Evo, 2TB:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-I...eywords=2tb+ssd

Samsung 850 Pro, 2TB:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-S...eywords=2tb+ssd

I'm happy with my 1TB 840 Evo that I've got in my laptop right now, but baby needs a bigger backyard. Thinking of ordering the 2TB 850 Evo. Wondering if I will notice anything better if I choose the more expensive "Pro" version instead. Any thoughts/opinions on speed, reliability, etc.?

Note: Price is only the most minor of factors. I am one of those people who is willing to pay for extra performance, reliability, convenience, or features. I still take price into account a little bit, but not as much as most people would. I'm more interested in knowing things like, is the performance difference negligible, is there something else better out there, is there a reliability concern, that sort of thing.

Also, anyone have any idea if something like this is useful or reliable?

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Driv...BHB877HXZBR1JNV

My existing 1TB drive could become external storage or backup if I replaced it. Wondering if a simple cheap cable like this would be enough or if I should get something fancier.

I have something similar that came packaged with a crucial ssd I had purchased. They work fine to connect bare drives as long as the drive doesn't need more power than can be supplied.

Add:
There are also gadgets like this that will connect just about any IDE or SATA drive.

I have 3 of those in the office, for various purposes, and never failed on any SSD or MEchanical disc. The latter fact is relevant, I think, because it means they can reliably supply enough power for any SSD.

Also, I had them used to re-image tens of machines - so, sustained, prolonged data transfer sessions - and they never failed either.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9451/the-2tb-samsung-850-pro-evo-ssd-review

The Pro has 2X the endurance and 2X the warranty, due to MLC vs TLC NAND.

Everything else is pretty similar. Dunno about powerfail capacitors (?)

Excellent. That settles it, I'm going for the EVO because the performance/endurance increase is so minor for the Pro. And I'll also pick up one of those cables.

Thanks!

Now, follow up question....

When I get the new drive in...

In the past I always bare-metal formatted the computer, installed the OS+Apps, and restored my backed up user data.

I could do this again, but I want to save time this time. So I want to try a cloning utility to get the upgrade to the new drive done quickly. It's been a while since I've used one. Anyone got recommendations on Windows cloners?

Web searches are telling me to use either...
Macrium Reflect Free: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx or...
EaseUs ToDo Backup Free: http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm

Any opinions on those, or others?

I like the question! I, too, generally start from scratch. Would love a better way...

-jk

Does Samsung provide disc migration software?

They might, indeed. Dunno if it'd be any better or worse than other packages out there.

I've used Acronis TrueImage the last couple of times I've cloned a Windows installation.

I used Clonezilla when I did my Linux desktop.

I think Acronis Trueimage is really good. It's being used in the office on a regular basis on desktops and laptops.

I also have used TrueImage with good success. I'm pretty sure the drive comes with some cloning software that works fine on Windows also.

All the Samsung drives I've purchased have come with migration software. It's actually pretty good. It'll only work with with Samsung drives, though. It also only migrates discs of equal or smaller sizes. This can get very strict, and I've had problems even after shrinking source partitions. But that shouldn't be a problem with a 2TB SSD for most people...

Hmm. I purchased Acronis True Image and it's taking 15-18 hours to clone the drive over that USB3 cable (and this is with the system rebooted into Acronis). Whereas backing up the computers data files (the bulk of the contents except the os) onto a usb3 Winchester sata drive *while I was using the computer* took only a couple hours yesterday.

So I think there is something wrong with the drive, the cable, or Acronis.

Maybe I should have just used the Samsung software that came with the drive.

The speed difference makes it sound like something isn't running at USB 3 speeds. Perhaps a missing driver in the Acronis boot environment leading to USB2 fallback kicking in.

That was also my suspicion. If Acronis had a "live" clone mode where it could clone while windows was running, then it wouldn't have had this problem. Unfortunately, it didn't offer me that choice. When I told it to clone the drive, it said that I *must* reboot the computer into its PXE environment in order to complete the process.

When I woke up this morning, Acronis still said 14 hours to go, so I canceled the process. If its PXE can't handle a common years-old Intel USB3 chipset, screw it.

A quick experiment with the Samsung bundled cloning software showed that:
- It will do the job "live" while Windows is running (after giving you a message that you should leave your files closed while it runs).
- It proceeded much faster, predicting a completion in just a couple hours.

I didn't have time to let it run to completion, so I don't know how successful it would have been at making a truly bootable drive in the process. When I get back home and have some time I'll give it a shot.

I've used it about a dozen times and I can tell you that it finishes rather quickly and always boots for me afterwards. I know it seems pretty basic, but it works.

My first attempt failed with an error saying that it wasn't able to make the clone because it had an error opening files. So it suggested I turn off security software and such. Will try again tonight.

Second attempt, with AV disabled and making sure all my startup apps were closed, seems to have worked well. System booted right up into the new drive. Looks all normal to me. Awesome!

Ah yes, I'm sorry I forgot that I've gotten that error before. It usually works on the second attempt for me too. Glad to hear it!