Laptop Bore: Upgrading To SSD/Cloning HDD?

[bork]

I'd like to upgrade to a solid state drive and was considering a 128GB Samsung SSD Laptop Kit with Norton Ghost 15 from Amazon.

One of the user reviews states that Norton Ghost will not copy over the recovery partition when cloning the HDD to the SSD, however he was not using the same laptop as I am.

Is this accurate, or will Norton Ghost not properly clone my current HDD?

Basically I'm just wondering how the process of switching over to an SSD works...is there anything more than cloning to the SSD and installing it into my laptop, or will anything else need to be done in the BIOS?

I don't have a recovery CD available.

[Van Cruncheon]

nope, should work, although you probably oughtta reinstall the mobo drivers and any hd cache support drivers

[bork]

Cool, thanks- I'd like to clone the drive to the SSD and then wipe it and start over with a non-bloatware minimum install image anyway...

[bork]

Do you think it's definitely worth the upgrade?  Will anything be noticeably faster besides start up boot times?  I don't game too much on this thing.

[Pringo]

Do you think it's definitely worth the upgrade?  Will anything be noticeably faster besides start up boot times?  I don't game too much on this thing.

Outside of boot times SSDs tend to just make everything a lot snappier (no bits of lag when opening a folder or a new program, less time stuck looking at splash screens, etc.) Considering you can get a good quality SSD for around $100 these days I'd say they're definitely worth it unless you're really strapped for cash.

[bork]

I think for me it's going from a 320GB HDD to a 128GB SSD that's a concern...larger SSDs are pricier.  I have a 1TB external drive for back-ups and saving crap though.

[Pringo]

I think for me it's going from a 320GB HDD to a 128GB SSD that's a concern...larger SSDs are pricier.  I have a 1TB external drive from back-ups and saving crap though.

Yeah, I have the SSD on my desktop where I also have a few TBs worth of HDDs for media so that's not really a problem for me. Is it possible to have both drives in the notebook so you can use the 320 as a media drive and the SSD for the OS and programs? I've heard of a lot of people modding Macbook Pros and the like where they take out the optical drive for using it as another drive slot. Otherwise you may just have to decide if you're fine storing a lot of your media on the external or not.

[bork]

I think for me it's going from a 320GB HDD to a 128GB SSD that's a concern...larger SSDs are pricier.  I have a 1TB external drive from back-ups and saving crap though.

Yeah, I have the SSD on my desktop where I also have a few TBs worth of HDDs for media so that's not really a problem for me. Is it possible to have both drives in the notebook so you can use the 320 as a media drive and the SSD for the OS and programs? I've heard of a lot of people modding Macbook Pros and the like where they take out the optical drive for using it as another drive slot. Otherwise you may just have to decide if you're fine storing a lot of your media on the external or not.

Don't believe so- I have an 11.6" HP DM1Z that's netbook-size and I'm pretty sure there's no extra space for a second drive available.  The benefits to having an SSD certainly make it look very attractive.  I could just wait a bit and get a 256GB SSD, but that's getting up there.  The 500GB SSD I saw costs more than the laptop did.