Here's the current status and HDD vs SSD comparison.
Ubuntu and the Grub dual-boot were removed from the HDD, then I cleaned up the partitions and defragged/optimised the drive using UltraDefrag portable. I then cloned the 500GB HDD to the 480GB SSD using Macrium Reflect (which took 5 hours including verification)
Installed the SSD and booted, and got an instant boot error, as I had before with the dual-boot. I rebooted using my Macrium Reflect recovery disk and fixed the boot problem on the SSD, and all was well. From what I have seen, the system is now fully working.
Comparative Performance:Samsung V350C laptop with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium
12GB RAM
500GB 5400rpm HDD
Intel i5-3210M processor at 2.5GHz
I think the laptop is about 6 years old.
I have a 32GB SDHC sitting in the reader slot and this creates a prompt to open it during the boot process. I also have a wireless mouse which is enabled at some point during the boot process.
I use the Comodo Firewall and I have a suspicion that this is creating a delay in the start-up process, so I looked at how long after boot before I could open Comodo.
Milestone | HDD | SSD
Windows logon | 70s | 16s
Mouse activation | 300s | 40s
SDHC prompt | 360s | 46s
Open Comodo | 550s | 58s (Yes, almost 10 minutes for the HDD!)
Shutdown | 23s | 21s
All times are from hitting the power key.
So, a very worthwhile improvement. With the HDD, I was thinking of disabling Comodo to see if that improved the very long start-up, but I won't bother now, I'm more than happy with a 60s boot time.
I have not timed applications, but everything is certainly a lot snappier, and I think even opening a web page has a bit more zip to it. Certainly the Windows 10 and Ubuntu Virtual Machines in Oracle VirtualBox are a
lot quicker in all respects.
It's still not as lively as Ubuntu using the SSD. Now that was quick! I'll let things settle down, and backup the current configuration, then perhaps implement dual boot again, perhaps using Linux Mint which I feel I prefer to Ubuntu (though I have not looked at the latest Ubuntu.
I'm more than pleased with the £66 investment, so many thanks to Itsallaguess for highlighting it.
--kiloran