Laptops with SATA and wanting to put in SSD

[ballmode]

So I'd rather read your responses than talk to some Indian guy over the phone with Dell.

I was wondering since I've never actually handled a SSD drive before... if its possible to swap a SATA drive with a SSD? I have noticed that some notebooks offer the option to buy those SSD's for the laptop but they also sell SATA for them as well. I figured they didn't make two different chassis designs for each HDD but I could be wrong.


Thanks

 

[VinDSL]

Yeah, they're interchangeable, but I really don't understand the point of it...

I was lured into the idea of SSD being better than SATA II, but after checking into it, I decided I needed a 2.5" 7200 RPM HD instead - and boy, am I happy I made the right choice!

Windows Experience Index in Vista SP2 reports my TravelStar SATA II bandwidth as being 5.7 (out of a possible 5.9). Doesn't get much better than that!

SSD is great if you don't mind spending 100s of dollars on a small high-performance drive, but cheap SSD drives suck! Cheap 7200 RPM SATA II drives will run circles around cheap SSD drives! Modern SATA II drives use less power than SSD drives, have better performance, and store (typically) 10x the data, for the same price.

If you just have to satisfy the urge for SSD, go for it. Unless your Dell is an oddball, it should slip right in there, but I think you're gonna be disappointed with the result(s) if you buy a cheap SSD!

 

[Athena]

Windows Experience Index in Vista SP2 reports my TravelStar SATA II bandwidth as being 5.7 (out of a possible 5.9). Doesn't get much better than that![/quote]

FWIW, Vista reports 5.9 for my Samsung SSD. I really didn't have a preference when I bought the machine; this one had the combination of features I wanted so I went with the SSD too.

 

[corkyg]

As soon as Samusng's new 256GB SSD gets down under $400 (now about $700) - it will get my attention. In the meantime, my 7200 rpm 250GB WDC does the job nicely.

 

[ballmode]

Thanks guys, I currently have a 320gb 5400rpm, and maybe I should just upgrade to the 7200 rpm

 

[Athena]

Most notebooks today come with 5400rpm because they run cooler. Do you have performance problems with your existing disks? What exactly are you looking for?

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
Yeah, they're interchangeable, but I really don't understand the point of it...

I was lured into the idea of SSD being better than SATA II, but after checking into it, I decided I needed a 2.5" 7200 RPM HD instead - and boy, am I happy I made the right choice!

Windows Experience Index in Vista SP2 reports my TravelStar SATA II bandwidth as being 5.7 (out of a possible 5.9). Doesn't get much better than that!

SSD is great if you don't mind spending 100s of dollars on a small high-performance drive, but cheap SSD drives suck! Cheap 7200 RPM SATA II drives will run circles around cheap SSD drives! Modern SATA II drives use less power than SSD drives, have better performance, and store (typically) 10x the data, for the same price.

If you just have to satisfy the urge for SSD, go for it. Unless your Dell is an oddball, it should slip right in there, but I think you're gonna be disappointed with the result(s) if you buy a cheap SSD!

WTF are you talking about? Are you just talking out of your ass?

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Windows Experience Index in Vista SP2 reports my TravelStar SATA II bandwidth as being 5.7 (out of a possible 5.9). Doesn't get much better than that!

lol, people actually use that Windows Experience Index as a benchmark?

And I thought synthetic benchmarks were bad.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: MrX8503
lol, people actually use that Windows Experience Index as a benchmark? And I thought synthetic benchmarks were bad.

All generalizations are false - including this one.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Hacp
WTF are you talking about? Are you just talking out of your ass?

Yeah, maybe! I'm going on personal experience.

Here's the twist...

A (usually conservative) bud of mine was creaming himself tonight - couldn't hardly contain himself!

What's the story, you might ask???

He just replaced his Velocity Raptors (plural) with a single 64 GB OCZ Vertex SSD (W7 RC) and he was so excited I thought he was going to have a heart attack!

http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd (OCZ Vertex Web Page)

Sooo... yes, maybe I'm talking out my ass, but I assume most ppl in these forums buy bargain basement drives, hence my comment(s).

Maybe I'll go buy one of these OCZ Vertex SSD drives and give it a (ahem) whirl...

Yeah, I know it's a server drive - uses a little more power than my Travelstar 7K320, but who cares, as long as it performs like my friend says it does?!?!?

What do you SSD fanbois think?

Is this too much to spend? (10x the price of my 320 GB Travelstar)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820227442 (Newegg)

 

[postmortemIA]

Lol at HDD vista benchmark, dude it has obvious low cap, any drive with perhaps about 75MB/s sequential read will report 5.9 score on Windows Experience Index.

That does not mean that all such drives are same speed.