Old laptop SSD upgrade.

[Oifish]

I have an old eMachine m6811. I've upgraded the RAM to PC3200 2GB. I want hoping to upgrade the hard drive as well, but finding a faster PATA HDD is difficult. So I'm thinking about this 64gb OCZ PATA SSD http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380237493355
Does any one know if this has issues with XP or this model laptop?
I know it's dumb that I'm spending money on such an old machine but it's just for running XBMC, surfing, and MS office.

 

[mmntech]

I don't think that upgrade is worth it. It would make more sense to up the money into a new laptop with a dual or quad core CPU.

The reason your HDD is so slow on it is because it's only 4200rpm. Those old drives were used in a lot of mid-2000s laptops to save power. My iBook G4 server has one. Unfortunately they're as slow as cold molasses. You can get 5400rpm if you can. They're about a third the price of that SSD for double the storage. There may even be some 7200rpm pata laptop drives still floating around.

 

[jaydee]

Normally, I love the idea of upgrading old machines with SSD's, because it's usually the only possible upgrade that you can bring forward to your next system. In this case though, PATA is a dead end. If the motherboard or cpu dies in a few weeks/months, you're pretty stuck (resale will not be good on a PATA SSD).

Also do we know who made the controller for this particular SSD? Unless its an Indilinx Barefoot, and you're really intent on keeping this laptop around for a few more years, I would also have to not recommend. I guess another scenario is, you have the money to spend, but really want to keep that old thing for some nostalgic reason?

 

[alkemyst]

I threw a Hitachi 160GB HM160MC into my wife's PIII 1.2GHz lappy and maxed the ram. It ran Office and surfed the web very snappy.