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Replace laptop HDD w/SSD?

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Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
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I have a older Dell 6000 laptop with a puny 40gb HDD... I was curious about how feasable it would be to just dump the HDD and go to a SSD. I'm not very savvy on laptops, how hard would it be to swap the drive?

It currently has a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 40gb drive.
 
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ther00kie16

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2008
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Umm... it's $107 for a 64gb PATA ssd (superbiiz). Why bother with a P-M & 512mb of ram though? With a good deal, you could get a netbook for just a little more. Or maybe one of those $250 laptop deals or refurb from Dell.

If you really want to revitalize that laptop, maybe a $35 refurb 7200rpm 160gb drive from amazon and $30 for 2x512mb but don't spend $100 on solely an ssd.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
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Charlie98 said:
I have a older Dell 6000 laptop with a puny 40gb HDD... I was curious about how feasable it would be to just dump the HDD and go to a SSD. I'm not very savvy on laptops, how hard would it be to swap the drive?

It currently has a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 40gb drive.
Click to expand...

With something that old, it doesn't make sense to spend a few hundred on a drive, when new laptops cost that much and offer more performance than what you have now. You're best bet is to upgrade to a Seagate Momentus XT, hybrid SSD Hard Drive. You get 500GB and 99% of the performance of your typical SSD. In somebenchmarks, the Seagate can keep pace with pure SSD.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj-MzweNqFM
 
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ther00kie16

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2008
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Googer said:
With something that old, it doesn't make sense to spend a few hundred on a drive, when new laptops cost that much and offer more performance than what you have now. You're best bet is to upgrade to a Seagate Momentus XT, hybrid SSD Hard Drive. You get 500GB and 99% of the performance of your typical SSD. In somebenchmarks, the Seagate can keep pace with pure SSD.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj-MzweNqFM
Click to expand...

He has a pata drive and the hybrid is more than the ssd.
 
M

Mide

Golden Member
Mar 27, 2008
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SSDs are badass. I upgraded from a regular 7200RPM to a cheapo Kingston 64GB and it is truly a night/day difference on my T410 Thinkpad. The loss of space is annoying when it comes to movies and such but I still think it is worth it.
 
Envian

Envian

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Sep 1, 2011
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www.androidfocus.net
Mide said:
SSDs are badass. I upgraded from a regular 7200RPM to a cheapo Kingston 64GB and it is truly a night/day difference on my T410 Thinkpad. The loss of space is annoying when it comes to movies and such but I still think it is worth it.
Click to expand...

100% agreed! SSD will make your computer very fast, but as others said, for an old PC like yours, it's probably not worth the cash.

Also with SSD's you have to be sure to make backups of your sensitive data, they tend to crash more often than old-school drives, and when they do, it's impossible to recover them.
 
corkyg

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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If your old Dell laptop HDD is PATA - forget it. There are very few choices available. Think laptop replacement.
 
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corkyg

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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Charlie98 said:
What is PATA? Is that the pin configuration?
Click to expand...

Yep! That is Parallel ATA as opposed to Serial ATA (SATA.) The difference is the connectors. Not interchangeable. Many refer to PATA as "IDE," but that is inaccurate. Both PATA and SATA drives are IDE - meaning they both have Integrated Drive Electronics.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
ther00kie16 said:
He has a pata drive and the hybrid is more than the ssd.
Click to expand...


Abandon ship on that laptop captain! If you want more storage, get a new $300 laptop before the Christmas sales end. Then use your LAN to transfer the data from the old one to the new one; Windows 7 makes it easy.
 
Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
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SATA, PATA, IDE... I feel like I'm back in the army with all the alphabet soup...
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
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Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,298
64
91
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Charlie98 said:
SATA, PATA, IDE... I feel like I'm back in the army with all the alphabet soup...
Click to expand...

IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics: Back in the early days when IBM was king of the desktop, drives used to require an external drive controller circuitry. Newer drives got rid of that and Integrated those circuits on the drive it's self.

ATA = Advanced Technology Attachment

PATA = Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment: Is an older way of connecting a drive to your computer. It's speeds were limited to 133MB/s due to the fact that it used a 40 indivdual wires to transfer data in parallel. But the problem was, the faster they sent data to the comptuer, the harder it became to make all the 0's & 1's arrive in tandem. So that led us to..... SATA


SATA = Serial Advanced technology Attachment: It allows for much higher speeds, super thin cables with fewer wires because all the 0's & 1's are sent down one wire one by one in a single file line. This eliminates complexities of making sure all the bits arrive at the same time and allows for a rate at which data can be sent from the drive to the computer. All newer Hard Drives and SSD's use SATA.
 
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Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Charlie98 said:
That lappy only has a 12" screen and no DVD drive. No... I just dropped $1000 on a new build, this needs to be a stealth upgrade... Or my wife will beat me to death with a rolling pin.
Click to expand...

I was at Radio Shack back in mid July and saw a nice HP laptop with a 17" screen, DVD Drive, Windows 7 and the asking price was in the low $300 range. I almost snagged it up.
 
M

mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
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www.mfenn.com
Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,298
64
91
ther00kie16 said:
So you get a $1000 pc and your wife has to live with a $100 upgrade on a 6yr old machine?
At least get her this: http://slickdeals.net/f/3718334-Dell-Home-10-off-Friends-Famly-code-Stackable
Click to expand...

No, no... she has the AMD powered Dell laptop, it rocks. No problems with that, this is my business laptop we are talking about.

No, just no. It is one of the original Pentium-M's from ~2005. An Atom netbook is probably faster. An E-350 netbook definitely is.
Click to expand...

Please tell me it's faster than a Commodore 64... :rolleyes: It is a late 2005... Not to beat a dead horse, what's wrong with the Pent-M's? It's not a lighting bolt, but it used to get the job done... I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just don't know.
 
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ther00kie16

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2008
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Well, you have a 6 yr old single core, 256mb ram and a small & slow 40gb hard drive.
You could get:
A used 7*5 Pentium M with a 400mhz fsb to pin mod to 533mhz (33% overclock). 725 is $4 buy it now on ebay so 1.73 -> 2.13ghz for $4.
A refurb 7200rpm hard drive on amazon for ~$35.
2x512mb for ~$30 on amazon.

That $70 would be much better than any single upgrade because you have a slow hard drive and very little ram. SSD would help but a 64gb PATA is $107 and a 32gb is $80. If you were to upgrade ram and hd at $110 minimum, you are halfway to a new netbook.
 
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Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,298
64
91
ther00kie16 said:
Well, you have a 6 yr old single core, 256mb ram and a small & slow 40gb hard drive.
You could get:
A used 7*5 Pentium M with a 400mhz fsb to pin mod to 533mhz (33% overclock). 725 is $4 buy it now on ebay so 1.73 -> 2.13ghz for $4.
A refurb 7200rpm hard drive on amazon for ~$35.
2x512mb for ~$30 on amazon.

That $70 would be much better than any single upgrade because you have a slow hard drive and very little ram. SSD would help but a 64gb PATA is $107 and a 32gb is $80. If you were to upgrade ram and hd at $110 minimum, you are halfway to a new netbook.
Click to expand...

Very good... and thank you! THAT'S the kind of technical information I need to know.

Pentium M with a 400mhz fsb to pin mod to 533mhz
Click to expand...

...you are talking over my head there... Noob English, please.

If I hotrod this thing with an overclocked CPU and faster HDD, is the stock PSU going to be able to handle it?
 
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ther00kie16

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2008
1,573
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Basically, your laptop motherboard was designed to work with both 7*5 series and 7*0 series of Dothan CPUs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_M_microprocessors#.22Dothan.22_.2890_nm.29

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3226&article=pin+mod
7*5 series has 400mhz fsb and 7*0 series has 533mhz fsb. The motherboard detects the fsb via the BSEL pin. So by grounding that pin (either tying it to the adjacent ground pin or putting a wire into the socket itself), the motherboard will think the CPU is a 133x4=533mhz fsb CPU as opposed to a 4x100mhz=400mhz fsb CPU. It's overclocking but mobile chips usually have a ton of headroom for undervolting so it shouldn't cause any stability issues to overclock it. You may even be able to overclock and undervolt (RMClock is a good program). So for $4 for a 725 (I'm assuming you have leftover TIM from your build), you'll get a 400mhz bump.
 
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