Upgrade Dell Studio 1555 to SSD

[kazaam93]

In 2009, I purchased a Studio 1555 laptop : Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8600(2.40GHz,1066MHz,3MB)

Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel

Hard Drive : 500GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)

Full HD Screen

Was top of the range at the time and I love it, its been great.

It is now starting to slow down, and I've seen what an SSD upgrade can do on my newer desktop.

Problem is my laptop now randomly switches off, freezes a lot, and is quite noisy and gets hot.

I can't afford a new laptop so I am looking at the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5 inch Basic SATA Solid State Drive for £85



I am not sure if my laptop will support it in terms of the BIOS supporting it, etc? The latest BIOS available is from 2011 And I take it its just a case of switching the old HDD with this one seeing as they are both the same size and use the same connector?

I would appreciate any help and advice

 

[Berryracer]

if it supports SATA, it will support it. there is no magical bios that supports SSDs or not.

I would recommend the 840 PRO over the 840 EVO for more reliability and slightly better speed.
I have both the 1 TB 840 EVO and the 512GB 840 PRO the 840 PRO is much snappier and more reliable due toe it having MLC NAND and a 5 year warranty vs. a 3 year warranty on the EVO

Both the 840 PRO and the 840 EVO support RAPID mode for more acceleration using your RAM as cache

Here is the 840 Pro for $180 USD:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-840...?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item4ad81234b6

I know its more expensive than the EVO but there is a reason it's MLC NAND

if that's too much for you, then get the Crucial MX100 256GB which also uses NAND flash so its much more reliable and will give you a sustained performance on the long run:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-256...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item5b011520a7


The EVO is a budget SSD, when I first benchmarked the EVO 1TB, I got a good score of 505 Read/ 490 write but after a few days, that started slowing down more and more and more.... that's TLC NAND for you, not so reliable and doesn't give a good sustained performance despite me doing a 20% OP on it

When you get your SSD, make sure you don't just clone your partition but I highly recommend a clean install to unleash the full performance of the SSD

 

[kazaam93]

Thank you for replying!!


I do plan to do a clean install- kinda enjoy doing them lol

I dont know if my laptop can ,make use of these features :S

The Crucial MX100 (256 or 512gb) i was considering but it doesnt have many reviews so i take it that its good quality? It is new i suppose

 

[Berryracer]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8066/crucial-mx100-256gb-512gb-review

 

[kazaam93]

I've decided I want 500GB (need it)

I'm down to choosing between:

Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD and Crucial MX100 512GB SSD


Help?


P.S. no way I can afford EVO PRO

 

[gmaster456]

Thank you for replying!!


I do plan to do a clean install- kinda enjoy doing them lol

I dont know if my laptop can ,make use of these features :S

The Crucial MX100 (256 or 512gb) i was considering but it doesnt have many reviews so i take it that its good quality? It is new i suppose

The MX100 is what I would go with if you want good price/performance. It hasn't been out long which is why it doesn't have many reviews.

 

[kazaam93]

The MX100 is what I would go with if you want good price/performance. It hasn't been out long which is why it doesn't have many reviews.

Just saw this as I place my order for the MX100. I am only using it for internet/netflix/MS office, so I am sure MX100 will do the job perfect

Thanks guys!

edit: ordered the samsung 500gb evo. I realised I had a £20 gift voucher on my account

 

[gmaster456]

Just saw this as I place my order for the MX100. I am only using it for internet/netflix/MS office, so I am sure MX100 will do the job perfect

Thanks guys!

edit: ordered the samsung 500gb evo. I realised I had a £20 gift voucher on my account

The EVO is a great drive too. I just bought one to place into an older laptop such as yours. Has worked flawlessly so far.