SSD in a slightly older laptop?

[komatta]

Hey, I have a Dell D630 from a few years back (1.8ghz core 2 duo, 120gb hdd, 3gb ram, x3100 integrated video).

I'm generally still pleased with its performance (and its 1440x900 14" screen!) but I'm moving in a few months and won't be taking my desktop system, so this laptop will become my only system for school/research/everything.

I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile sticking a SSD in here. I am hoping to avoid getting a new laptop, as I'm still generally quite happy with mine, and a new one would be at least $1k. However, it's clear that the machine is getting a little bit slow for work-related things.

Is it worth it? Have you done it? What say you?

(Alternatively I could just buy Windows 7 with my money instead. I have Win7 on my desktop but my laptop is still running XP/Ubuntu dual boot.)

 

[TheStu]

I would say go for both Win7 and the SSD. You can get a 120GB SSD for about $200 these days, and then can get the OEM copy of Win7 Home Premium for $100.

I am guessing that 3GB is your max on that chipset? Also, do you know if your CPU is 32 or 64 bit? With that much RAM it doesn't really matter much, I suppose.

 

[komatta]

Thanks. It is a 64-bit chip and it can support up to 4GB I believe. It came with 1GB in a hard-to-access location, but it has an expansion slot which is easy to access. I put in a 2GB stick there a couple years ago as I was just using 32-bit Windows XP anyway. I believe it supports up to 4GB.

I think I will go for the SSD, and probably Win7. Will I be able to transfer Win7 to a new laptop if I were to get one later on? Or is it bound to the hardware somehow?

 

[TheStu]

Thanks. It is a 64-bit chip and it can support up to 4GB I believe. It came with 1GB in a hard-to-access location, but it has an expansion slot which is easy to access. I put in a 2GB stick there a couple years ago as I was just using 32-bit Windows XP anyway. I believe it supports up to 4GB.

I think I will go for the SSD, and probably Win7. Will I be able to transfer Win7 to a new laptop if I were to get one later on? Or is it bound to the hardware somehow?

Well, if you keep your key, then yes you shouldn't have any problems putting it onto another system later, just so long as you delete it off of the first system. Microsoft might yell at you and make you jump through some extra hoops to activate, but I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.

 

[gsaldivar]

I would get a hybrid SSD/hard drive like the Seagate Momentus XT. You can get somewhere around 75% the performance of a true SSD for a fraction of the price. There is a very good review here on AT with benchmarks. Good luck

 

[komatta]

I would get a hybrid SSD/hard drive like the Seagate Momentus XT. You can get somewhere around 75% the performance of a true SSD for a fraction of the price. There is a very good review here on AT with benchmarks. Good luck

Hm to be honest I don't really know anything about them. I'll look into it, thanks!

 

[TheStu]

I would get a hybrid SSD/hard drive like the Seagate Momentus XT. You can get somewhere around 75% the performance of a true SSD for a fraction of the price. There is a very good review here on AT with benchmarks. Good luck

It looks like you get almost SSD performance in some areas, which compared to the almost certainly 5400RPM old drive in there will feel tons faster. And it is much cheaper, $100 for a 250GB drive.

But on the other hand, an SSD will trounce it 7 ways from Sunday in small random read/writes and that is where a lot of the snappiness comes from in SSDs.

 

[TC91]

I'm pretty sure the OEM license isn't transferable and is bound to the motherboard on the machine you installed it on (correct me if i'm wrong).

 

[thescreensavers]

I would assume your Drive will run in SATA I speeds. Which aren't so amazing compared to a caviar black. Random Acess speeds sure but w/e

 

[komatta]

I would assume your Drive will run in SATA I speeds. Which aren't so amazing compared to a caviar black. Random Acess speeds sure but w/e

Is there a way I can find out if my computer is SATA-I or SATA-II? Googling isn't helping at all. I'll check the device manager in case it's in there...

 

[komatta]

I found this:

Intel ICH8M 3 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 2828
Itenl ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850

The chipset is the Intel GM965 Express.

Does this mean it would still be beneficial to go for an SSD? Thank you.

 

[Trader05]

I put an SSD in my old laptop with the same 965 chipset. Yes you will definitely benefit, my boot times went from 2mins to 45 seconds. Not sure with battery life, but the performance will be there. Just make sure you have ACHI in the SATA configuration enabled in the bios before you install your SSD.

 

[Emulex]

ssd will make anything super fast from super-slow. those 5400 rpm drives in laptops are kill-me-slow.

 

[komatta]

Okay guys, going to go with the SSD. Thanks for all the input.

Last question, Intel 320 or Vertex 2?

 

[wwswimming]

Okay guys, going to go with the SSD. Thanks for all the input.

Last question, Intel 320 or Vertex 2?

are the SSD's that interchangeable with the 3 year old hard drives, from the point of view of the laptop ?

do the SSD manufacturer's test their drives with the older laptops ?

to me this sounds like an experiment. Good luck if you do it.

i'd bank the money, & wait 6 months for the Holiday specials. the Dell XPS 15 Quad Core SandyBridge should be down to $800 by then.

 

[komatta]

are the SSD's that interchangeable with the 3 year old hard drives, from the point of view of the laptop ?

do the SSD manufacturer's test their drives with the older laptops ?

to me this sounds like an experiment. Good luck if you do it.

i'd bank the money, & wait 6 months for the Holiday specials. the Dell XPS 15 Quad Core SandyBridge should be down to $800 by then.

When I searched I saw quite a few people had put an SSD in my particular model of laptop (primarily reports on forum.notebookreview.com), so I think it would be fine.

What you mentioned is also an idea. Man, I keep changing my mind.

 

[jihe]

Okay guys, going to go with the SSD. Thanks for all the input.

Last question, Intel 320 or Vertex 2?

I will stay away from OCZ, too many reports of using second rated flash chips.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I just bought a 1.83GHz Core Duo-based Thinkpad T60 and immediately replaced the stock hard drive with a Crucial C300 and installed Windows 7 (3GB RAM). It's not quite as fast as my desktop systems + SSD, but it's much faster than other people's laptops (programs open instantly and it boots in less than 20 seconds).

I've been using it every day as my main office and browsing PC and never even think about the fact that it's a four-year-old machine.

Thus, as someone who recently did this myself, I would wholeheartedly recommend you get an SSD for your Dell. I'm sure it would breathe new life into the computer.

 

[Bill Brasky]

I just bought a 1.83GHz Core Duo-based Thinkpad T60 and immediately replaced the stock hard drive with a Crucial C300 and installed Windows 7 (3GB RAM). It's not quite as fast as my desktop systems + SSD, but it's much faster than other people's laptops (programs open instantly and it boots in less than 20 seconds).

I've been using it every day as my main office and browsing PC and never even think about the fact that it's a four-year-old machine.

Thus, as someone who recently did this myself, I would wholeheartedly recommend you get an SSD for your Dell. I'm sure it would breathe new life into the computer.

This is excellent news. I have a 3.5 yr old T61 with almost exactly the same specs as your laptop. I've been thinking of upgrading to a SSD for quite a while, so it's reassuring to hear it went well for you.

Did you flash a new bios or anything? I've read reports that our thinkpads are limited to SATA I and can reduce performance. Did you investigate this at all?

I will stay away from OCZ, too many reports of using second rated flash chips.

Is this just your opinion after reading a few complaint threads or is this legitimate? Care to share a link? I'm interested because I think I might get the Agility 3 when they are released.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

This is excellent news. I have a 3.5 yr old T61 with almost exactly the same specs as your laptop. I've been thinking of upgrading to a SSD for quite a while, so it's reassuring to hear it went well for you.

Did you flash a new bios or anything? I've read reports that our thinkpads are limited to SATA I and can reduce performance. Did you investigate this at all?
.

Yes, a stock T6x is limited to SATA I, so I can't get the full potential of the C300 for sequential reads. For the kind of random reads that an SSD excels at, however, the 1.5 gbit/sec of SATA I is more than sufficient. For writes, the 64GB drive I bought maxes out at like 80MB/sec, which is less than half of SATA I, so it's a non-issue... Even the 120GB and larger last-gen Intel and Crucial drives max out at around SATA I speeds for writes, so the only time it would be a limiting factor would be with Sandforce and newer SSDs.

I'm using a hacked 2.26 BIOS that switches the ctrl and fn keys, but I think it's otherwise the same as the stock 2.26 BIOS. For T61, however, I'm pretty sure I read that there's a hacked BIOS floating around that enables SATA II. The T6x hardware is fully capable of SATA II, but (as I understand it) Lenovo disabled it for compatibility reasons.

tldr: it works great, and I'm not bothered by the lack of SATA II.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Yes, a stock T6x is limited to SATA I, so I can't get the full potential of the C300 for sequential reads. For the kind of random reads that an SSD excels at, however, the 1.5 gbit/sec of SATA I is more than sufficient. For writes, the 64GB drive I bought maxes out at like 80MB/sec, which is less than half of SATA I, so it's a non-issue... Even the 120GB and larger last-gen Intel and Crucial drives max out at around SATA I speeds for writes, so the only time it would be a limiting factor would be with Sandforce and newer SSDs.

I'm using a hacked 2.26 BIOS that switches the ctrl and fn keys, but I think it's otherwise the same as the stock 2.26 BIOS. For T61, however, I'm pretty sure I read that there's a hacked BIOS floating around that enables SATA II. The T6x hardware is fully capable of SATA II, but (as I understand it) Lenovo disabled it for compatibility reasons.

tldr: it works great, and I'm not bothered by the lack of SATA II.

Thank you for responding, and this is great info. The bolded part was what I was thinking, but I just didn't know what to expect. Plus I leave the large file handling and number crunching for my desktop. It makes sense that random reads and writes for OS operation shouldn't very be limited, if at all. Even still, a SSD should be a huge upgrade over the stock 5400 rpm drive. Thanks again. :thumbsup: