Notebook HDD Died, Went SSD

**JLK03F150** · October 13th, 2012, 11:36 PM

The old 160GB SATA HDD in my notebook died a few days ago. Today I replaced it with an Intel 330 SSD 180GB & have been happy with the speed improvement so far. It's an older notebook with a GL960 chipset, a 2.2GHz T7500 processor & 3GB of 667DDR2 RAM.

Boot times are quite zippy and Office files open very quickly. Wanna give an old notebook new life? Go SSD.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 12:54 AM

You have an old laptop? Mine is still using PATA and I can't upgrade it with a SSD. My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6000. However, I do have a SSD in the desktop.

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 01:58 AM

Originally Posted by Taxmancometh

You have an old laptop? Mine is still using PATA and I can't upgrade it with a SSD. My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6000. However, I do have a SSD in the desktop.

Transcend Has a PATA SSD For Your Aging PC

Newegg.com - Transcend TS64GSSD25-M 2.5" 64GB PATA MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

If you can find them anywhere, Amazon has some 64GB models for just under $100.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 02:11 AM

Wow! cool, I never new they made a PATA SSD. Thanks Shyguy!

And 60-64 GB is all I need I have a 60 GB right now. I just have to make sure I get one without a sandforce chipset otherwise my capacity drops by 8 GB. Can you post some links from Amazon on PATA SSDs.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 02:20 AM

Well I did a search (didn't think I'd find it) and the first review is a guy with a Dell Inspiron 6000 just like mine and he only gave it 2 stars. Amazon.com: Transcend solid state drive - 64 GB - IDE/A: Computers & Accessories

I wonder if the 7200 RPM hard drive would indeed be better then?

I don't know what he's talking about with the CPU fan, I don't hear mine...

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 02:24 AM

It'd probably be as fast as a 7200RPM drive, since its PATA, which only peaked at 133MB/s at most, though for laptops it might of been 100MB/s though.

I would imagine the SSD's sustained rates would be higher than the 7200RPM drives would be though.

Amazon.com: Transcend solid state drive - 64 GB - IDE/A: Computers & Accessories

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 02:28 AM

reviewer never mentioned what OS they were running either.

Not sure if XP would run better or worse on a PATA SSD, could be as they mentioned a Chipset issue as well, hard to say.

But as to PATA SSD's, SSD's were originally sold in PATA format 15-20 years ago.

I remember the old War And Peace Thick Computer Shopper magazine, seeing ads for 300-500MB Range SSD's costing over 5-10 grand LOL. But those were IDE drives back then, though for desktops and not laptops.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 02:31 AM

I'm using XP pro on the laptop.

I was trying to find 7200 RPM PATA laptop hard drives with no success.

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 02:41 AM

Amazon.com: Seagate Momentus 100GB PATA 7200RPM 2.5 IN Mobile Hard Drive: Computers & Accessories

About the only one I could find in a quick Amazon search. Newegg, Geeks.com, Directron and most other sources seem to be out of 7200RPM Drives, all they ever have is 4200 or 5400RPM Drives these days.

but for a bit more than the SSD, you end up with almost 40GB more space.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 02:55 AM

So what do you think I should buy? I ran HDtune on this laptop and for speed I only got 28 MB/sec. Will an SSD be better for the battery?

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 02:59 AM

an SSD will help with Battery for sure, but not sure how much extra power you'll get, could be worth it, maybe not, hard to say.

as to the drive read speeds, yikes, thats about as fast as my 8GB Patriot Xporter XT USB 2.0 Thumb Drive, gets about 32MB/s read and 20-28MB/s Write speed.

If the SSD won't run much faster than the traditional drive, and your laptop could support 7200RPM drives, I'd probably go for the 100GB or so, but if you really only need 60-ish GB of space, I'd probably consider the SSD, but maybe see if you can find more reviews on that exact model see what others have said?

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 03:19 AM

Just ran HDtune on two USB sticks and I got 18 MB/sec. I actually have Windows on a USB stick with WIFI hacking software that I can boot from USB to.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 03:29 AM

Got some reviews.

Buy.com - Transcend 64 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive

Newegg.com - Transcend TS64GSSD25-M 2.5" 64GB PATA MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

There's a reviewer on Newegg that mentions partition alignment. WTH is that?

I have a SSD in the desktop and never did that.

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 04:07 AM

never heard of partition alignment, so no idea what to say about that.

Seeing JLK's benchmark runs, Thinking I need to bump up to one of those Intel 330's I've been recommending everyone else to get, or one of the Samsung drives, with Read/Write speeds in excess of 200MB/s.

this V Raptor is nice, but could definitely use that SSD speed for Windows and some frequent use programs.

though I also want to focus on USB 3.0 RAID Drive setup as well, at least a couple 1TB 7200RPM drives in RAID 0, maybe 3 or so in RAID 5 (assuming the enclosure I get supports it).

Attached my main rigs drive runs on ATTO Benchmark...

V Raptor is about 90MB/s average, +/-.

The WD Black Series (32MB Cache), is about 10% or so faster than my Raptor.

Drive C is the VRaptor, Drive E is the Black series.

**ShyguyXPC** · October 14th, 2012, 04:28 AM

And my WD Green Series (Variable Speed RPM), 64MB cache...

Amazingly, despite this drive having a longer seek time than the others, its able to outperform and match the Legendary WD Velociraptors..

With a faster read/write of smaller size data chunks, as well as a more consistent max sustained speed.

I'm thinking the big differences here is the Cache Buffers on the drives. The VRaptor has 16MB, the Black Series 32MB and Green 64MB.

which might explain things. With the V Raptor its able to read smaller files sizes faster than the Black, but then on larger file sizes the Black exceeds the V Raptor by at least 10% or more.

The Green is able to match the V Raptor in Larger File sizes, and beat it on smaller sizes.

Overall though I could certainly use something like an SSD for the OS Drive at least.

**JLK03F150** · October 14th, 2012, 09:32 AM

Shy, Get one if it is within your budget. It makes such a difference on the OS drive. I have had SSD in my gamer for a while & game levels load really quickly. Also MS Flight seems very smooth running on high settings (terrain loads better).

Taxman, I have no idea how one of those PATA SSDs would perform, it would be nice to find some ATTO benches to see if they are worth it. It's gotta be better than what you have now. I think maybe you should try to update the chipset driver. To me 18 MB/s seem like there's a problem.

**SoloCamo** · October 14th, 2012, 11:55 AM

I recieved my Crucial M4 128gb from newegg a few days ago to use as my OS drive.. Will be replacing a Seagate Barracuda 500gb (16mb model, yuck) as my OS drive so it should really speed up my pc since thats the only thing not really 'modern' on mine as is.

I need to pick one up for notebook as well... only has an old 5400rpm in. It's a Core Duo w/ 2gb ddr2 667 and dedicated graphics (x1600) so it's not a bad workstation laptop, so I'm sure an SSD will help.

**JLK03F150** · October 14th, 2012, 12:39 PM

You'll see a greater difference with the desktop than the notebook, but my lappy does feel snappier.

**Taxmancometh** · October 14th, 2012, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by JLK03F150

Taxman, I have no idea how one of those PATA SSDs would perform, it would be nice to find some ATTO benches to see if they are worth it. It's gotta be better than what you have now. I think maybe you should try to update the chipset driver. To me 18 MB/s seem like there's a problem.

I'll have a look at the Dell website. I don't know if they will have an updated chipset driver or not. This is a very old Dell inspiron 6000.