What to buy and how to upgrade to an SSD??

[tmt69]

Hello! I'm interested in buying a new SSD on a 200$ budget, looking into upgrading from a 500gb harddrive...

Just some questions I have: Should I keep the 500gb hd to use for extra space?

Will installation of the SSD be like a normal harddrive?

Will a SSD be compatible with my setup?

Thanks for your help in advance, I will give some basic information on my setup.

Processor ____________________________________________________

3.00 gigahertz AMD Phenom II X4 945
512 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Not hyper-threaded

_____________________________________________________________

MOBO

Board: ASRock N68PV-GS
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P1.30 01/08/2009

_____________________________________________________________

Drives
1500.20 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
1210.21 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q ATA Device [Optical drive]

Seagate USB 3.0 Cable USB Device [Hard drive] (1000.20 GB) -- drive 1, s/n NA05HV2D
WDC WD5000AAKS-75A7B2 [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WCASY3618912, rev 01.03B01, SMART Status: Healthy

_____________________________________________________________
Memory

3328 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM0' has 2048 MB
Slot 'DIMM1' has 2048 MB

 

[Soda-88]

you should definitely keep hdd for storage
setup is almost identical as hdd, just follow these steps:
1) plug the ssd in, go to bios and set AHCI mode for the sata channel you plugged it on
2) boot normally to your current windows from hdd, check ssd's firmware version, if the newer version is available, download and flash
3) once your ssd has latest firmware on, shut down, unplug hdd (plug ssd in higher priority channel to avoid drive letter mess ups, i.e. if hdd was plugged in channel #0, have your ssd on that channel and replug hdd to #1), turn pc on, install windows to ssd (don't preformat the ssd in windows before installing fresh windows, it tends to mess up the partition alignment resulting in performance loss; just create new partition during install)
4) once the installation is complete, shut down pc, plug your hdd back in and enjoy the snappiness of your rejuvenated rig

get either of these, you won't regret it (i'd give intel's drive a tiny advantage)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167095
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147137

edit: also forgot to mention, install 64-bit windows to have full capacity of your ram available (the licence is the same for both 32 and 64 bit windows)

 

[JKatwyopc]

"Should I keep the 500gb hd to use for extra space?" Yes, for around $200, you will be able to get a prety substantial size SSD - in the 128GB - 160GB range. Even though that is a pretty good size, you will still want to save the mechanical HDD for extra storage. Setup the SSD as your windows boot drive and install Apps and games that you need to load really fast and keep your data and files on the HDD.

"Will installation of the SSD be like a normal harddrive?" Yes, it will be identical to using a hard drive. You will have to partition and format it and then Install windows on it.

"Will a SSD be compatible with my setup?" Yes, an SSD will be compatible with your setup as long as you have a SATA port available to plug in to it. The ASRock N68PV-GS has 4 SATA II (3Gbs) so you should have an available port. I suggest using the lowest numbered SATA port for the SSD because it makes installation of windows easier.

Make sure to do a full backup of your system before you try to upgrade to make sure you don't lose anything.

 

[tmt69]

Best answer selected by tmt69.