Upgrading to SSD

[Sh0es]

Hello, I want to upgrade my laptops hard drive to an SSD, but I don't know if the motherboard supports SSD. The model is JE70 HR. I am on an acer aspire 7750G-2436G64mnkk

 

[RetiredChief]

Should be no problem, But I would go into the BIOS and see what the options for controlling the HDD are - IDE, AHCI, SATA, You want to be able to set the BIOS to AHCI.

I've installed SSDs into 3 laptops, One was older Toshibia Core dual Intel CPU. Other was a core 2 daul, and finally a Samsung i5-2410M (SB) laptop.

 

[Sh0es]

Best I could find was "SATA mode" and there it asked me to choose between ahci and ide. Is that it?

I'm a newbie so sorry if I ask some silly questions.

 

[RetiredChief]

Yes, select sata then Ahci.
So you should be fine.

The big diff is that with ide selected, performance would take a hit (still better than a HDD) - But also Trim while it may show as enabled would NOT be passed to the SSD.
With AHCI selected trim will be Passed to the SSD. This helps maintain close to manuf specs for performance.

So Get it and ENJOY.

PS - for Notebooks my choice is:
Samsung 840 Pro -> Crucial M4 -> Samsung 830.
Samsung 840 Pro is best, Highest performance @ lowest power consumption. BUT HIGHEST cost.
.. NOTE: Have reservations on standard 840 and would Like to wait longer before recommending.
Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 have very close to the same real life performance, simular reliability (Very good). M4 has lower power consumption on read/writes than 830. Currently using M4 in my laptops and 830 in Desktops.
NOTE: also recommend the Plextor M3/M5 which are very simular the the Crucial m4 in that they both use the marvel Controller, But normally higher priced than M4 or 830s.

While I love my Crucial M3's (Have both the 128 gig and the 256 gig versions) - DO NOT recomment the NEW Crucial M5.

I'm not a lover of the Sandforce Based SDs (SF22xx). You can tell as they are typically 60/120/240 vs the marval based/samsung based which are 64/128/256 gig drives.

 

[Sh0es]

Thanks for the advice. I was going to buy a Sandforce based Intel's SSD, but now I will certainly think about which one I'll be getting. Is there a reason you dislike the Sandforce based drives? Do they have crash/loss of data issues?

 

[RetiredChief]

In general they do appear to have a higher "low" User rating. Keep in mind that I said In general, There are afew that seem to Have higher than average User experiencies - ie the Intel line which also has a very good reliability reputation.

Another point is that the Sandforce controller "loves" data that is highly compressable. This leads to "inflated" Benchmarks primarily for Sequencial performance. Compare the Seq performance using say ATTO and AS SSD.
Will the Seq performance is great using data that is compressable - a OS + program drive relies more on Assess time and small 4k Random file performance.

To Stay Honest - Must admit that In real Life day-to-day performance you will see little difference between any of the "better SSDs, be they SF, marval, or Samsung.

 

[Sh0es]

Thanks a lot for your time. You've been of great help.

 

[DarkSable]

Also, just throwing out there, I'd look at the OCZ Vector and Vertex 4 lines.

People often don't like OCZ because in the past, when they used Sandforce controllers, they had reliability issues - they've wizened up now, however, and are using an in-house controller that's bloody amazing.

In terms of speed and reliability, I put them right behind Samsung.

 

[RetiredChief]

^ Many companies have had problems with their SSDs, for example:
Intel - The first one that comes to mind is the 8mb bug - Your large SSD all of a sudden decreased to a tiny 8 mbs. LoL. They also had another major snafu.
Crucial - the 5000 hr bug, SSD stopped working after 5000 hrs.

OCZ - along with the other companies that used the SF22xx controller. Yes they had major issues with it and it took much longer to fix. The problem (and would have probably been fixed quicker if their attitude was better) was that OCZ blamed everyone else - primarilly the user - Didn't know what they were doing -> to the users system. If you ever went to their forum website during the 6 months after release of the agillity/Vertex IIII you would understand. Personnally, because of the way they treated customers I will NEVER buy an OCZ product.

Honesty gets me everytime, Yes there "1/2" egg rating is low for the vertex 4 Comparqable to 830 and M4 - which have been around a lot longer. The agility 4 is still on the high side.

 

[Anderson_64]

In general they do appear to have a higher "low" User rating. Keep in mind that I said In general, There are afew that seem to Have higher than average User experiencies - ie the Intel line which also has a very good reliability reputation.

Another point is that the Sandforce controller "loves" data that is highly compressable. This leads to "inflated" Benchmarks primarily for Sequencial performance. Compare the Seq performance using say ATTO and AS SSD.
Will the Seq performance is great using data that is compressable - a OS + program drive relies more on Assess time and small 4k Random file performance.

To Stay Honest - Must admit that In real Life day-to-day performance you will see little difference between any of the "better SSDs, be they SF, marval, or Samsung.

sf ssd's doesnt compress the data to increase write speeds, it utilizes durawrite which lowers Write amplification to create lower data entropy through advanced recycling / garbage collection, Intelligent wear leveling and error corrections on SSD

 

[RetiredChief]

Why the big diff between ATTO and AS SSD for Sequencial performance for SF22xx based SSDs. From what I understand, ATTO (a benchmark program for Mechanical HDD) And As SSD is that ATTO uses data that is highly compressible while AS SSD uses NON-compressible data.