It's a foregone conclusion that SSDs are must-haves in performance-oriented PCs, but our testing reveals that solid-state drives are reasonable upgrades in older mainstream machines, too. We build three old boxes to gauge the impact of an SSD on each.
The solid-state drive industry is currently shifting from the 3 Gb/s to the 6 Gb/s SATA interface, increasing potential throughput from 250+ MB/s to more than 500 MB/s. Enthusiasts currently hamstrung by slow storage performance can definitely appreciate the higher ceiling, particularly in new builds with cutting-edge processors and powerful graphics configurations.
However, we also find ourselves wondering if an SSD makes sense as an upgrade in an older system with components that might not be as fresh any more. It turns out that yes, solid-state technology does have a place alongside previous-generation hardware. It doesn't take a Nehalem- or Sandy Bridge-class configuration to let flash-based media stretch its legs after all.
This article looks at what happens when you replace an existing hard drive with a solid-state drive. We built a few systems that represent PC hardware from 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2010, and then upgraded each of them using an SSD.
Processor, graphics card, and motherboard vendors might not like this revelation, but here it is anyway. If you're not an enthusiast with specific performance requirements, it's not necessary to buy new components every time AMD or Intel launches a platform. If you're just browsing the Internet, using social media, watching video, communicating over Skype, or word processing, a five-year-old Core 2 Duo still probably feels like a snappy-enough system. Granted, gaming, workstation apps, and transcoding workloads are all great reasons to invest in modern components. But entry-level, mainstream Windows-based boxes simply don't need any more muscle than that.
Once you do feel an urge to upgrade, the question becomes: where to start? Should you drop in a new processor? Many folks like to think that simply adding more RAM is the cure-all; will dropping in additional modules help? Would a new graphics card address the situations where you notice slow-down? Or how about a larger hard drive because you're simply running out of space? There are plenty of ways to spend money trying to beef up the speed or capacity of an older machine.
But almost nobody considers adding an SSD. After all, an SSD is hardly effective for addressing capacity issues. And SSDs generally fall below all of those other parts when power users think about the pieces that'd help improve performance.
Before you even try dropping an SSD into an old box, though, consider a couple of caveats first. We're neither concerned with the model of drive you use, nor the price at which you buy it. Practically, even value-oriented SSDs are considered relevant when it comes to upgrading aging hardware. However, we do want to mention that it is important to use a SATA controller with AHCI support because it's necessary to support the TRIM command. Every SSD can be operated without TRIM, but at the risk of decreased performance after intensive use. As more general guidance, there is a minimum amount of processing power and memory you'll want before an SSD makes sense. Own a decent dual-core CPU and at least a couple gigs of memory. Otherwise, you're probably on a trajectory for a full system revamp, and not just a single-component upgrade.
- Upgrading? An SSD Might Make Sense
- System Configurations: PCs From 2005 To 2010
- Getting Replaced: Several Generations Of Hard Drives
- Test System Details
- Benchmark Results: Sequential Read/Write
- Benchmark Results: Random Read/Write
- Benchmark Results: PCMark 7 Drive Test
- Benchmark Results: PCMark 7 System Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Windows Start Up And Power Consumption
- Conclusion

since its for mainstream, i would have liked a subjective test where some 'average' folks, doing 'average' tasks, would use the machines with/without SSD's, and rate the perceived speed on a scale of 1=10.
those should have been included as well. most people "feel" the speed, rather than benchmark it.
Spend 10 mins doing office/internet stuff on each config without knowing which is which and rank them by speed subjectively.
Waiting until it is price gets reasonable.
since its for mainstream, i would have liked a subjective test where some 'average' folks, doing 'average' tasks, would use the machines with/without SSD's, and rate the perceived speed on a scale of 1=10.
those should have been included as well. most people "feel" the speed, rather than benchmark it.
I'm very curious about the results. My Dell Lat C400 is chugging along just fine on Windows 7 but I believe a SSD would greatly improve performance.
I do not see that the SATA controller mentions AHCI in the device manager tab, however when I run the TRIM check commnand through CMD, it returns a "enabled" reply. Also,have made the necessary registry changes to ensure that AHCI is enabled. There is however no option in the MB bios to set AHCI.
So is my drive configured with TRIM enabled or not?
How much is reasonable? A 64GB Crucial M4 is $105... that's pretty damn reasonable to me. For that kind of money you could get a low-end mobo, an Athlon X4, or 16GB of DDR3. Upgrades don't get much more reasonable than that. But if you already have a decent, if older system, installing an SSD will make it feel like a brand new system should for the least amount of money.
Spend 10 mins doing office/internet stuff on each config without knowing which is which and rank them by speed subjectively.
The best part about buying a SSD for your aging system is... you can take it with you onto the next build!
It may be only the part that is spared now that opticals are making the move to sata.
I don't have an AMD proc, but I have a SSD on a nvidia 750i chipset, and all around, the performance is much worse than an Intel controller but still feels 5x faster than standard sata drive, and a million times faster than an old ide drive.
Tom's Hardware published the first articles and reviews of ssd's back in 2007. One thing has remained constant - price is an obstacle to mass acceptance.
I'd say if a machine has at least 2GB of RAM, two cores, and any better graphics than an Intel IGP, then a SSD would indeed be the next good choice for an upgrade.
you could try an add in card their fairly cheap
Overall responsiveness is much better and actually also my work with 3-D rendering got much smoother, because of the shorter loading and saving times of my projects.
My motherboard is based on P31/G31 + ICH7 and as i understand it, it does not support AHCI. But behold: TRIM is working, or at least by the command "fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify" it is working.
I have also read in other forums, that TRIM does not actually require AHCI. So, if my TRIM really does it´s thing, AHCI support is not needed. Can someone confirm this?