SSD for 3yo Laptop

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zandor

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 14, 2002
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I think the HD in my laptop may be about to die, so it's disk shopping time.

Machine: Toshiba Tecra M7 tablet, 2.0GHz Core Duo, 80GB 7200rpm HD, 3.25/4GB ram (32-bit proc...) It'll do just fine until I finish grad school next spring. The drive will probably outlive the machine, but I'll just recycle it into another rig or give it to my dad. I suspect he'll still be running the 36GB Raptor I got him for x-mas almost 4 years ago by then. Dad's about as far from a packrat as they come, so I figured he'd like speed more than space.

Currently I'm looking at an Intel X25-M 80GB for $230.
Kingston sells a clone (Kingston M Series) for about the same price which is also worth looking at. Uses Intel chips, even uses Intel's firmware. Who has better customer service? Any known build quality differences?

Anything else worth looking at under $300? 80GB is fine, but I wouldn't mind trading a bit of speed for more space. OCZ Vertex 120GB is pretty much out. I'd rather keep the $ and get the Intel 80GB drive, but if I could get something like 2/3 the speed of the X25-M and 120-128GB for not a lot more than the X25-M 80GB I'd probably go for it.
 
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
 
2nd poster obviously has never used an SSD/knows almost nothing about SSDs. That laptop you have will scream with an SSD.

The X25-M is a great choice, and the Kingston one is the exact same drive just with a Kingston sticker on it. I believe there are no differences in build quality, etc. Wait til the G2 version is available if you want a slight speed boost.

As far as alternatives, the OCZ Agility 120GB may be within your price range, and is almost no different in performance (~10%) then the Vertex. You also have the added benefit of excellent OCZ support.

Good luck in your hunt!
 
bigdogchris said:
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
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You do know about the seek times on SSD's ? ? ? that alone would make it very fast vs a mechanical harddrive.
 
bigdogchris said:
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
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i lol'd. :)
 
bigdogchris said:
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
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Syntax Error said:
i lol'd. :)
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me too.

SSD is awesome for making an old machine scream for daily tasks.
 
I think the machine is still pretty current, I mean it still has a dual core CPU and 4 GB RAM. An SSD is definately not a waste IMO.
 
I just ordered the Intel X25-M from the egg for $230. Classes start in a little over a week and I want this thing this week so I can have it up and running well ahead of time, so no waiting around for the next gen version. The OCZ agility was tempting, but it's an extra $70 and I think I'd like the $ more than the space.

I'm sure it'll give this machine a nice speed boost. The CPU is more than adequate for office type stuff, and any time it lags the disk light is invariably on. I'm hoping it'll perform more like my desktop (Segate Cheetah 15k.4) after the upgrade, or rather as well as my desktop did before I upgraded the CPUs. The desktop used to have a pair of Opteron 246s (single core, 2GHz), which IIRC are in the same ballpark as a Core Duo 2.0. Actually I think they were a little slower than a Core Duo clock for clock, though the difference isn't nearly as much as it is between a S939 Athlon X2 and a Core 2 Duo. The 246s never annoyed me outside of games, so if the laptop can keep up with that setup after I install the SSD I'll be very pleased.
 
bigdogchris said:
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
Click to expand...

Whatever you use your computer for, you'll notice the difference between SSD and HDD. Buy a second gen SSD and you'll never go back.
 
Been considering do the same for an older Gateway laptop, think its about 4-5 years old.

But its specs aren't as impressive.
I believe its a Core (solo - Banias) 1.7Ghz, w/1Gb ram, WinXP.

Think its worth getting an OCZ Vertex 60Gb or Intel X25-M 80Gb ?

So $230 for new drive or try selling the laptop for $200 and get a new laptop with faster processor, more ram, etc for $500+- ?

Sorry to kind of hijack.. but still on topic! :) right?
 
Careful zandar, are you sure that laptop is SATA? That gen is right around when they switched from IDE to SATA so you might want to check!
 
extide said:
Careful zandar, are you sure that laptop is SATA? That gen is right around when they switched from IDE to SATA so you might want to check!
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Ah... there's an answer to my question, though indirectly, as my laptop is surely not SATA. :/
 
I know mine's SATA, though I think it's SATA I (Intel ICH7). It was a new model when I got it. IIRC it's supposedly even possible to upgrade the machine to a Core 2 Duo. I've just never bothered looking into it since the current proc doesn't annoy me.

UPS tracking says it's out for delivery, so this may be a long night. You've gotta love having an Newegg warehouse (TN warehouse, I'm in St. Louis) within 1 day ground delivery range. If they follow their usual delivery pattern, it'll show up around 5-6 pm.

AFAIK people with PATA laptops are pretty much SOL for SSD upgrades. There are a few PATA SSDs, but the specs on them are rather unpleasant. Most of the time a newer HD would probably be better, but even there you're sort of stuck since some of the newer models are SATA only. I'm not sure if you can even get a 7200 rpm laptop drive with an IDE interface.
 
The drive showed up earlier that I expected at around 2pm. It's installed and I've got Windows loaded up.

Damn that was a nice upgrade. The laptop feels about like my desktop now. The most obvious difference I've noticed so far is in "boot" times. It's never taken all that long to get to the desktop, but it took a couple minutes for the disk to stop thrashing after the desktop came up. Too many blasted laptop & tablet utilities are probably to blame, but I need most of them. Now it's ready to go in just a few seconds. Also, the add/remove programs dialog comes up almost instantly, which is nice because I had a lot of crap to uninstall. The blasted Toshiba restore disks dump a huge amount of crap on the system, and unfortunately I don't have a clean copy of XP Tablet Edition.

I haven't gotten Office installed yet, so I have yet to see if it takes care of my other big annoyance - Outlook taking too long to start up.
 
bigdogchris said:
A $300 drive for that system is pretty outrageous considering for $50 you can pick up a 160 GB drive and you probably won't notice the performance difference. SSD's put up great #'s but if your system simply doesn't pull that much data you're not going to notice it. If he's not reading/writing large files then an SSD really won't do much for you.
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You sir. Fail.

An SSD will make that laptop feel like a completely different machine.
 
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