Will a new SSD work on old computer?

Peat Moss

Gawd
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
543
I have a 12 year old Intel Q9550 CPU on a computer I need to keep going for another year or so. I want to put a new Samsung Pro 860 SSD (SATA III) in it because I need more storage.

I was wondering...will there be any incompatibility with the SATA controllers, TRIM, or bios, or anything?
 
Should be fine, there's a plethora of videos on youtube of people doing the same thing. It's one of the easiest way to speed up an older system. Just plug in the sata and power cables to the drive, and make sure the computer can see it, then carry on.
 
I have an old Core 2 duo which model number I cannot remember ( 3.0 ghz boost iirc ) running a SSD just fine. Keep in mind only use the 860 if you have an extra. Your not going to get any extra speed beyond the cheapest SSD's. Buy something decent and it will be as good as it gets
 
I have an old Core 2 duo which model number I cannot remember ( 3.0 ghz boost iirc ) running a SSD just fine. Keep in mind only use the 860 if you have an extra. Your not going to get any extra speed beyond the cheapest SSD's. Buy something decent and it will be as good as it gets

Thanks, yeah, I already have an 860 and an 850 Evo on hand that I was saving for my new build, but I need more storage right away. I figure when I build my new comp next year, I can just swap the 860 into it.
 
yes it will work, trim should be fine too.

edit: re actual topic; yeah it will work fine. i ran my ssds in a c2d limp-along system for a few months once. even on a system limited to sata2, even ata mode, its a big improvement.
 
Last edited:
This should work great. You will see a noticeable difference. Note that if you just clone the drive you may need to enable trim after doing so. lots of videos and how tos via the google machine.
 
I still use this 12 year old Gigabyte board with a Xeon X5460 (Q9650 equivalent) with a Corsair 500GB SSD.
It was my secondary PC for the past year till I upgraded to a Ryzen and put my 4790k setup in it's place.

IMG_0893.JPEG
 
The SSD that's in it now is an old Intel X25-M (yes, SATA). I think it's the first SSD Intel put out.

I was just worried about controllers from the 12- year old CPU being compatible with an almost brand new SSD. But it sounds like it should be ok.
 
The SSD that's in it now is an old Intel X25-M (yes, SATA). I think it's the first SSD Intel put out.

I was just worried about controllers from the 12- year old CPU being compatible with an almost brand new SSD. But it sounds like it should be ok.
that far back its down to whats on the the mobo.
 
If your onboard controller has an option for AHCI on the old board, I would enable that instead of IDE or whatever the other terminology is. The only trick is that it often isn't enabled by default on older boards where on newer ones it is. AHCI allows for TRIM and other stuff, but with a modern SSD controller like on the 860, it shouldn't be a problem even running IDE mode.
 
I still have a LGA 775 system with a Q6600 G0 (3.6Ghz) in it running a Samsung 940 EVO 1TB in it just fine. Your speeds will be slower (depending on the SATA rev. level your mobo supports, Mine supports only SATA II); but it will be blazing fast compared to a platter drive. I've had zero issues and it boots and loads apps up lightning fast.
 
If your onboard controller has an option for AHCI on the old board, I would enable that instead of IDE or whatever the other terminology is. The only trick is that it often isn't enabled by default on older boards where on newer ones it is. AHCI allows for TRIM and other stuff, but with a modern SSD controller like on the 860, it shouldn't be a problem even running IDE mode.
that is true^^. if you happen to want/need to switch, tell the system to restart with advanced options, set it to boot safe mode, before booting go into the bios and change it, boot to safe mode and then reboot. thats all you have to do to change between ata/ahci/"raid".
 
The SSD that's in it now is an old Intel X25-M (yes, SATA). I think it's the first SSD Intel put out.

I was just worried about controllers from the 12- year old CPU being compatible with an almost brand new SSD. But it sounds like it should be ok.

Yes, it ought to be. SATA is SATA, and SATA III devices are supposed to be compatible with older SATA I or II controllers. (and in my experience, that does in fact work.)
 
I have a 12 year old Intel Q9550 CPU on a computer I need to keep going for another year or so. I want to put a new Samsung Pro 860 SSD (SATA III) in it because I need more storage.

I was wondering...will there be any incompatibility with the SATA controllers, TRIM, or bios, or anything?

I think the only thing that would be a problem is if the motherboard didn't have TRIM support at all... that might shorten the life of the drive, because the motherboard would just treat it like a normal hard drive, and Windows might try to defragment it or something. I mean, I've seen people use SATA SSDs with a SATA-to-IDE adapter in older machines (though I wouldn't really recommend that). Basically, the worst-case scenario in your case that you won't get full speed out of the drive, so don't put anything too fancy in it, stay under $100 for sure.
 
I think the only thing that would be a problem is if the motherboard didn't have TRIM support at all... that might shorten the life of the drive, because the motherboard would just treat it like a normal hard drive, and Windows might try to defragment it or something. I mean, I've seen people use SATA SSDs with a SATA-to-IDE adapter in older machines (though I wouldn't really recommend that). Basically, the worst-case scenario in your case that you won't get full speed out of the drive, so don't put anything too fancy in it, stay under $100 for sure.
shouldn't be applicable (unless you try and install the chipset drivers for windows XP) built in AHCI or IDE drivers in windows 10 works fine with TRIM (looks at the asrock motherboard and 1.4ghz core2duo next to me TRIM working fine)
 
Back
Top