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Home , Motherboard, Parallel ATA

2016-03-10

Upgrading Your Desktop Solid State Drive Advantages with a • Much faster, especially system startup and Solid State Drive when launching large applications Bob Walker • Much more rugged than a mechanical hard drive (especially important for ) • Run cooler, not sensitive to temperature variations (especially important for laptops) • Not sensitive to file fragmentation (no platter spin or head seek issues)

Solid State Drive Disadvantages

• More expensive than mechanical hard drives by a factor of about 10 to 1 per GB. • Each block of a flash-based SSD can only be written and erased a limited number of times before it fails (the controllers manage this limitation to extend drive life), although normal life should be several years. • Failures tend to be sudden and catastrophic. • Shorter shelf life.

eMMC Solid State Drives Solid State Drive Form Factors

• eMMC (embedded • ‘’ refers to industry-standard MultiMediaCard) drives are physical dimensions of major computer based on the same components as SD and microSD cards • Most SSD’s are 3.5”, 2.5” and 1.8”, with 2.5” • Typically used in cheap and notebook , being the most common smart phones and tablets • Most mechanical hard drives used in • Not as fast and not as reliable typical desktop systems are 5.25” (older as a standard Solid State Drive systems) and 3.5”, thus the adapters

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Solid State Drive Form Factors Solid State Drive Form Factors

Solid state drive on left compared to a standard hard drive on right Two examples of card-mounted solid state drives

Solid State Drive Form Factors Solid State Drive Interfaces • Most older systems use EIDE (Enhanced IDE), mSATA and M.2 sometimes also known as PATA (Parallel ATA) interfaces (formerly known as for hard drives, CD/DVD/BlueRay drives, floppy drives, the Next Generation etc. Form Factor (NGFF)), • Most newer systems do NOT have EIDE connectors on are specifications for the internally mounted • Most EIDE devices use molex connectors for power computer expansion cards and associated connectors. Mostly for use in small devices such as ultrabooks or tablets. Molex power connector

Solid State Drive Interfaces Solid State Drive Interfaces • Most current systems use SATA (Serial ATA) interfaces for hard drives, CD/DVD/BlueRay drives, etc. Latest version is SATA 3.2. • There is also eSATA, eSATAp, Mini-SATA (mSATA), SATA Express and SATA with an SFF-8784 connector

SATA connectors on motherboard SATA signal connector (left) and power connector (right)

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What the L Solid State Drive Interfaces • Some not-so-old systems have both EIDE and SATA connectors on the motherboard, and both molex and SATA power connectors coming from the

• Various molex to SATA power adapters and Y connectors are available, but EIDE and SATA signal cables are NOT compatible and there are no adapters available

SATA signal connector (left) and power connector (right)

Solid State Drive Interfaces Solid State Drive Interfaces • Solid state drives are generally only available with SATA interfaces, although USB drives are also available • If you have an older system without SATA, you can use an Some SSD’s are available mounted on adapter card that plugs into one of the motherboard PCI cards connectors • If your system doesn’t have either SATA or an empty PCI connector you may be out of luck

PCI connectors on motherboard Adapter card with multiple interfaces

SSD Typical Configurations SSD Upgrade Considerations • SSD’s are readily available up to 1TB (~$1,000), but You should probably NOT bother with an SSD due to the costs many people use a 60GB to 256GB upgrade if: SSD as the ‘C’ drive for the and applications, and a standard mechanical hard drive • your computer is old enough that it doesn’t have of from 256GB to 4TB as the ‘D’ drive for the data SATA connections on the motherboard • your computer is running Windows XP • The SSD ‘C’ drive must be SATA, although the ‘D’ drive can be either SATA or EIDE If your computer is currently running Windows 7, • SSD’s come either bare or as part of an upgrade kit you may want to try to upgrade to Windows 10 that can include mounting brackets and migration first to make sure it will work. The Win10 upgrade does NOT always work on systems running Win7.

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Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade • Back up all of your existing data, even if you are • Beware some heavily proprietary systems going to use the existing hard drive as the ‘D’ (what the !) drive • If you are going to migrate your existing setup: • SOME laptop SSD upgrades are almost as easy, – Use the appropriate backup software (i.e. Software that has a ‘restore to different hardware’ capability) to but other laptop SSD upgrades are seriously create an image backup NOT practical!!! Caveat emptor: Do your OR research before proceeding! – Use cloning software such as ’s Data Migration Software (https://www.manualscat.com/en/intel-535- series-manual ) and follow the directions provided

Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade • Have the system with the back panel to your left and the front panel to your right. This upgrade will be for typical tower or mini- • Take the side panel closest to you off the case. tower case, most horizontal desktop cases are This is usually fastened with screws at the similar enough to figure out. back of the case, and once the screws are off slide the side panel slide towards the back of the case to remove it. • There should be an empty 3.5” or 5.25” drive bay, although in a pinch it is possible the SSD can be double-sided taped to the case bottom

Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade

Some cases have the Most cases have the drive bays running drive bays running side to side, with the front to back, with device connectors the device facing the right side connectors facing (when standing in the back front).

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Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade Confirm you have the necessary hardware:

For these cases both side panels must be removed to access the 1. SATA-to-SATA cable connectors 2. SATA power adapter for computers without a SATA power cable 3. 3.5-inch mounting adapter and screws

Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade Attach the SSD to the mounting adapter 1. SATA-to-SATA interface cable: Connect to SATA interface connector #1 on motherboard and to the SSD.

2. SATA power cable (or SATA power adapter): Connect from power supply to the SSD

3. Slide the connected SSD into an available drive bay and secure it in place (screws, clips, etc. depending on the case design)

Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade If the existing hard drive is going to be retained: • If it is an EIDE drive, leave it connected • If it is a SATA drive, change the SATA signal cable from connector #1 to connector #2 or #3 on the motherboard

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Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade • If you are doing a fresh install of the operating system, power on the computer and go to the setup If the existing hard drive is still in the computer, screen (usually by pressing ‘Delete’ or ‘Escape’ when you can do an in-place migration of the data by the motherboard splash screen appears). following the instructions at http://download.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/ • When in setup, change the boot order of the system sb/intel_ssd_installation_guide_g17251.pdf so that the SSD is first to boot. Note that for some systems it may be necessary to temporarily set boot There is a link to the migration software there as order so that the device with the operating system well as some directions for installing an SSD in a installation software is first to boot. laptop. • Install the operating system

Doing the SSD Upgrade Doing the SSD Upgrade If you’re using Windows 10 and you have a ‘D’ If everything is working properly, you can put drive for data, once the operating system is the side panel(s) back on (turn the system off installed open first) SETTINGS>SYSTEM>STO RAGE>SAVE LOCATIONS and set the ‘D’ drive as your save location for documents, music, pictures and videos. Leave the ‘C’ drive as the save location for apps.

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Some SSD Brands • ADATA • Corsair • Crucial • Intel • Kingston • Mushkin • OCZ • Samsung • Sandisk • Seagate • •

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Solid State Drive Interfaces

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