Adding SSD to a 6-year-old desktop?

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Quattro Pete

Quattro Pete

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Would I observe any noticeable performance/speed improvement by moving over to an SSD? It's a Dell Vostro 200 with Intel Core2Duo E8200 CPU and 3GB of RAM, Win7 32-bit. No particular issues with it other than it's somewhat sluggish by today's standards.

I'm not considering adding more RAM since it's a 32-bit Win7 version. Besides, 4GB would be MAX that I could have in this box.
 
I would think an SSD would probably be the easiest upgrade you would notice. I'm sure that machine could be upgraded to 64 bit windows and more ram, but the SSD if you just image the old drive onto it is a pretty painless upgrade.

But yes, definitely noticeable.
 
Thanks.

According to Crucial.com memory advisor, 4GB is the max RAM this box supports. I'm not sure I want to spend money on Win7 64-bit version just so that the machine can recognize an extra 0.5 GB of RAM (compared to the 3.5 GB that Win7 32-bit can recognize).

Also, do most SSDs include software to help you clone your existing drive? I'm looking into the Intel 530 SSD specifically.
 
Replacing a 6 year old HDD will always pep up a PC. If it had a 5,400 rpm HDD drive a 7,200 rpm HDD drive will pep it up more.

Will using an SSD make it faster still than a 7,200 drive?

Very unlikely!

OTOH if you want to try an SSD it is your money but it will be no faster than putting in a modern fast HDD even on heavy Photoshop processing of RAW images.

eddie
 
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I have to disagree on SSD vs. 7200 RPM drive comparison. Look at any set of benchmarks - SSD performance is substantially better.

I run a system with the SSD being the program/OS drive and I have dedicated hard drives for data storage. I'm always amazed how quickly it boots up, and how there is no lag when opening programs.
 
Originally Posted By: TWG1572
I have to disagree on SSD vs. 7200 RPM drive comparison. Look at any set of benchmarks - SSD performance is substantially better.

One concern I have is whether my old motherboard can actually utilize the high transfer speeds that an SSD can theoretically offer.
 
I have a 6 year old Lenovo t500 Dual Core pentium and the speed increase 7200RPM >>> SSD was astonishing. Bootup ~10 seconds and apps fly......

specs on pc:
Intel Core 2 Duo processor P7370 (2.0 GHz)
3 MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz front-side bus

I do have 6GB of ram. Going 3GB>6GB difference was little compared to SSD.
 
A Western Digital Black 1TB HDD has a sustained throughput of about 150MB/s.

A typical Western Digital 512 MB SSD has a sustained thoughput of about 500MB/s.

Is that enough of a diference to see and feel? YES!

Computing doesn't get any faster than an SSD for your main drive!
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
Why does a desktop needs to boot up? Or alternatively, why does it need to go down?

In my case, it needs to do that after installing Windows Updates or some anti-virus updates. Not often. Otherwise, I just put it in sleep mode as opposed to a full shutdown.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
Why does a desktop needs to boot up? Or alternatively, why does it need to go down?

Because it's a windows computer... Windows needs to be restarted periodically.
 
In addition to the faster sustained transfer speed, I feel that when I upgraded to an SSD, the faster seek times were noticeable. Even if your older system tops out with the faster sustained speed, the file/program loading will be much snappier.

For me, the SSD upgrade has been one of the most noticeable improvements, compared to increased memory or faster CPU (at least while comparing CPUs of the same generation that fit into the same socket).
 
Like putting rocket boosters on a cart pulled by a donkey.

The cart could go faster, but dragging the donkey behind it slows everything down...

A faster 7200 RPM drive is going to run hotter, and an SSD drive is going to choke the processor...
 
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The ssd won't choke anything, it's like electricity, only uses what the load is.

So if you're doing a disk intensive task the 'bottleneck' will be the cpu, chipset, and ram (and likely the SATA connection) but you still reduce disk seek times to nearly zero and that in itself is a great speed increase.

Also don't forget that you can just plop this in an external USB 3.0 box when the tower kicks the bucket later and have a screamin' file transfer box.
 
Download SeaTools and make a bootable thumb drive you'll be able to clone the old to new easily.

In my experience a SSD blows away a 7200 rpm hard drive on a desktop. I'm surprised someone would even compare them. Speaking as a database administrator until you get into an array of drives they aren't even close there either.

The benefit of an SSD is seek times, not sustained transfer speeds. Your "old" motherboard will benefit from the decreased latency just like a new pc. The lowest SATA interface is about 150MB per second, the best hard drives from a few years ago could probably do half that. So there's quite a bit of head room you can take advantage of even if your machine is very old.
 
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Yeah, when running CrystalDiskMark, sustained transfer speeds on my current HDD were around 75 MB/s, IIRC.

This machine uses Intel G33 chipset which according to spec can support SATA 2.0, so that's about 300 MB/s max.
 
Originally Posted By: bepperb
Download SeaTools and make a bootable thumb drive you'll be able to clone the old to new easily.

I looked at its description and it seems to be just an analysis/testing tool. It does not mention being able to clone a drive. Did I miss something?
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Would I observe any noticeable performance/speed improvement by moving over to an SSD? It's a Dell Vostro 200 with Intel Core2Duo E8200 CPU and 3GB of RAM, Win7 32-bit. No particular issues with it other than it's somewhat sluggish by today's standards.

I'm not considering adding more RAM since it's a 32-bit Win7 version. Besides, 4GB would be MAX that I could have in this box.



Get a new PC. Not worth putting money into. You need Win 7 64 bit and 8 GB RAM and SSD.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Get a new PC. Not worth putting money into. You need Win 7 64 bit and 8 GB RAM and SSD.

Yeah, that's kind of the dilemma. Do I spend $150 on an SSD now and hope it'll hold me over for another couple of years, or do I plunk down $800 on a brand new PC?

It isn't really critical for this desktop to be in tip top shape. I've got a notebook that's faster and has 8GB RAM, if needed.

Alternatively I could just do nothing at this point if people think that the potential benefit would not be worth spending $150.
 
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