Old Alienware SSD Compatibility thread

So my OCZ Agility 2 crapped out on me and I needed a replacement. I read through all of the problems @p377y7h33f was having with putting a new SSD in his M5750. I figured he was just having bad luck so I grabbed a new Intel 535 480GB drive. I noticed like @p377y7h33f my Windows installation was very slow and all my applications were taking MUCH longer to open, especially on a fresh Windows 7 install. I decided to benchmark the Intel drive. The results (below) were terrible. 7.23 MB/s Read speed. Well at least I knew what was going on. I tried the same drive on my newer M11X and got 223.21 MB/s read. From reading @p377y7h33f posts and from my own testing there seems to be an incompatibility with newer SSD's and older laptops. Just something to watch out for.

@p377y7h33f Said the a PNY Optima drive worked great for him so despite the controller controversy those drives have I grabbed a 480GB one from Tiger Direct. Was only $140 after rebate. I threw in the drive and the Windows 7 install flew. Everything is now opening as fast as it did with the Agility. I ran the benchmark tool and got 84.72 MB/s. Not bad for a 9yr old laptop without the AHCI option. My PNY Optima firmware is showing as N081 which from this thread seems to be the structure for SMI firmware.

List:
Working:
OCZ Agility 2 - Controller: SandForce 1222 - Tester: Protivakid
PNY Optima SSD7SC480GOPT-RB - Controller: SMI (Firm: N081) - Tester: Protivakid
PNY Optima 120GB - Tester: p377y7h33f

NOT working:
Intel 535 SSDSC2BW480H601 - Controller: Custom Intel (Firm: RD20) - Tester: Protivakid
Kingston 256GB SATA-II - Tester: p377y7h33f
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB - Controller: SandForce® 2281 - Tester: p377y7h33f

I will add others if anyone else keeping these things alive chimes in

Intel 535 on my M5750


Intel 535 on my M11X


PNY Optima 480GB on my M5750

 

Thanks for sharing, protivakid. On my m15x I've tested two SSD - OCZ Vertex 3 120GB and Kingston SSDnow V300 120Gb. Both are Sata III drives and are backwards compatible with Sata II. Both support AHCI mode. OCZ and Kingston uses the same SandForce 2281 controller except that Kingston claims they have made some custom tweaks to it. Dunno what it is, but it doesn't perform better than OCZ. Kingston is a big mess, quality for NAND for the same product varies (from Hynix, Samsung to Toshiba chips), so its buying cat in the sack, you don't know what you gonna get.
OCZ did evil joke to me by suddenly corrupting all disk, but I managed to get something out. At start I thought it simply died so I bought Kingston as cheap replacement, but it performed a lot worse so I reformatted again OCZ and for now it works. Very weird. Here are results:

Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb


OCZ Vertex 3 120Gb

 

Thanks for chiming in. It seems more drive's work with yours than my previous generation Alienware. Yours also don't show as a "SCSI" drive like mine do but you probablt have AHCI in your BIOS where I am stuck in RAID even with a single drive.