Need advice on buying SSD for my Dell Latitude E6400

I've never kept a laptop for more than two years until my current Dell Latitude E6400. Originally, I planned to replace it at or before the expiration of the 3yr warranty, but I passed that mark 7mos ago and it's still going strong! So I've decided to keep on using it for a while until all the new Ivy Bridge laptops and ultrabooks are rolled out and I have the most options.

Currently, my E6400 has a 320GB 7200rpm Seagate Momentus hard drive that I installed over 3yrs ago. It has served me well but it is the noisiest hard drive I've ever had and it bugs the crap out of me!

So...I want to upgrade to a SSD that I can eventually transfer to my next notebook when the time comes. I'm only using about 80GB of my current 320GB capacity because I store everything other than my OS and program files online (in 'the cloud') or on an external hard drive. So a 128GB SSD would have sufficient space for my needs. I'd prefer to keep the price under $150.

Just from reading reviews and comments from other users, I have a favorable opinion of OCZ, Samsung and Kingston. But I'm open to any input, good or bad, on those brands or any others that I should consider! Also, what other specs should I look for? I know that I need one with the SATA III interface and it needs to be a standard 2.5" size (or have an adapter to make it fit). What else?

Thanks in advance! I know old school hard drives pretty well, but I admit that I'm not as up on SSDs as I would like to be! Thanks again!

 

Forget the OCZ drives, consider this drive:
Samsung MZ-7PC128B/WW 830 Series 2.5 128GB Solid State Drive - 128GB, SATA, SATA III-6Gb/s, Up to 320MB/s, Up to 80K, Up to 30K, 2.5 at TigerDirect.com

 

The Samsung 830 Series is one of the most highly reviewed units that I've seen so far. I'm trying to figure out whether I need the 'Notebook Upgrade Kit' version ($169.99 - LINK) or just the drive ($143.99 - LINK)???

The 'kit' comes with Norton Ghost, which I don't need. But the drive is only 7mm thick so it needs a 'spacer' to fit in a 9.5mm hard drive bay like mine...and the kit includes the spacer. Do I really need to pay for the kit just for the spacer or can I improvise??? Thanks!

 

Me and Commander Wolf always recommend Intel and Samsung SSDs, they tend to be the most reliable and tend to have the lowest power consumption. If you don't need to space, you can look at the Intel X25-M G1/G2 or 320 series, or the PM800/810 or 830 series SSDs from Samsung.

G1 does not support TRIM, but manufactured on 50nm, it should last a pretty long time. G2 is 34nm, supports TRIM and still should last a long time, though not the fastest SSD. PM800 supports TRIM with a firmware update, and was the SSD choice for Dell until PM810/470 series. 830 is Samsung's current flagship SSD.

 

I'm definitely leaning toward the Samsung 830 series. My only question now is about fitting the 7mm thick drive in the bay designed for a 9.5mm drive??? What is the best way to secure the SSD in the hard drive slot?

 

The drive should come with the spacer and some notebooks don't even need said spacer, it depends on how the drive caddy and drive bay are made.

 

I think the Intel X25-M G1 and G2 are long discontinued. I've been using my G2 for >2 years now and it's been great. If if one could find a G1, I wouldn't buy it now, due to lack of TRIM support.

I too agree w/other posts to forget OCZ. I'd also forget Kingston. I'd go for the Samsung 830 or Crucial M4.

Only the Samsung 830 notebook kits come w/a spacer. I have one of those.

If you order a bare drive (my dad and I each ordered one of these), Samsung will NOT send you one. I've tried writing to them to ask for one. Answer was no. :/

Depending on how the drive's mounted, some laptops won't need it. My Lenovo T61p definitely needs it whereas my X100e doesn't. I figure one could fashion a spacer out of cardboard or paper, if needed.

 

Good to know, my Intel 320 came with it already installed and i got the desktop kit.

@OP, i'd open up the laptop and check whether you need the spacer or not.

 

BTW, I'd personally steer clear of the Intel 320 (I did) because it seems Firmware update now available - Addresses Bad Context 13x Error didn't resolve the issues it was supposed to ( http://communities.intel.com/message/147498).

$144 isn't that great a price on a 128 gig Samsung 830. I've seen lower, but I don't remember if they were bare drives or notebook kits (that come w/a spacer).

Might be a good idea to set price alerts on Best Deals Online - Daily Deals and Coupons at dealnews for both the Samsung 830 and Crucial M4. The latter has been quite cheap from time to time.

 

Who cares if G1 doesn't support TRIM, it has GC algorithm on the controller level. On top of that, it is 50nm NAND, I'm sure it'll last quite some time before other 25nm NAND bites the dust. You can still find new G1/G2 on eBay.

I've owned 7 Intel 320 series SSD, 3 before the 8MB bug, and 4 after, I have yet to have one fail, and I don't think anyone on this forum has bought as many 320 series as I have.

 

It matters due to perf degradation over time. See AnandTech - The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ and http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/02/04/windows-7-ssd-performance-and-trim/13, for example.

Given how cheap current SSDs are, it seems silly to buy something so outdated like the G1. The X25-M G2 was king of the hill for consumer SSDs for awhile for but there are now far faster drives that aren't expensive.

 

How long have you had your Samsung 830 Series? What did you have in your ThinkPad prior to the 830? Anything about the 830 Series that doesn't satisfy you 100%? I would really like to hear your hands-on experience and any feedback!

I'm really looking forward to the silence...and if it runs a bit cooler than my Seagate Momentus, I certainly won't mind that either!

 

My first one I've had since beginning of February 2012. It replaced the stock 7200 rpm 100 gig Hitachi drive it came with (sorry, don't have the model # handy as I can't find the drive right now). 100 gigs was about the largest 7200 rpm laptop drive that existed at the time I ordered at the end of 8/2007.

The second one I've had since beginning of end of beginning of April 2012. It's in my X100e that's not used very much. It replaced the stock crappy 160 gig WD1600BEVT 5400 rpm drive.

My dad has another 830 that went in a new i5-2500 machine I built for him. It hasn't been in use that long yet... maybe a month or so.

All of these are 128 gig units.

The drive is great. The only thing that irks me is the Samsung seems to want you to overprovision (leave some free unpartitioned space) to aid w/garbage collection and to improve performance/reduce wear. That means wasted space. See http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/c.../Magician_Software_User_Manual_Ver.3.1_EN.pdf. There's a lot of debate as to whether the drive can actually use space marked as free by TRIM. An email to Samsung support didn't help clarify it much either.

My question was:

Reply was:

I also was irked by Norton Ghost that the notebook kit came with. IIRC, it will not copy any OEM recovery partitions (I wanted that copied) and it was unclear if the target drive would have proper alignment. So, I ended up not using it.

FWIW, Crucial M4 is a second choice. I recently put in one a very old machine my parents have (Dell Dimension E521). It's not been in service long yet and there might actually be something wrong w/the its motherboard or PSU (long story).

Back to the other guy suggesting used drives, if you can find an Intel X25-M G2 for CHEAP (must be much less than buying the the same capacity of a modern, seemingly reliable drive like the Samsung 830 or Crucial M4), then maybe consider it. At least the G2 drive seems solid.

Just keep in mind that much of its 3 year warranty will be gone vs. the 3 years you'll get on a new M4 or 830...

edit: One more thing, I did hit http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...673999-what-hell-wrong-my-m4.html#post8672731 w/the 830 in my T61p. Applying the registry changes fixed things. I personally wouldn't do it unless you have the same symptoms.

 

I've used Acronis True Image to clone my hard drives in the past. It's free and much more user friendly than Norton Ghost.

I was originally planning to just clone my hard drive image onto my new SSD. I have a hard drive caddy that fits in my optical drive bay so all I'd do is pop the new drive into the caddy, slide it in the bay and let True Image take it from there.

But I've decided to do a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium on the SSD instead. I'm running the 32-bit version now because I upgraded from 32-bit Vista, but if I do a clean install I'll upgrade to 64-bit. I also won't waste any unnecessary space with a clean install.

BTW, I freakin' HATE to do clean installs.....I'm not looking forward it! I'm also thinking about upgrading to Office 2010 even though I'd rather keep using 2003...but support for 2003 is ending pretty soon...and 2003 is pretty archaic looking...

 

@allfiredup

Did you get the Samsung 830 for your E6400? If you did, did it fit in the primary HDD bay without the spacers? I am also thinking of getting this and this might be the deciding factor for me for either getting the Samsung 830 or Crucial M4.