New SSD for Asus Zenbook UX32A

Hi guys
Im looking for new SSD replacement of stock HDD in my Asus UX32A (core i5 modification, with 24gb ssd, 500gb hdd, 4gb ram). My choice fell on samsung's 840 EVO but than i'm scanned my system, and found my HDD (hitachi connected through sata 2 (while ssd through sata 3 WAT?!) and now I doubt that the speed gain from SSD (sams has sata3) will be great.
Maybe i'm wrong, and my Hitachi works on SATA2 coz it supports only SATA2, and SSD will be working with SATA3??
I really appreciate your help, especially the help from the owners who have already did upgrade.

 

I'm upgrading my UX32VD and i'm pretty sure the HDD Is pretty similar in the 32A. you should definitely get an SSD it will be way faster. I would recommend the Sandisk Extreme II 240GB. It's the one I just got and its probably one of the three best SSDs on the market right now and definitely better than the EVO.

 

The biggest advantage of an SSD vs a hard drive is the random read/write performance. SSDs are much better at random access than Hard drives. The UX32A should support SATA3 but even if it doesn't, you are going to see much better performance than with the hard drive.

The Samsung 840 EVO is a good drive for the money. Here's a review AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840 EVO Review: 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 750GB & 1TB Models Tested

 

Hi all

sorry to bump this old thread, but info on the UX32A seems scarce! How did you guys get on with upgrading to SSD? Can anyone recommend a particular model that they upgraded? Any gotchas in the physical process of replacing the old disk drive?

I love my UX32A but unfortunate the Hitachi HDD has started giving disk errors, and I know it's just a matter of time before it fails. So, I've decided this is a good time to switch to an SSD, but I saw one Youtube video where he claimed it wasn't possible to upgrade the UX32A, only the UX32VD. So before I go down this road, it'd be great to get some confirmation from people who've actually succeeded in doing the drive upgrade.

thanks!

 

I don't know why there would be a difference with UX32VD or UX32A. Here's a supposed image of the inside of the UX32A:



Looks like a straightforward 2.5" (probably 7mm height) drive bay.

I just would deactivate the cache drive (24GB?) if it has one since it will likely only hinder performance of the new SSD.

 

Hi HTWingNut

thanks a million for the reply. Here's the Youtube video I'm talking about where he says the UX32VD is the only model that is upgradeable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xC-osS0scU#t=104

I want to get a good quality SSD, but I know almost nothing about this subject. Any ideas where I can get a good recommendation for a replacement SSD?
Also how would you go about deactivating the cache drive?

thanks again. It's really hard to find info on this.

 

The video you linked to is pretty bad. He does NOT know how to install RAM (I would have disconnected the battery and physically installed it better - see how much of the pins you can see when he says 'there, it's done' or something like that - the RAM is NOT installed at this point and the computer would not boot up, if it didn't damage the RAM and/or the MB first).


As for the question of whether you can put an SSD in, it seems like you can.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...hdd-upgrade-os-related-comparison-ux32vd.html


7mm as already suggested. I would recommend anything but an EVO or Samsung 840 with TLC nand.


See:
Samsung 840 EVO read speed drops on old-written data in the drive

See:
Read speeds dropping dramatically on older files; benchmarks needed to confirm affected SSDs


And yes, this is a real issue - Samsung has acknowledged it:

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8550/...40-evo-read-performance-bug-fix-is-on-the-way


Interesting though how the writer in the link above says to stay away until the fix is proven/real.

 

If your workload is light to moderate it's hard to beat the Crucial MX100 512GB at $200 USD

Heavier workload SanDisk Extreme II, 480GB, if on sale. The newer SanDisk Extreme Pro or Samsung 850 Pro depending on size and price. Last week Amazon had the SE Pros on sale for a day and the price was great, 1TB $450. I had to run away from my PC

 

Thanks for the advice. I had literally just orderd the Samsung 840 when I saw your message saying not to order it, so I managed to cancel.

I just saw the SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB for £20 more than the SanDisk Extreme II, so I think I'll go for that. It's 7mm so it's the right size. It says it's SATA III as well, which I presume is a good thing?

thanks

 

Yeah, SATAIII is the best we can hope for on our older, yet still viable notebooks.

It may turn out Samsung can deliver a firmware fix that completely turns the situation around for the 840 (TLC) and 840/850 EVO's (also TLC based SSD's), but until that actually happens, the drive you chose is what I would pick too.


Actually, even with the issue completely fixed, the SanDisk Extreme Pro is head and shoulders above the EVO in any event.

 

For the 480-512GB size class the 480GB SE Pro is the top drive followed by the SE II.
Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD Review - PCMark 8 Consistency Test

 

Hi again. I'm only getting around to doing this now. Do you have any suggestions as to how to deactivate the 24GB cache drive? Is that something I do in the BIOS?

cheers

 

I'm not real familiar with that model, but likely yes, through the BIOS.

 

I put a pny SSD into mine and it is so much faster its amazing. No more long waits of any kind. Samsung is possibly more careful about not wearing out flash components. Be careful to reinsert all screws. Especially those situated about the battery. When I failed to reinsert a couple of these the battery heated up. So I guess they were ground screws and needed to be put in.