SSD upgrade for HP 2230S - any bottlenecks?

Hi everyone,

I am considering upgrading the stock hard drive (160 GB 5400 RPM) on my HP 2230S to an SSD instead. I have homed in on the Intel 330 Series 180 GB (SSDSC2CT180A3K5) but I am not sure if the Intel G45 Express chipset, or some other component on the 2230S, will be a bottleneck or not? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

The only bottleneck is the SATA-II connector.. so basically you have a 330 which is fast at SATA-III speeds but your machine can only run SATA-II. It's okay though, you won't feel much of a difference, especially not after a HDD.

I've got the exact same problem on my 2 other laptop which I just bought a 120 GB 330 SSD for so yeah, otherwise you are fine

 

The bottlenecks are:

Platform (sounds like yours is 3 or 4 generations old).

'Platform' includes but not limited to:

SATA2 storage subsystem interface,
Core 2 Duo processor,
DDR2 RAM module(s).

O/S - you need Win8 to extract all the (real world) performance possible out of new hardware like SSD's.

RAM - maximizing your RAM puts the least amount of load on other subsystems and maximizes their performance.

Drivers (such as Intel RST 11.6.2).

Support for TRIM in the O/S, the AHCI drivers and the SSD itself. Without this; most SSD's become simply garbage in a short period of time (when actually used to their potential).

Software - if you still have the original XP Pro O/S and the correspondingly ancient software... this is also another source of 'bottlenecks'.


BUT - agree with jaug1337 above: huge upgrade from a 5400 RPM HDD (though I would greatly recommend a 240GB or 256GB capacity SSD as the 'minimum/optimum' for maximum sustained performance and reliability over time - Intel 520 series (240GB) and M4 (256GB) highly recommended).

Good luck.

 

Awesome, thanks for the information! I'll have to do some research on how to best setup an SSD in Windows XP but either way it sounds like I'm looking at a pretty considerable performance boost.

 

bottleneck would be listening to tiller telling you everything you got is a bottleneck

this may help you though:
forum.thinkpads.com • SSD performance on cloned XP Pro, Samsung 830 256GB

 

miro! Gentle, please...


I know I'm verbose - but complete information is never wasted on the minds that want to know...


If you are going with the XP installation: I highly recommend an Intel SSD with which you can use the Intel SSD Toolbox to do an Automatic manual (weekly) TRIM on the drive.

 

Verbosity is fine if the information is relevant and in this case it certainly was Thank for the advice on the automatic manual TRIM, it'll definitely keep the SSD in good shape in the long run.

 

Thanks for the vote of support - glad it helped.

Best way to setup XP on an SSD:

Get any version of Win7 (demo/trial downloads are available 'legally') and create a DVD or better: a USB bootable drive:

See:
Microsoft Store Online


Install the SSD and boot from the Win7 installer as if you'll be actually installing it. Select Custom Install and create a partition and format the drive (it will create two partitions - a small ~100MB partition and rest will be the remaining capacity) - don't forget to Format the main partition. Turn off the power to the system.

Put in your XP disk and do a clean install. Install all drivers, utilities and all programs needed. Enjoy!


What partitioning/formatting with the Win7 installer does is Align the SSD properly. You'll get increased performance along with less wear on the nand due to WA (write amplification) issues with unaligned reads/writes.

Sure; you can do this after the fact (post XP install) with many available utilities.


But why?


(When you can do it 'right', right away).

 

Really? That's some neat advice you gave right there - I'll definitely set it up that way. Cheers!

 

By the way, any advice on how to partition the drive in XP i.e. would you use one partition for temp files, one for the page file etc?

 

No, no further partitions needed for an SSD - just leave some as 'unallocated' so the GC, TRIM and other firmware optimizations can do their magic with the least harm to the nand while giving the most sustained performance possible.

Any other partitions are purely user optional (for example: if you wanted to have your data separate from the O/S).