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    netbook and SSD upgrade confusion

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by naton, Dec 25, 2011.

  1. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hi

    I own a Dell Inspiron Mini 910 and the harddrive died on me. I didn't know that it uses an IDE drive and ordered a SATA drive for it. I want to keep the SATA drive for possible future use and want to test to ensure that it is in a working order.

    I've looked in the net and found out that the EeePC 901 uses a SATA SSD Drive (e.g. Link). I borrowed one to test my SATA drive. My problem is here. The EeePC 901 I have in front of me uses an IDE drive. Also while the Eee 901 is often listed with two SATA SSD (a 50mm + a 70mm SSD) the one I borrowed has only one 70mm SSD. The is no socket on the motherboard for the 50mm SSD. This laptop has a socket for a sim card and a 3G wireless card. Also beside the socket for the 70mm SSD I can read 'IDE' which I believe is synonymous for PATA and not SATA. The faulty SSD from my mini is detected by the Eee 901 BIOS which confirms that the Eee uses a PATA drive.

    So my questions are:
    1- What drive is used by the Eee? SATA or PATA?
    2- What netbook can use 50mm SATA drives

    Thanks
     
    naton, Dec 25, 2011
    #1
  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    As far as I know, the 910 SSD has a mini PCIe physical connector, but runs on the IDE/PATA bus. Same with the EEE9xx series, as you've seen.

    I think only more recent machines (MBA 11, 13, TP X220, etc) use mini PCIe SSDs on the SATA bus, but there could be older samples.
     
    Commander Wolf, Dec 26, 2011
    #2
  3. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

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    Thanks a lot for confirming that most of the information available online is incorrect.

    Where is the sata controller on those new machines? Is it on the motherboard or on the SSD board?
     
    naton, Dec 26, 2011
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  4. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

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    I got the 16GB SSD to work in the Asus. It is identified and works properly. I've installed WinXP and ever thing seems to be working OK. I think I got it to work after going into the BIOS and loading the default settings.

    Now what I don't understand is this, the new 16GB SSD is recognised by the Asus eee PC but not by the Dell. The faulty 8GB from the Dell is also recognised by the Asus. The new 16GB drive is not recognised by the Dell. It doesn't show in the BIOS.

    Does anyone knows why this is happening?
     
    naton, Dec 29, 2011
    #4