CF-30 Hard Drive Possibilities

I took the plunge today on a CF-30KAPAQ2B, 2GB Ram, WIN 7 Pro coa sticker.

Like so many, it comes sans hard disk / caddy.

I ordered the caddy; pretty straight forward there, but the hard disk raises a few questions.

I want to use a SSD but I am not sure whether to use SATA, SATA II, or SATA III?

Any size restrictions (besides budget) on what the CF-30 will recognize?

Oh, I'm looking at the Crucial CT480M500SSD1 (480GB SATA 2.5-inch Internal SSD 7mm drive).

 

Sata 2 I believe,I have run a 256ssd with no problem. But the experts will float by and give you the facts soon.MK3 is a nice unit.

 

What are you looking to do with your computer?
SSD is cool and fast if it's in your budgets range.

HHD drives can go up too one t/b.
SSD can hold about 500gb's

As I said it all depends what you want to do
I recommend the SSD

 

It's not really going to matter which SATA you use. I am using a Samsung 840 (240GB) SATA 3 in my CF-30MK2. It is only going to run as fast as your Toughbook chipset was made too and no faster even if the SSD is SATA 3. Here is a good buy Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE500LW 2.5" TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) With Notebook Bundle Kit . With this PROMO CODE EMCPEHA87 you can save another $10.00 ($249.99)

 

I'd second Toughasnails' recommendation: you can get a Samsung Evo 840 250 gig for 139 on Amazon. I've gotten two 30 mk3s in the last month (one for home and one for car and office), and outfitted them both with the Samsung 250s. Samsung's software makes installation a breeze. My hdd days are over.

 

I ordered the same drive from Amazon because I could use Discover rewards dollars vs out-of-pocket dollars. It should be here Monday. The other 2GB memory chip arrived today along with the Win7 disk. The DVD rom, HDD, and HDD caddy should all be here by Tuesday and the computer before next Friday. It's all coming together.

I also downloaded the cool Toughbook/Martix wallpaper from the BST forum. Can't wait!

 

Like that one, I think everyone does. I got that from a member about 4 years ago....have it on my phone too

 

All of the parts arrived today. Put the HDD in the caddy, the DVD drive in the bay and loaded Win7 without issue. I then started with the 35 toughbook driver packages ( used about 30 of them) then on to Windows update. It is currently installing 127/151.

The only hiccup i see so far is the DVD multidrive won't read CD's. I'll check the bios after it finishes updating then make sure I have the correct driver loaded in device manager.

 

SATA III works great, everything loaded up quickly and the machine is speedy (compared to my CF-28). Now just to copy over all my software programs......