My ASUS laptop is more than 4 years old and I am thinking of replacing the 2.5in HDD with a new SSD (like the Intel 330). Will the SSD work with my old laptop? Typically, is the size and connectors compatible? Will it boot up with the new SSD? Tia.
SSD compatibility in old laptop
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Comments
4 years is hardly old. Someone replaced their hard drive from an ancient model like a 1990's 32MB of ram kind of PC and it worked no problem. You can find it on youtube.
Replaced my Asus S101h no problems. All connections the same. You can either image your old drive or clean install your OS. Just google replace HDD with SSD. Just make sure you back up anything you need. Made a huge difference in speed.
Make sure that your laptop uses SATA HDD, not PATA or Serial - it's old interface and I never heard about PATA SSD.
If you are using Win XP, or same age OS, you'll need a lot of additional tuning to stop OS from killing SSD.
WinXP SP3 allegedly supports SSD but i would recommend upgrade to 7 or 8, or latest Linux kernel if you use Linux.Check Asus site for updates for your BIOS and any info about compatibility of your laptop/motherboard/chipset/bios with SSD.
Switch SATA mode to ACHI in BIOS. (!!! BEFORE installing OS)
DO NOT DEFRAGMENT OR DO ANY HARD DRIVE OPTIMISATION ON SSD!
Make sure that your laptop uses SATA HDD, not PATA
Good idea to check for that first with a >4 year old laptop. One of my relative's I work on occasionally is a 2007 model, and it has a PATA drive.
Windows XP has no TRIM support. If you use Xp it is best to upgrade to a newer OS to take full advantage of the SSD and to avoid it dying prematurely.
Mine has a 100GB SATA 5400rpm HDD in it at the moment. Thanks all for the information.
Shouldn't be any problems.