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scott784
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Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:55 pm

I was hoping to get some suggestions about my Dell XPS 410. But first, here's some basics about the system. It is early 2007 technology with an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 at 2.4GHz with 6.00GB Ram. It came bundled with Win XP (right at the time Vista was being released). And to this day (7 years later), it's still a very good desktop (currently running Windows 7).

I am starting to use it more on a secondary basis since I've got a new notebook. But I have no desire to replace this Dell desktop system....at least not until it starts giving me serious issues. Having said that, I am considering replacing the hard drive with a new solid state drive. Can anyone give me some pointers on that? In other words, is my Dell compatible with the latest solid state drives? I ask this question because I must admit I am a dummy when it comes to mother boards, bus speeds and other various factors. What issues should I consider? And are there any general recommendations on the newest solid state drives? I don't want to cheap out. But if I can upgrade the hard drive, I am thinking a 256GB drive would be sufficient as I realize these solid state drives are still more expensive. Thanks for any feedback on this matter.
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:07 pm

Because your motherboard does not SATA III, SSD performance will be limited to SATA II speeds. This is still much faster than your current harddrive, but it means that shouldn't care so much about which SSD is the fastest.

The only other difficulty I see is that an SSD is 2.5" while your current HDD is 3.5". Therefore, an SSD will be too small to fit in the bracket meant for the harddrive. You will need to secure it by other means, possibly velcro or similar. Because SSDs don't have moving parts, it is less necessary to worry about how they are installed inside of a case.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:10 pm

After perusing the manual for your box on Dell's website, this should be easy. The motherboard talks to hard drives through SATA (probably 1.0 given the age of the box) which will allow you to install an SSD. The tricky part will be migrating the existing OS & stuff from the spinning drive to the SSD. Of course, if you just want to reinstall rather than migrate, that won't be an issue.

As for choice of SSD the likelihood that your box has either SATA 1.0 (150MB/sec) or 2.0 (300MB/sec) means that pretty much any SSD should be able to saturate the bus (i.e. it can deliver data faster than the motherboard can handle, but it will slow itself down in response) so that buying a hot-rod SSD over a plain-jane SSD is a waste of money. If you plan to upgrade the box or build another one, then by all means look for a hot-rod. There's plenty of data available here on the site.

http://techreport.com/storage/

Hope this helps.

EDIT: As for mounting SSDs in remote corners of a box, a hot-glue gun will be your friend.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:33 pm

Many SSDs are offered in kits with a bracket that fits into a 3.5" bay.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:39 pm

A machine of that era might have SATA II ports (if you're lucky -- it might just be SATA) which, as noted above, means modern SATA-III SSDs won't be able to achieve their full potential. However, that's mostly a theoretical limitation since most consumer loads don't stress throughput for any length of time; the real strength of an SSD is the low access latency, and you'll still get full benefit from that. You could save some money by shopping for an older SSD that only offers a SATA II interface; but I wouldn't go out of my way to try to do that, merely not worry about it if you find a good deal.

It's easy to clone your existing HD assuming the SSD is at least as large as the occupied space on your HD. If the machine has at least two SATA ports (if it only has two and there's an optical drive connected to the other one, you can "borrow" that port temporarily) you can just install the SSD on the free port, clone the drive using something like Macrium Reflect (there's a free trial version that will work fine for this, or you can support Tech Report and get a discount on the paid version), make sure you've got the drive letters assigned correctly, power down and physically swap the drive, and then power up and enjoy the speed. If you don't have a free SATA port (either vacant or liberated from your optical drive) you'll need to get something like an external USB drive housing (or find another desktop with two free SATA ports)

Fortunately you've already upgraded to Win7, which mostly knows what to do when it sees an SSD (XP was a bit of a pain to use with SSDs, requiring a bunch of fiddling to get the offset optimal when formatting, etc). Once upon a time when SSDs were smaller, the OS was dumber, and we worried about the life-expectancy of SSDs, folks recommended a bunch of tweaks for SSDs. These days those aren't really necessary and people tend to over-tweak their SSDs (having a hiberfile and page file is fine unless you're really cramped for space; SuperFetch and Indexing can be left on; Win7 won't try to defrag an SSD but it will periodically "optimize" it by issuing TRIM commands, which is both safe and good)
kumori wrote:
The only other difficulty I see is that an SSD is 2.5" while your current HDD is 3.5". Therefore, an SSD will be too small to fit in the bracket meant for the harddrive. You will need to secure it by other means, possibly velcro or similar. Because SSDs don't have moving parts, it is less necessary to worry about how they are installed inside of a case.
Captain Ned wrote:
EDIT: As for mounting SSDs in remote corners of a box, a hot-glue gun will be your friend.
If, like me, you're not quite that ghetto, just get something like this. As bthylafh notes, some SSDs include this in the box (they're usually marketed as "retail" or "upgrade" SKUs rather than OEM or "bare" drives).
 
scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:52 pm

Thanks for the quick responses from both of you. I am not certain how to look it up, but I am thinking the motherboard supports SATA II. You've given some good pointers about the fact that a hotrod SSD would be pointless on an older PC. And I should look at a more plain-jane SSD versus a hotrod...since I am not trying to reinvent this PC.

Through the years, this Dell XPS 410 has already had some upgrades including an upgrade in the power supply, video card, additional RAM, and of course the operating system (Win 7). Obviously, there's no incentive to try to rebuild the system into much more than it already is. However, because I still have such good performance out of this PC, I am thinking a SSD drive might not be a bad idea, especially given the fact that the failure rate of my existing HDD will continue to increase over time.

As far as any physical install, you make a good point in reminding me that my current HDD is 3.5" versus a SSD which 2.5" and the fact that a SSD would not fit inside the existing brackets in my case. But as you say, perhaps Velcro or similar would do the trick just fine in securing a SSD. I will check out the link you sent. Aside from any price tag difference, it sounds like you both agree that I would gain more efficiency (even on this older system) using a new SSD versus a new traditional HDD. Thanks again for the responses.
 
scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:22 pm

Well I know I've got two physical HDD bays in my tower (one of them is not being used), and the other bay has my existing HDD. I just wasn't sure if the technology of it (back then) was referred to as SATA1 or SATA2. Is that in the system information (booting to F2)?

As for cloning, I did that once or twice years ago (with my external WD hard drive) using Acronis. It worked like a charm (just mounting the image back from the external drive to the same HDD). I've never cloned anything to a SDD and don't know if that would introduce any problems here....especially with an older PC. But I don't have a problem reinstalling Win 7 if necessary. I've done that several times before; and my personal data is already backed up. It's just a bit time consuming is all. I've got a retail version of Win 7 so it should reinstall on any new disk.

Do any of you have any preferences on SDD brands.....or is one just as reliable at another? Obviously within a given brand, I know I don't need top of the line as my desktop would not benefit from it given the age of my motherboard and what has already been posted here. But reliability remains important regardless of speed. Whatever I get, it would be nice to get the mounting bracket included....although I could easily buy that separate. Thanks again for the responses here.
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:47 pm

I think this is the pick of the litter right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148820

I didn't (i skimmed, admittedly) what size you'd want. 256 is a good size though. You're right, you can find a mounting bracket very easily. I actually have no experience with any third party ones so I'll let someone else suggest that.

edit: If you just wanted the info though.

I think Intel is most reliable, but a little more pricey. Samsung and Crucial are also very good.
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Captain Ned
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:55 pm

Dug around some and your motherboard is SATA 2.0 (300MB/sec).
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:55 pm

DancinJack wrote:
I think this is the pick of the litter right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148820

Agreed.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:57 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Dug around some and your motherboard is SATA 2.0 (300MB/sec).


FWIW, I have a SATA II mobo and I don't think I miss the extra speed. A SSD pushing ~300MB/s is still really, really fast. Especially compared to a magnetic, spinning HDD.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:02 pm

DancinJack wrote:
Captain Ned wrote:
Dug around some and your motherboard is SATA 2.0 (300MB/sec).
FWIW, I have a SATA II mobo and I don't think I miss the extra speed. A SSD pushing ~300MB/s is still really, really fast. Especially compared to a magnetic, spinning HDD.

Fully agreed. I was just advocating that dropping long green on the fastest possible SSD wasn't such a good idea on SATA 2.0 unless there was another evolutionary build coming soon.
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scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:42 pm

Great feedback guys. Glad to hear I've got SATA 2 (and not older than that). And I think that Crucial SSD looks like a good one that I might order. Btw, dumb question here, but I'll ask anyway. Are the pin connectors the same on my old traditional HDD versus what I would have on a new SSD? I am assuming yes. But you know what they say about assuming :-)

On a side note (a little off topic), I am just glad my Dell is not much older than it is! As I recall, the race was on in the early to mid 2000's with systems becoming obsolete in no time with the processor wars. But if I am not mistaken, things kind of settled down by the middle of 2006 (or thereabouts). And perhaps it is for this reason that I am still able to use a decent desktop (albeit certainly not new) all these years later.
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:54 pm

scott784 wrote:
Great feedback guys. Glad to hear I've got SATA 2 (and not older than that). And I think that Crucial SSD looks like a good one that I might order. Btw, dumb question here, but I'll ask anyway. Are the pin connectors the same on my old traditional HDD versus what I would have on a new SSD? I am assuming yes. But you know what they say about assuming :-)


Not a dumb question, and it depends on if your current HDD is SATA or PATA. I can't imagine it's PATA though. From all the info supplied thus far, it's likely a SATA HDD.

Anyway, here is the SATA data cable. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=1 ... 1&format=2

Older PATA cables look like this http://forums.techguy.org/attachments/1 ... ve.gif.png

You should check out your current hard drive and see which one it is. If you plan on having them both connected at the same time, you'll need two of the data cables. Since you upgraded your power supply, i'm going to assume it has SATA power connectors as well. If not, you can buy adapters. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=1 ... 1&format=2
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Captain Ned
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:10 am

Whoa, talk about a time warp. Further digging through your service manual:

ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products ... _en-us.pdf

shows no PATA connectors, but does show that you've got the oddball BTX form factor. BTX was pushed by Intel back then as a way to suck more air through the case to keep the P4s it was designed for from reaching meltdown temps. Once P4 died, BTX followed it.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:42 am

Captain Ned wrote:
DancinJack wrote:
Captain Ned wrote:
Dug around some and your motherboard is SATA 2.0 (300MB/sec).

FWIW, I have a SATA II mobo and I don't think I miss the extra speed. A SSD pushing ~300MB/s is still really, really fast. Especially compared to a magnetic, spinning HDD.

Fully agreed. I was just advocating that dropping long green on the fastest possible SSD wasn't such a good idea on SATA 2.0 unless there was another evolutionary build coming soon.

For most workloads, it isn't the lower sequential transfer speed of mechanical HDDs that kills performance, it is the long seek times.

As I was typing that, the "It isn't high speed that kills you, it is the sudden stop at the end!" adage popped into my head. The car analogy doesn't even frikkin' work in this case, but whatever... you get what you pay for with stream-of-consciousness, slightly PUI forum posts. :lol:
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 6:41 am

Captain Ned wrote:
DancinJack wrote:
Captain Ned wrote:
Dug around some and your motherboard is SATA 2.0 (300MB/sec).
FWIW, I have a SATA II mobo and I don't think I miss the extra speed. A SSD pushing ~300MB/s is still really, really fast. Especially compared to a magnetic, spinning HDD.

Fully agreed. I was just advocating that dropping long green on the fastest possible SSD wasn't such a good idea on SATA 2.0 unless there was another evolutionary build coming soon.

Actually, knowing that it is SATA II is a good thing. Remember some early SATA I implementations where if an SATA II device was plugged in it was not quite compatible? Thus we had jumpers on HDDs back then to force SATA I operation? When SSDs burst onto the scene this problem has largely gone away, but we are talking older hardware here. So knowing that the motherboard supports native SATA II should ensure this issue to be not applicable. This should be good. ;)
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:36 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Actually, knowing that it is SATA II is a good thing. Remember some early SATA I implementations where if an SATA II device was plugged in it was not quite compatible? Thus we had jumpers on HDDs back then to force SATA I operation? When SSDs burst onto the scene this problem has largely gone away, but we are talking older hardware here. So knowing that the motherboard supports native SATA II should ensure this issue to be not applicable. This should be good. ;)

IIRC this was a problem that tended to occur with VIA's SATA controllers. So yes, the problem has largely gone away! :wink:
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:04 am

Captain Ned wrote:
Whoa, talk about a time warp. Further digging through your service manual:

ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products ... _en-us.pdf

shows no PATA connectors, but does show that you've got the oddball BTX form factor. BTX was pushed by Intel back then as a way to suck more air through the case to keep the P4s it was designed for from reaching meltdown temps. Once P4 died, BTX followed it.


The XPS 410 and the Inspiron 530 were two of the better units I've seen Dell put out. I'm impressed that the OP upgraded the PSU as I know only one other person who's done that and it was kind of a pain in the butt due to early PSU differences ("BTX power supply units can be exchanged with newer ATX12V units, but not with older ATX power supplies that don't have the extra 4-pin 12V connector, which was introduced with the ATX12V standard.")

I always liked the BTX standard and wish it had caught on. The benefits it had were beyond working around the P4 shortcomings. I got an XPS 410 that I upgraded from a core 2 duo to a quad core as well (q6600 from my 530 which got a q9300) and threw 8 GB of RAM in it.

Once I sell a kidney and have a ton of spare cash, I'll get all my old systems upgraded to use SSDs. Love them things!

The only bad thing about the case is the hard drive sleds you have to use and the limited space for drives: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=284934 But hell, it had plenty of room for that 8800 GTX (768 MB) and Ageia PhysX card!
 
scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:07 pm

Well, after work today, I went by a local computer shop and also Best Buy. I just wanted to see (in person) and also check out their prices. The local shop wanted $89.00 for a Samsung 128Gb SSD and almost $180.00 for a 256GB SSD. Then I went to Best Buy. They had an Intel SSD priced at $139.00 for a 180GB and an Intel SSD priced at $174.99 for a 240GB GB. So....I am liking that Crucial 256GB SATA III SSD that DancinJack pointed out on here (at newegg.com) much better! It's a larger SSD drive and it's cheaper!

Yes, I did throw some extra money at this rig within the first couple of years I owned it. I had the video card upgraded to a Geforce 8800 GT. The power supply was then bumped up from a 375W to a 425W. And I also upgraded the processor from the original Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Conroe) 2.13 GHz.... to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz (that bump in processor really wasn't necessary but it was done anyway) because I had a friend (at the time) who worked on computers. Finally, I increased the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. But after I had a defect with one of the memory sticks, I just left the RAM at 6 GB instead of increasing it back up to 8 GB RAM (which is the maximum on this system). Needless to say, when Windows 7 was released in late 2009, this system had no problem whatsoever running it. And even today, I am sure I could put Windows 8 on here....but I really have no desire in doing that. I haven't really spent any money on this Dell XPS 410 since 2009; and I have been very satisfied with it. But I don't suspect I would ever do any further upgrades (if they were even possible) beyond the upgrade to a SSD.

About my SATA cables, they are definitely not PATA. So I guess that's a very good thing in that I should be able to use the existing SATA cables and simply plug in a SSD into this system. I am assuming that is correct? As far as a SSD mounting bracket fitting inside the existing Dell XPS 410 hard drive sled, I guess (hope) that is a non-issue? This system has two plastic hard drive sleds in the base of the tower (to accommodate two separate hard drives) if desired/needed. The other question I've thought about (which I hope someone could answer) is the 'RAID' technology that came with this system. I've never used the so called RAID array with two HDDs....but the Dell manual that came with the system suggested that RAID be left in the ON position in the BIOS for quote 'better performance' even if the user only has one HDD for quote 'best performance' as their manual stated. However, I am wondering if that RAID setting needs to be shut down (turned off) before the install of a SSD. Or does it make any difference? If it does need to be turned off, I know how to get to that setting. I am actually pretty good at the software end of things...i.e. I've installed Windows on a reformatted disk a number of times. It's just the hardware side that is a little intimidating...other than the no brainers like putting in additional RAM.

Thanks for any additional responses to my questions above. I am thinking the only potential awkward part is getting a SSD mounting bracket to fit inside the existing Dell HDD sled? But I am hoping that is not a big deal.
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:49 pm

Your BIOS mode should either be AHCI or RAID. Sometimes there is no AHCI setting, so RAID is fine. You just don't want IDE.

And honestly man, you don't even need to mount the SSD. Just set it somewhere in the case it's not gonna go tumbling around if you bump the case with your knee or something.
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scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:19 pm

DancinJack wrote:
Your BIOS mode should either be AHCI or RAID. Sometimes there is no AHCI setting, so RAID is fine. You just don't want IDE.

And honestly man, you don't even need to mount the SSD. Just set it somewhere in the case it's not gonna go tumbling around if you bump the case with your knee or something.


Thanks for the tip about AHCI or RAID (no IDE).

As for the Dell HDD sleds (two of them inside my Dell case), I was playing around with the current empty one. I pulled it out and slipped a newly purchased mounting bracket to go inside of it. There's no problem with the mounting bracket fitting inside of the Dell HDD sled case. But the four corners didn't exactly line up to get all the tiny screws inside. So this particular mounting bracket didn't work so good. But as you say, I guess it's not really a big deal since a SSD is not a moving part and will remain inside the case sitting on the bottom of the tower. But if I want to use that new plastic mounting bracket I bought to go inside the Dell HDD sled, I would probably need some Velcro or something to secure it. I am not really worried about it at this point.

But I do think I am going back on the newegg site and buy that SSD that was posted earlier in this thread. It looks like a good buy for the size of the storage of that SSD.
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 12:00 am

It's definitely the best SSD deal going on right now. You'll be very happy.
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:30 am

Here is what I recently added to my 2006 SATA II AMD X2 build. It comes with a 2.5 inch tray adapter and sata cable for $169 last I checked. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820167177 I was tempted with the crucial SSDs, but reviews said it has trouble with my old AMD south bridge. The SSD improved the snappiness a lot, even without AHCI.

You may also find Aomei Partition manager (*free*) useful if you want to image your hard drive to the SSD. It is designed to image to a smaller SSD and worked fine and quickly for me! http://www.disk-partition.com/download-home.html

Check BIOS to see if AHCI is selected for the current HD. This is highly desired (not required) for the SSD. If not, use the reg fixit mod before changing the setting to AHCI or it will not boot into windows. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Jim
 
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:00 am

One of these is pretty nice for converting a 2.5" drive into a standard-form-factor 3.5" format:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817994064

I use a coupl've them in two of my systems (older Antec cases with only bottom-screw-hole HDD mounts) and they work great :). Nice solid mechanism and good airflow.
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scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:05 pm

Mentawl wrote:
One of these is pretty nice for converting a 2.5" drive into a standard-form-factor 3.5" format:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817994064

I use a coupl've them in two of my systems (older Antec cases with only bottom-screw-hole HDD mounts) and they work great :). Nice solid mechanism and good airflow.


That looks pretty cool. But with my particular case, it doesn't appear that it would be required (unless I just wanted it). But, again, it does look nice from the video; and I can imagine it would be quite useful in some situations.

My Dell XPS 410 has two bays to accommodate two separate HDDs (if desired) in the bottom of the tower. Each bay has a plastic insert (plastic sled) that slides in and out of a 3.5" sleeve. So there's no screws that are necessary to swap out one HDD for another. You just place a new HDD into the existing plastic insert (sled) and shove it back into the HDD bay (with no screws to mount to the case itself). All of this.....I am familiar with on my system. I just wasn't sure (before this thread) how any of it would work with an upgrade from a HDD to a SSD.

Speaking of the pins (I am not really familiar with the various types). But I know I've got a black cable (that has somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 tiny pins--all in a single row). Then I've got a blue cable that has (if I counted correctly) about 7 pins--all in a single row). Both of these are currently plugged into my existing HDD. But from what I understand (in this thread), the existing cables will work fine with a new SSD when I take the old HDD out.
 
scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:18 pm

DancinJack wrote:
It's definitely the best SSD deal going on right now. You'll be very happy.


I went on newegg.com today and bought the Crucial MX100 2.5" 256GB SATA III SSD. Obviously, I won't see the full benefit of it (like a new computer)...but from all the comments, I suspect it will perform nicely. I don't know if I would buy a new model Dell today; but this XPS 410 model has been a good one; and worth holding onto for a while longer. So I don't mind spending a little extra cash on it.

I will keep this thread open and also post back next week once I get the new SSD delivered. I know I could make an image from the old HDD, but I will probably go ahead and do a clean install of Win 7 on the new SSD and then put all my personal data back on the new SSD (which is currently backed up on an external HDD. I really do appreciate all the help/information from everyone on here.
 
scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:37 pm

xgsound wrote:
Here is what I recently added to my 2006 SATA II AMD X2 build. It comes with a 2.5 inch tray adapter and sata cable for $169 last I checked. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820167177 I was tempted with the crucial SSDs, but reviews said it has trouble with my old AMD south bridge. The SSD improved the snappiness a lot, even without AHCI.

You may also find Aomei Partition manager (*free*) useful if you want to image your hard drive to the SSD. It is designed to image to a smaller SSD and worked fine and quickly for me! http://www.disk-partition.com/download-home.html

Check BIOS to see if AHCI is selected for the current HD. This is highly desired (not required) for the SSD. If not, use the reg fixit mod before changing the setting to AHCI or it will not boot into windows. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Jim

I used Acronis years ago; and it worked great with putting Windows back on an existing HDD. I've never tried Aomei Partition manager, but it sounds great....especially for free. But I am thinking I will probably just spend the extra time (next week) and do a clean install. I've got a backup of all of my personal stuff.

I checked in the BIOS; and I have two choices on this rig. They are as follows:

Raid AutoDetect/ATA = Raid if signed drives, otherwise ATA
RAID On = SATA is configured for Raid on every boot

Those are the only choices in the BIOS. The factory default setting is Raid 'On'. And that's how it's still set in the BIOS. Please let me know if you think I should change it when I get the new SSD. Obviously, I know I can't change it right now or my current configuration would not boot to Win 7. But it would be easy enough to switch right before reinstalling Windows on the new drive.
 
DancinJack
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:29 pm

scott784 wrote:
Those are the only choices in the BIOS. The factory default setting is Raid 'On'. And that's how it's still set in the BIOS. Please let me know if you think I should change it when I get the new SSD. Obviously, I know I can't change it right now or my current configuration would not boot to Win 7. But it would be easy enough to switch right before reinstalling Windows on the new drive.


Yeah, just leave it to RAID on and install Windows fresh, if that's still your plan. Should work great. You will be pretty amazed how fast Windows installs on a SSD vs HDD.
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scott784
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Re: Dell XPS 410 and upgrade to a SSD?

Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:31 am

DancinJack wrote:
Yeah, just leave it to RAID on and install Windows fresh, if that's still your plan. Should work great. You will be pretty amazed how fast Windows installs on a SSD vs HDD.


Okay, sounds good about leaving RAID on. As for the Crucial MX100, you helped convince me to go with that...especially when I saw the prices of some of the other brands at BB...and at a local computer shop. I can't wait to try out the new SSD on my Dell next week. I never would've imagined doing this (on this older system) even a year ago. But the price was right now...and for a good amount of storage (256GB).

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