So my work laptop has a perished HDD, being that its an old latitude I am having hard time trying to find a direct replacement SSD as the BIOS is old and dell wont come out with a new one that supports AHCI, at least that is what I have gathered from the research I have done so far.

My budget is around $100 to get a 128GB SSD and it seems like newegg has a few options. I just need to make sure what ever I do end up getting would be a direct replacement and wont cause any issues with booting.

Model is Dell Latitude D820, BIOS is A10 (latest version) and the fried HDD is Toshiba MK8032GAX.
Here is the only SSD dell recommends that would work for the above mentioned laptop.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...chassisid=8560

I am not planning on spending $600 on a 7 year old machine but looking at the tech specs it seems like the interface is SATA (SATA I), true?

If so then can some one kindly link me to an SSD through newegg or any other vendor that would work with the D820.

Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

 

Can't you get a PCI SATA card and disable the on-board controller? Then you should be able to use any current HD?

 

It's a laptop.

 

Judging from the drive dell is pointing you to it looks like you have a Sata 1 interface. The good news is that Sata 2 and Sata 3 drives are backwards compatible. So I guess you can get what you like

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8142

 

Thanks for all the input guys, so would this one work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820239045

 

I don't see why not. Assuming it works it's going to breath new life into that laptop for sure.

 

SSD with a SATA 1 interface

 

Genius - right here. I aced reading comprehension in high school before I dropped out.

 

Although he'd leave some performance on the table, it will still make a HUGE difference. No point in laughing.

 

Go for the Samsung EVO 840 - reliable, good software with it and won't break the bank.

 

I agree with the 840 as well. And no need for the Pro with SATA 1. EVO is a good choice.

 

some? more like 1/4 of performance. 1.5Gbps vs 6Gbps... He will definitely feel an improvement but it won't be an Eureka!

 

It will be a 'Eureka'.

It's not all about bandwidth. Especially the "feel" of it.

 

rrrright..sure... He will see a nice improvement in hard drive related functions and in battery life. But don't BS that it will transform his laptop experience. His laptop will be as fast as BUS will allow.

 

I just did this for two macbooks here for coworkers. 'Eureka' is how I would describe both reactions.

Low latency, disc access and random r/w's make a difference. Especially when compared to a 5,400 spindle.

 

Corrected, a 5400 2.5" drive will be lucky to have ~40Mbyte/sec sustained data transfer. Even SATA1 with a SSD will make a Eureka difference.

+1

The best solution is to get a hybrid drive, SSD for OS and HD for data partitions. Large capacity for data and fast access for OS access. Less worry about FLASH hot injection current issues.

 

My OZC Agility 3 480GB SSD has been rock solid now for 7 months. Got it on sale for $300 shipped from Rakuten.

 

FWIW, this is a hybrid drive (8GB SSD, and 1TB HD). Install the OS on the SSD and the data on the HD partitions.
High capacity data with low FLASH OS access.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/411147/Laptop_SSHD_1TB_5,400_RPM_SATA_60Gb-s_25_Hybrid_Drive_ST1000LM014_-_Bare_Drive

 

Thanks for all the help fellas, ended up buying the samsung ssd linked above

The hybrid sounds promising but wouldnt be of much use to me as 64gb~128gb is ample for my needs.

 

Good choice! Good luck and enjoy it.

 

OCZ is no longer producing drives, they were bought out by Toshiba. All the Agility/Vector/Octane/Deneva/etc... are long gone.

 

1. The buyout is not yet final.
2. The OZC brand name will be retained and used, in fact, they just announced a new OZC Vertex at CES 2014:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01...ex_ssd_coming/

3. There are plenty of OZC Agility/Vector/Octane/Deneva SSDs available at NewEgg this very moment:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Z%20Technology

 

At least spell 'OCZ' correctly.

Whether it be 100% finalized or not, it is happening. Toshiba is paying 35 mil for the SSD business. They may keep the OCZ name, but this is just strategy to get consumers to buy again if they do launch new products.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/20685...warranty-.html

Onto your third point - I work in IT distribution and (formerly) one of the major OCZ distributors in North America. There is 0 stock remaining in the channel. We do supply Newegg, they have stock remaining because they bought EVERYTHING that the channel had left (Q1/Q2 '13) from my company as well as all my competitors. The stock remaining is now somewhat outdated, as other manufacturers have new models out with better specs and better prices.

OCZ does not produce the NAND used in their products. They source from Samsung, Micron, and Hynix. Due to this, I typically recommend the 840 series or the Crucial M500 series for most consumers. This is one of the many reasons why OCZ went bankrupt around the same time as the Hynix plant fire last year. They couldn't source much NAND supply.

 

Bottom line and to clear up misinformation that you seem to be intent on spreading:

1. The buyout has yet to happen (although it will eventually happen barring a bizarre chain of events).

2. There are plenty of OCZ SSDs available to the public at this very moment.

3. According to sources, Toshiba intends to keep the OCZ line alive.

And none of that takes away from what I said earlier:

"My OCZ Agility 3 480GB SSD has been rock solid now for 7 months."

 

What misinformation am I spreading? I have answers to your questions in my initial response regarding the buyout, availability, and Toshiba.

I'm not knocking your drive at all nor did I ever do this. I'm sure it is working nicely for you.

 

Tiger Direct has OCZ ssd in stock: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...Mfr%3BMfr_1548

 

Yep, many large resellers bought up all they could back in Q1/Q2 '13.

I'm coming from the distribution channel perspective - Where there is no stock left and no stock being shipped into us. Resellers cannot restock due to this.

 

Why have a middle man? Why not just buy from who is actually making the chips. I concur.

Thanks for the info.

 

I own three Samsung 840s (128GB, 250GB, 500GB) and they have been great. the smaller two have been OS drives for over a year in 2x computers and the 500 is a recent addition as a data drive in one of the machines.

 

You guys are crazy dropping that kind of cash for large SSDs. I'm not ready for that. SSD for storage doesn't make any sense to me. Alas, I'm sure most of you can afford to do this.

I'm rocking a 32GB Sandisk + 500GB 2.5" in the mac mini I use at work. Lol

 

For me the 500GB ssd is for a production environment computer doing heavy-writing data indexing. The write times on the indexing slow the process so I removed the bottleneck.

were it not for the controller card cost, I would have done two or three 250GB ssds in a RAID0.

 

SSDs are cheap. I still remember paying $350 hard earned cash to buy a 350MB hard drive in the 90s. I also remember thinking what a deal that was for $1/Megabyte.

 

$500 for a 500GB 840... Lol :/

Not cheap in my mind.

 

For me the cost/benefit included the fact that it replaced two 500GB drives in a software RAID0 (I lost space but did not need it) that would fail every few months and cost me hours and hours to blow a new image to the system (it effed up more than just the data on the RAID). For me, that was $$ down the drain but I needed the fast write speeds and approx 500GB of space. The software RAID just became too cumbersome and delicate so $500 for a 50GB ssd was a relief! Easier to manage than a hardware raid, less power, less vibration, less space, good speed, etc...

 

Received and installed the Samsung SSD a couple of days ago, install went smooth as expected and I am pleasantly surprised with the speed so far . Thanks for all the help fellas.

 

Would "Eureka" be a good word to describe your reaction due to the increase in speed?

 

In some respect, sure Speed is only limited by the fact that the machine is ancient and is not capable of utilizing the ssd to the fullest of its capabilities.

 

Dammit you didn't play along JnC.

 

Ah, how time flies.
I was looking at my SSD receipt in march 2009 and my SSD cost a 'mere' $3 per gig. And looking at a review of it, I saw this fun quote:
=============
So back in May of 2008 when I reviewed the OCZ SATA-II 32GB SSD it seemed like $17 per gigabyte was a relatively good price for SSDs at the time.
==============

The fun world of technology!

 

Now you get a 64GB ssd as the prize in a box of cracker jacks...