replacing a hard drive

I am looking to replace my hard drive with a ssd.I have a acer aspire all-in one z5610
I am doing research on what/which ssd is best ?
which will fit my system?
what size is best 256?
I have looked at crucial and kingston

the all-in-one is very similar to a laptop(no spare bays)
I would like to use the existing sata drive but it will almost certainly have to be external.
would the old drive as an external require power?
I have an esata option on my pc could I use this for the old drive?

are the connectors on a ssd the same as a sata drive?
will my system support sata3 6gb?
I think the existing drive is a 2.5" probably in a tray
will the new ssd fit straight in its place?
is it worth it?

I cant recommend any but i would say corsair or seagate drives. You would have to buy an enclosure and yes it will need power. The ssd should fit right in because the connectors are the same. I will answer the rest when i go on my computer

If you want to replace it, like you stated, all you have to do is remove the mechanical drive and replace it with SSD, then install your OS. Fairly straight forward process.

There's a service manual out there:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...55534169,d.dmQ

(Seems legit, even though the site is in Russia. The .pdf is in English.)

It appears that some models of machine have provision for both an HD and an SSD. As sold by Acer, the SSD is intended as cache for the HD. I can't answer whether your PC would include the connector and bracketry for the absent SSD, or whether the SSD Acer uses is a standard 2.5" type. It's possible that you can use both an SSD plus your hard disk internally, but you may have to disassemble the machine to be sure.

Your all-in-one seems to be limited to 3Gb SATA (sometimes called SATA 2), but that's not a severe limitation.

If your main criterion is reliability, people seem to prefer the Intel drives for that. (I don't own one.) I''ve been happy with my Corsair Force GT 120GB, even though it uses one of the infamous Sandforce 2200 series controllers.