Solved Replace HDD on Laptop with SSD

[SherriBabee]

Hello,

Im looking to buy a new Drive but want to go with the SSD instead of what my Toshiba comes with:

Toshiba Laptop Model C655D-S5086, Serial YA081171Q

SATA - size 2.5" - 5400rpm
Device Capacity: 305242 MB
Serial Number: 90T2P85UT
Model Number: TOSHIBA MK3265GSXN

Is it feasable to go from a HDD to SDD internal ? Any help would be much appreciated in my search for a new one.

p.s.. Nothing is wrong with the current HDD but since im doing a Factory reset with Disc's, I thought I'd upgrade the drive and get more space as well

Thank you

 

[HAVOC]

What SSD were you looking at? Any SSD will fit, you just have to make sure the SSD thickness matches your HDD. I think the thicknesses used are 7mm and 10mm.

 

[SherriBabee]

What SSD were you looking at? Any SSD will fit, you just have to make sure the SSD thickness matches your HDD. I think the thicknesses used are 7mm and 10mm.

Hello HAVOC

Been looking on Amazon and NewEgg but wasn't sure what to look for. As far as that thickness, where might I find that? In the spec's I have for the Laptop, I can't find N E thing about that yet.

 

[dg1261]

Your TOSHIBA MK3265GSXN has a thickness of 9.5mm. Most SSDs are 7mm, so practically any SSD will fit. You can go thinner, but if you go thicker it might not fit in the laptop's drive bay. (For instance, some large hard drives are 12mm thick.)

Here's a selection from Newegg that will all work in your laptop. In your case, the only essential requirement is that you get the 2.5" form factor, not M.2 or mSATA.

Your laptop's spec is SATA-II while SSDs are SATA-III, but that just means you won't get the full speed out of the SSD that a newer laptop might. Don't worry about that, though, as it's still going to be noticeably faster than your current HDD.

As for brands, I typically recommend sticking to familiar memory chip manufacturers (Samsung, Intel, Crucial, Micron, Sandisk, Kingston, et al) rather than traditional disk drive manufacturers (Western Digital, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc.). After all, SSDs are memory chips configured to look like disk drives, so I tend to trust manufacturers of memory chips to be right in their element here, more than manufacturers of magnetic media.

As for size, I wouldn't go smaller than 240GB, and SSDs larger than 512GB are still pretty pricey.

You mentioned, "I thought I'd upgrade the drive and get more space [than 320GB] as well." If the ~500GB range is beyond your budget, you might consider a ~250GB SSD internally and re-purposing your 320GB as an external data drive with an enclosure like this. Still another alternative is to replace your DVD drive with the 320GB HDD by using a second-drive media bay caddy, which allows you to have two drives in your laptop, but the downside is you'd lose regular use of your DVD drive.

 

[SherriBabee]

Your TOSHIBA MK3265GSXN has a thickness of 9.5mm. Most SSDs are 7mm, so practically any SSD will fit. You can go thinner, but if you go thicker it might not fit in the laptop's drive bay. (For instance, some large hard drives are 12mm thick.)

Here's a selection from Newegg that will all work in your laptop. In your case, the only essential requirement is that you get the 2.5" form factor, not M.2 or mSATA.

Your laptop's spec is SATA-II while SSDs are SATA-III, but that just means you won't get the full speed out of the SSD that a newer laptop might. Don't worry about that, though, as it's still going to be noticeably faster than your current HDD.

As for brands, I typically recommend sticking to familiar memory chip manufacturers (Samsung, Intel, Crucial, Micron, Sandisk, Kingston, et al) rather than traditional disk drive manufacturers (Western Digital, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc.). After all, SSDs are memory chips configured to look like disk drives, so I tend to trust manufacturers of memory chips to be right in their element here, more than manufacturers of magnetic media.

As for size, I wouldn't go smaller than 240GB, and SSDs larger than 512GB are still pretty pricey.

You mentioned, "I thought I'd upgrade the drive and get more space [than 320GB] as well." If the ~500GB range is beyond your budget, you might consider a ~250GB SSD internally and re-purposing your 320GB as an external data drive with an enclosure like this. Still another alternative is to replace your DVD drive with the 320GB HDD by using a second-drive media bay caddy, which allows you to have two drives in your laptop, but the downside is you'd lose regular use of your DVD drive.

dg1261

Thank you for your reply. I looked up 2.5" form factor, not M.2 or mSATA to see what this meant and understand now.
I also looked at that link from NewEgg and THANK YOU so much for the tip's. I see what your saying on the 500gb SSD's and will go with the smaller one's. I also looked at the Ebay link about the external storage case for use with the current HDD installed, great idea too.

I would like your suggestion on which brand to go with tho from your link, I wouldn't have thought about Chips and them specializing in that area of expertise until you pointed that out, Well Put ...

 

[dg1261]

I looked up 2.5" form factor, not M.2 or mSATA to see what this meant and understand now.

When you click the Newegg link, in the left column try unticking 2.5" and tick both M.2 and mSATA. When you then click [Apply] Newegg will show you what those look like. It gives you a good visual representation, and you'll see they don't look anything like a hard drive.

Essentially, a 2.5" form factor SSD is the same chips but wrapped up in a plastic enclosure to be a drop-in replacement for a traditional hard drive. (In fact, if you crack open a 2.5" SSD you'll find the case is mostly empty, with just a few chips close to the connector end.)

I would like your suggestion on which brand to go with tho from your link

There are a lot of good brands. I tend to favor Samsung, but more because I've used a lot of them and not necessarily because others aren't as good. I know colleagues whose opinion I trust will swear by Intel, just as strongly. I've also used Sandisk and Kingston if I find a good sale, and had no problems with them. Crucial is my favorite source for RAM modules, so I wouldn't hesitate to use a SSD from them, either.

OTOH, I've on occasion had bad RAM from PNY, ADATA, and Hynix, so those wouldn't be amongst my first choices for SSDs.

You might also be confronted by terms such as SLC, MLC, 3D, etc. IME any differences between the specific technologies are mostly theoretical, and not much of a factor in typical use. In theory, some are supposedly faster or will last longer, but for typical users any differences are slight, at best. I consider price to be a more important factor.

You'll notice my Newegg link also preselects products directly from Newegg, and with a customer rating of 4 or 5. Amazon is also a good source, though I find Amazon's customer ratings are less trustworthy. A number of Amazon reviews will rate the vendor or shipping speed or packing rather than the actual product. Also, IMHO Amazon reviewers tend to be less tech savvy than Newegg customers. (For instance, they might buy a SATA hard drive to replace a failing IDE drive, then give it a one-star review because the product "didn't work".)

I've been a Newegg customer for about 15 years and they're always my first choice for tech stuff, but I tend to stick to items direct from Newegg rather than from their third-party affiliates. Same with Amazon; I'll buy from Amazon, but hesitate if it's from one of Amazon's third-party vendors. Shipping and customer service can be iffy if it's not directly from Newegg or Amazon. Some third-party vendors are good, of course, but it's just another variable I don't want to be bothered with if I don't have to.

 

[johnhoh]

ditto to everything pj1261 said.

I recently researched this area and decided on the Samsung 850 EVO based on 14000 5-star reviews on amazon, performance, and ease of cloning my boot drive. Had it for three weeks now and its been incredible.

Amazon.com: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E250B/AM): Computers & Accessories

By the way pcpartpicker.com is a handy site for searching compatibility, and finding the current best price.

Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/AM) - PCPartPicker

My machine is a desktop with tons of sata ports so to do the cloning I just used a spare sata cable. In your case you may need to get a usb>sata cable for your cloning. Not sure.

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1487473803&sr=1-6&keywords=usb+2.0+to+sata+cable

 

[SherriBabee]

dg1261

Newegg link, in the left column try unticking 2.5" and tick both M.2 and mSATA

I see exactly what your saying, LQQK's like RAM to me

Newegg link also preselects products directly from Newegg

I've used NewEgg many years ago, expecially when I built my Desktop back around 8-9 yrs ago.
I haven't bought N E drives tho in years. The desktop is down for 6 yrs now since I got the Laptop.

Would you take a look at what I think I wanna go with? For now I want to use it Internally and I have a **1tb portable USB connected that I've been using for all my files/portable apps.

Crucial MX300 2.5" 525GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT525MX300SSD1-Newegg.com

Another alternative is to replace your DVD drive with the 320GB HDD by using a second-drive media bay caddy

I definately like this idea. This laptop only has 2 USB ports, so I have an Anker USB hub with 7 + 3 for phones/charging ports. This is hooked up thru the Anker USB port and is 3.0

 

[SherriBabee]

johnhoh

By the way pcpartpicker.com is a handy site for searching compatibility, and finding the current best price.

Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/AM) - PCPartPicker

That PCPARTPICKER.com is awesome !

Crucial MX300 2.5" 525GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT525MX300SSD1-Newegg.com

That is a pretty impressive SSD along with the ratings!

 

[dg1261]

The Crucial MX300 looks like an excellent choice to me.

I also like those media bay caddies. I use one on my Latitude E6430 laptop with a 1TB HDD in it, and a Samsung EVO SSD as the primary drive.

I'm not a fan of onboard laptop CD/DVD drives because it seems to me they never last that long. On the numerous laptops I've owned over the years, they all started malfunctioning after only a couple years. I suppose that's from constant banging around with the laptop--they're pretty fragile to begin with, and not as robust as a desktop optical drive.

I eventually decided it was more economical to just buy a USB optical drive that could be shared among multiple computers, and safely stowed away when not in use to avoid wear and tear. Once I did that, I concluded the onboard optical drive was superfluous and swapped it for a HDD in the media bay.

One idiosyncrasy I'll mention is my media bay HDD seems to park itself if it's left idle for awhile. You know how a CD or DVD will stop spinning after you've ignored it for awhile? Access it and it spins up, then keeps spinning in case another command is imminent. If one doesn't come, though, after awhile it stops spinning.

The media bay HDD seems to do the same thing. Once it spins back up, it's performance is fine. But leave it alone and after awhile it will spin back down. I don't know if that's a characteristic of my laptop (treating the media bay differently than the internal HDD bay), or if it's a characteristic of my particular HDD (spinning itself down if left idle for too long).

Either way, it's never bothered me enough to investigate further, but I thought I'd mention it in case you decide to try one of those caddies.

 

[Megahertz07]

I have a Samsung 850 pro and a PNY CS1311
The CS1311 is faster and much cheaper than the 850. So far so good.
PNY CS1311 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSD7CS1311-120-RB-Newegg.com

 

[johnhoh]

faster?

UserBenchmark: PNY CS1311 vs Samsung 850 Evo

 

[SherriBabee]

faster?

UserBenchmark: PNY CS1311 vs Samsung 850 Evo

johnhoh,
Cool site, im not familiar with lots of tool or compair sites, Tks 4 sharing

 

[SherriBabee]

dg1261, johnhoh, HAVOC
Thank for your help. As I posted a few msgs ago, I know what SSD im going with, and just waiting to place order when I get home from my Mini-vacation

 

[cornemuse]

I installed an ssd (patriot) in my 505xxx Toshiba, it has a (e?)sata/usb socket on it, I cloned the new drive via this. excellent!

I even installed a (?) 125 g ide ssd to an old (really old) A-16 (?) Tosh laptop, XP home!! Rocket fast compared to the old hdd!!