Some ugliness installing an aftermarket SSD

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Some ugliness installing an aftermarket SSD

By Fred Langa

Ever look inside a solid state drive? Neither had I — until I bought one and had to disassemble it to get it to fit into my notebook.

This story has a happy ending, ultimately, but unexpected trouble along the way made the process far more difficult than it needed to be.

The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/some-ugliness-installing-an-aftermarket-SSD/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

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Thanks for a really informative article about the possible pitfalls of a DIY installation, let’s hope Crucial and Acer take good note of your observations.

Graham

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Thanks for this extremely helpful and informative article – useful info and advice that will be valuable for those of us thinking of doing something similar (though hopefully now with fewer bumps along the way)
rdl

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The question is had you removed the parts from the drive first would it have fitted in without modifying the laptop drive bay?

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My question also! The project was a commendable effort on Fred’s part, however. Trust he will express his opinion to answer the question.

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You found out the hard way why some manufacturers make 7.5mm thick SSDs as well as the normal 9.5 mm SSDs. I used a thin Samsung 830 in my laptop recently. Had to put a plastic spacer on top to stop it flapping up and down!

Crucial make thin SSDs, as well as Samsung and others.

Bob Frost

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I agree with Arachnoid. I took my time reading about this effort and came away with a different perspective. Voiding warranty was your message. Had you stopped your persistence and used the proper 7.mm thick SSD, if in fact that was proper you may have prevented grinding off the corners to fit the square peg in the round hole. That said, you do raise a very good question. Why doesn’t an SSD come without covers so that in such applications you need not pack in all that heat holding material? Do they? You should have continued this fiasco with some informative material rather than sending us all off looking for the possible real secrets publication.

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While these suggestions or critiques may be reasonable, I can’t help but wonder if the 2 mm savings (with the thinner SSD) would have mattered. Two (2) mm is just about “.08 in” or less than a tenth of an inch. It really looked as if that would not have been enough. Besides, how many of us didn’t feel somewhat justified or satisfied in knowing, that things screw up for others as well as ourselves?
jim

I agree with Arachnoid. I took my time reading about this effort and came away with a different perspective. Voiding warranty was your message. Had you stopped your persistence and used the proper 7.mm thick SSD, if in fact that was proper you may have prevented grinding off the corners to fit the square peg in the round hole. That said, you do raise a very good question. Why doesn’t an SSD come without covers so that in such applications you need not pack in all that heat holding material? Do they? You should have continued this fiasco with some informative material rather than sending us all off looking for the possible real secrets publication.

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No a thinner SSD really wouldn’t have mattered because Acer designed the laptop to need a separately sold cover when using the second hard drive bay. They have done it on multiple models and continue to do it. Just one more way to squeeze money out of the consumer.

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I understand why you bought a notebook with 2 drive bays. But for many users 128Gb is enough, really. That way the SSD would have fitted in any notebook with only 1 bay. So you come up with the question anyone should ask: do I really need this? That brings up another remark: is the fit-guarantee for only the main-drive? I’ll ask my lawyers when I get a small donation to do so 🙁
Nevertheless, good and informing article. Could have been in the Wacky Web Week if you made a video about your efforts 😉

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Im also wondering as you seem to have bought the laptop new why you didnt take it as an optional extra at the time or am I missing something?

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I’m wondering about the stiffness of the drive bay cover with the fins removed. Does it flex and feel like it could crack if you grab the notebook with one hand where the cover is located?

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The problem is not that the bay was designed for a thinner drive but that the cover is not designed for the normal drive. Acer sells a different cover (separately of course for at least $40) for the secondary drive bay that will fit around a normal 2.5 inch drive. I only know this because I ran into the same thing on a different model. My cover didn’t have the fins but two large pegs that went through the entire area the drive should be. Those were the first to fall to the dremel. Then it still wouldn’t fit. The only place the cover was touching the drive was along the entire length of one corner. I again used the dremel to cut a long groove through the plastic so the corner was technically outside the plastic. When all secured, though the corner of the drive was flush with the plastic cover (there were only a few millimeters of clearance needed). The groove I cut looked like it belonged and it was on the bottom anyway so never seen unless you were looking for it.

If Acer is including a second drive bay they should make it usable right out of the box. Having to buy a different cover or cut plastic covers or disassemble new drives should never be necessary. I would still be using that Acer if it hadn’t died unexplainably at 2.5 years (outside of warranty of course). It had a good charger cable, and a good battery but would not get any power to the system. Tried all the troubleshooting I could find online with no luck. Not a big deal as I salvaged the blu-ray drive from it as well as both hard drives and replaced the computer itself with a new Dell I happened to get for free.

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Stiffness of the drive bay should not be much of an issue (it wasn’t for me). The panel is attached on all sides and still fairly stiff as well as not very big.

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I would be interested to know how truly necessary that “spacer” was for the SSD. Do the chips create any heat? Do you need a small space for heat bleed-off into the air?

Over time, will your changes cause teh drive to lose some performance or to fail prematurely?

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Crucial has added their “guaranteed to fit policy” since the last time I bought from them. I ordered a larger hard drive for my mini laptop. Checked the website. Called and talked to a rep who assured me the larger drive would fit. When I tried to install it….it didn’t fit. I called Crucial and explained what I was told by their rep. She said I would then have to modify the casing. I have no repairing of computers experience. Only a laptop keyboard and ram. I bought a cheap repair kit. Soldering iron in hand…decided I was not going to be able to do the job. Called Crucial and asked for a refund of the drive and ram since I was informed it would fit. She said they would only do a credit towards other parts. I said I don’t need other parts. “Give me the name and number please of the President, CEO, Chairman of The Board, or whatever his or her title is. I will call them directly and explain my situation. She said hold on for a supervisor. I asked him the same thing. I want to speak to the “Big Dog”. The “Head Honcho”. “Can we call you right back please?” They did. And offered a full refund.

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Although there are those who would have returned everything and started over before voiding a warrantee, I think it is a laudable quality to make what you have at hand work for you. It shows the DIY ethic. And it makes for a good story!

Regarding partition managers, I have enjoyed using a product called “Easeus Partition Manager”. They also have a freeware home version. The inexpensive site license has been a godsend at work.

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I just upgraded my mid-2010 MacBook Pro with a 480 GB SSD from SanDisk that was on sale as their “Daily Deal” at Amazon. My kids threw in $100 as a birthday present, so I couldn’t resist! I decided to make it my primary drive and replace the original 7200 RPM 500 GB that came with the MBP. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to make a copy of my drive (7 hours!), tested it so that I knew it would boot, and then installed it. I also needed to download a hack for TRIM support as Apple only supports their own SSDs. I used Trim Enabler (http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322) to automate the process and voilà, my MBP was updated!

As for fit, the SanDisk was a perfect replacement for the original drive and fit snugly (which is how it should fit) into the primary drive bay. There is also a kit that is sold by OWC (macsales.com) to remove the optical drive and replace it with an SSD, although I have no experience with using it. This configuration would have given me huge amounts of storage and the benefits of an SSD, but I used my optical drive for ripping and didn’t want to lose it.

The speed difference is breathtaking, especially on startup and shutdown. For the first time, I allow all of my apps to be reopened by Lion since it happens in seconds, even if I have Photoshop running. Honestly, it’s like having a new machine!

The only downside I can report is that with each system refresh—say, going from 10.7.3 to 10.7.4—TRIM will need to be re-enabled, which is a bit of a PITA, because it requires a reboot after running Trim Enabler. The developer says he is working on overcoming that problem, and hopefully Apple will emulate Microsoft in providing more extensive TRIM support moving forward.

If you can afford it, an SSD upgrade is a phenomenal way to breath new life into your computer. I only wish an iMac was physically as easy to upgrade. I’d do it tomorrow!!

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Made my foray in SSD with a new Dell XPS15 (L502X). Swapped the original drive for a 256 GB Crucial SSD, and placed the 1 TB in the optical drive. Computer runs fast. The only drawback right now is the screen does not come back after the computer hibernates. Tech at Crucial helped me change some drivers so that it worked correctly, but after some Windows updates it reverted to the old song…Will revisit it again when I have some time. Since I backup on the network regularly I’m not worried about the volatility of the memory (see Susan Bradley’s article “The good and the bad of solid-state drives”). I’m interested in hearing from anyone who has encountered and solved the same problem I am having with the video display after hibernation.

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I have added 2nd hard drives to two laptops, an HP and a Sony. For the HP, I just added a normal 2.5″ drive. What I did find annoying is the cost of the second connector and drive carrier, which I think was around $90, total.

With the Sony, I decided to get a small SSD (60GB) from Micro Center, on sale at the time for about $99! The laptop had a carrier for the 2nd drive, but I still had to buy a connector. Although I found the part number I needed – in the Sony documentation, I couldn’t order it from Sony. I had to buy from a retail store. Sony did give me the name of a couple of store that carry parts, one of which was still in the business: Fulton Radio Supply. The new, dual connector set me back a little over $80, with shipping. I also found out there is a drive height limit of 9.5mm in the Sony. I had thought about upgrading the original 320GB drive to a 750GB or 1TB, but those drives were 12.5mm.

The next part of this is the trouble I went through to try and transfer the OS to the (much) smaller SSD. I hadn’t thought about repartitioning the original HD, so I don’t know if that would have worked. Instead, after a couple of failed attempts to do a recovery to the SSD, I decided to install Win 7 Ultimate I was planning to use on a different machine. Problems solved and the machine shuts down and reboots in less than a minute!

It sure would be easier if the OS would allow you to specify a new partition (or drive) size when replacing a drive.

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I am very tempted to install an SSD, my only concern is vulnerability to virus attacks. Is it possible to corrupt the firmware on these drives to make them inoperative?

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I like your SSD install article. One needs to be wary of being a pioneer. If not careful he ends up dead or wounded as an intruder.
I, too, wondered about too much heat buildup. Also, did the SSD fit “perfectly”. Did you need to add padding? How does it stay in place without rattling around?
Dave.

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I love reading stories like this that shows ingenuity when presented with a problem. I have modded so many cases or parts to make them fit or created work arounds to make them functional; I would have not hesitated to do the same, Fred.

I have done many OS transfers to SSDs, 4 to the exact crucial M4 128GB SSD using the Apricorn Sata to USB cable and EZ Gig IV cloning Software included in the transfer kit. The transfers were all from much larger drives (320GB – 1TB) to the smaller 128GB. By the way, that cable and software work only with Crucial SSDs.

The process I undergo is less complicated but perhaps a little more time consuming. Your SSD, undoubtedly, will be for your OS and major programs while the initial spin drive will end up as storage as either a second internal hard drive or as a USB drive. So, the first thing I do is an initial cleanup by moving all data files (video, music, documents, etc.) off the spin drive on to an additional external USB drive or thumb drive. Next, I uninstall all unnessecary programs (which is a good thing anyway) to get below 115GB. I never found this difficult to do and usually ended up around 80GB when all said and done. Now, a defrag, for old times sake, then perform the transfer using the above cable and software. I never had to manage any of the partitions even if there was a hidden recovery partition.

Insert the disk then power off. Reboot with the SSD connected to a USB port and your puter set to boot off DVD/CD drive in Boot Priority within BIOS. Just follow the directions. Everytime….effortless!

As an alternative, I have in the past just cloned to the SSD from the lean spin drive within Windows using Acronis or the free version of Easus ToDo Backup, then just swap out the hard drives. You now must make a cataclysmic decision, Do you keep the initial drive intact as your backup OS and purcahse another drive for storage, or do you reformat the drive it now becomes the storage drive.

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Fred, you actually made me laugh out loud while reading about your troubles. Not that I was laughing at your problems but it’s what many of us geeks experience while fiddling. It goes to show one can never anticipate every problem that could possibly be encountered. Seriously, thanks for sharing your exploits. I especially love the pictures you provided.
— Carole

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I installed a 240GB Kingston Hyper X Upgrade kit in my HP laptop that went smooth as silk. The upgrade kit includes the new SSD, an external 2.5″ enclosure, USB cable, and transfer software and for some unexplainable reason was cheaper than a bare drive. Installed the new SSD into laptop with old drive in external enclosure, plugged in cable, booted machine and the transfer software did the rest. Really couldn’t have been easier. When machine rebooted all data was on new drive so I could then format the old drive to be used as a storage “D” drive.

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Fred, Why on earth did you chose an Acer laptop, when you could have gotten a Lenovo (or maybe another leading brand) already set up proper with an SSD? Sorry, but for me, Acer-eGateMachines has a very long way to go to prove itself in the laptop biz. Acer was once synonymous for good high-quality desktop motherboards and other desktop gear, but its overwhelming emphasis on consumer schlock laptops leaves me cold.

Although I not not handled a Crucial SSD myself, I have to assume that Crucial is not culpable in your saga of fitting their SSD into the Acer. But if the Crucial SSD has a form factor any larger than a standard 2.5″ SATA disk drive, they, too, need to be held accountable, not just Acer for its awful screwup with the second drive bay.

Okay, you picked Acer to give yourself something to write about. A Lenovo with an SSD already built in would have been a dull and boring article… Ben Myers

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It might have been useful, at least for Acer owners, to know which model Fred added the drive to. I have an Acer Aspire model 7750-6423 with a 17-inch screen. In January I added a Patriot Torqx-2 64 GB SSD. My experience paralleled Fred’s; initially I was puzzled because the drive case was too tall to fit in the shallow space provided by Acer. I had to remove the drive from its housing and trim the ribs (which I believe are for strengthing) from the drive bay cover. No harm done, except that area of the cover now feels a bit soft.

My purpose was different than Fred’s. I used the drive to create a dual-boot system with Ubuntu Linux on the new drive, and Windows 7 on the original drive which I left unchanged. Ubuntu is even faster booting than Fred found for Windows, from cold start (power switch on) to log in prompt in under 12 seconds! The Ubuntu install disk did all the setup work, adding a boot menu which lets me boot to Ubuntu, Windows, the original factory recovery partition, or Ubuntu’s hardware diagnostics.

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I recently had similar questions for my desktop PC and wrote to MaxPC mag. “Doctor”.
They replied with similar but slightly different answers.
See Maximum PC magazine Aug. 2012 p. 20. to see their reply.
If you have anything/comment to add or be of concern, your insight appreciated too.

For example it would seem wise (backup good feeling) to keep the original reduced size C: drive intact (OS et al)…to use to boot in event SSD failed? Since it is a 2TB drive….lots of free space.

Any issues with some s/w apps not happy with app .exe on SSD and data on C: ? Or some apps only want to be on primary drive always known to them as C: ?

And I assume the SSD has some drive letter? like F: or later in alphabet. Mine would be K: with several data card input slots (F-I)

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NO FEAR!!!

“Be bloody, bold and resolute…” Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1 –

Sometimes it takes a touch of brute force – well done!

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Fred, I’m surprised that a writer and “power user” like yourself would use a laptop as their primary computer (touch typing anyone?). Be that as it may, I think you made everything harder than necessary, perhaps being lulled by the dual bay setup. With my single bay Acer, here’s what I did:

1) bought an inexpensive 2.5″ external drive enclosure with mini-to-full USB cable;
2) Used the enclosure to clone the HDD onto the SSD with the free EaseUs Partition Wizard (vendor-enclosed software is often not the best)
3) Pulled the HDD (card) and installed the SSD card (Corsair).
4) booted and worked fine, with minimal application adjustments necessary at first.

I’ve also used that enclosure (Cavalry) with my desktop to install Win 7 on a new SSD, to get everything in order before physically installing the drive.

As for the longevity and degradation of SSD’s, their quality seems to have improved immensely in the past year, if Plextor’s 5-year warranty is any indication. Also, while in principle SSD’s shouldn’t need defragging with Win 7, when several months into my Corsair Force 3’s life I thought it had become slow, I decided to use MyDefrag on it. The difference afterwards was night and day. Not sure how to explain that. There are some defrag apps that do claim to be able to handle SSD’s sensitively (Auslogic, Perfect Disk), but I’m not sure what to make of those claims.

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While you certainly found a way around the problems, you did so at a cost that wasn’t necessary. A quick call to support may have cleared up the height issue of the second drive bay. And that call could have been to either Asus or Crucial. I have to wonder if there is any un-intended damage as a result to either modification. I think the message here should be to investigate further before destroying two warrantees that might come back and bite you later on.

I always get good information from your column but this seems a bit reckless.

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Fred, I too bought a Crucial SSD and with their brain-dead transfer software and ran into the same problem as you did. After much re-partitioning, moving data, and more bad words, I got it to load. Funny thing is that it makes the computer boot faster, but, not by much. It also seems to require file system checking much too often like it dismounts dirty. I replaced the CMOS battery to eliminate that from consideration. I’ve updated the firmware once and still don’t see the zippiness I thought it should have. Maybe the choice of Crucial was a bad decision. 😡

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This reminds me of a problem I had installing a second hard drive in my sisters Toshiba Satellite laptop. The bay cover had posts on it that protruded into the drive bay preventing it from being installed with a drive in the bay. Apparently you were expected to pony up around $30 or so for a new bay cover without the posts. I got a small saw and cut the posts off. The cover works fine.

There are times I would really like to kick the marketing folks at these companies in the butt for creating these absurd restrictions that serve no purpose other than to extract more dollars from you. Thankfully many of these “restrictions” can be circumvented as the author of this article was able to do.

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Fred:

The “fins” on the bottom of the cover you removed are (well, were) just stiffeners. Without something in there to press against (like your new drive), it would be too easy to flex that cover and perhaps break it, or just pop it off the bottom of the machine.

Odds are, at just the wrong time…. :o:

Still, a good article, and something I’d consider for an old (XP!) notebook here with a too-small-anyway HD, but since the dog kicked the comma off the keyboard, I don’t know…. 😀

I, too, would be concerned about the thermal issues after stripping the covers off that SSD drive, but YMMV.

Regards,

Stu.

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Fred you shoulda read the instructions before cloning ! From the EZ Gig III user manual:

“When used in the Default mode, EZ Gig III will automatically resize your partitions according to the new hard drive space.
However, EZ Gig III also gives the option of keeping your partition sizes the
same or allows you to resize your partition sizes manually”

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Regarding the cloning of O/S drives. I have done this routinely over the years. Recently I cloned a WD 1TB drive to a WD Scorpion (640GB) using the WD version of acronius true image. Most recently I purchased a Crucial SSD which I cloned using the included S/W from a bigger drive. No issues in any case. Sounds like a documenation issue with the Crucail cloning S/W, at least with WD software notes they state the cloning of a larger drive to a smaller capacity drive will be adapted for by the cloning application as long as the amount used on the original drive doesn’t exceed the capacity of the new drive. I found no need to use the “advanced settings” in either case.

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Replacing components on a laptop is always a lot harder than working on your typical desktop computer. Quite often one has to get his tape measure out and physically measure the component, a hard drive in this instance, and then go shopping from there. Even doing this, manufacturers don’t always provide sufficient physical specification behond simple form factor.

And some OEM manufacturers can be notoriously specific to their own make of laptop when it comes to replacement parts ( they want you buying replacement parts from them only and will make it difficult to do otherwise).

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Hi Fred,

Rotten luck with your ssd in having so much trouble. Did you mention this to Crucial and Acer and get a response?

Thanks for all the coulmn inches since the heady days of the Langa list.

Pete
UK

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I think I have the exact same model series of laptop that Fed has. I have a new Acer Aspire 7750-6423, that came with a 620gb, or something like that, drive. A week after I got it, I bought a OCZ Vetex 2 80gb SSD to occupy the second drive bay, when installing it, I had the EXACT same experience as Fred, removed the fins and all, it wouldn’t fit! I wound up just swapping out the normal HDD for the SSD and using only that, for a while, but swapped em back a few weeks ago because 80gb was just not enough, as my laptop is my main PC, for my needs without carrying around an external USB drive for mass storage space.

I never considered doing what Fred did, but I think now I will and have them both in there. So big thanks Fred, my great SSD, now sitting in my drawer doing nothing, will now be put back in use.

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Fred,

In your article, you mention how SSD friendly Windows7 is. I am planning to swap out the HD on my Dell with a SS drive. The OS is Windows XP Media Center Edition with all service packs. When you say friendly, what does that mean? Are there certain extra requirements for use of a SSD with Windows XP?

BTW, I certainly did enjoy the article, and really appreciate the time and effort that went into it. I’m pretty certain you have saved many of us from lots of wasted time and money, not to mention frustration.

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