Upgrading old laptop-which WD SSD?

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As you can see from the footer, this is an antique that takes 3:15 to boot (my XP workstation only took 1:35), and I was thinking of throwing less than $100 at the slowness by going to an SSD. Will use Macrium Reflect 8 Free to load it from a backup.

I am stuck on WD and their family, as I never had a problem with any of their stuff in 20 years.

I know less about laptop innards than desktop innards though, and was wondering what everyone thought about these possible choices:

1. https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/sandisk-ultra-3d-sata-iii-ssd#SDSSDH3-1T00-G25 (*5YR)

2. https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-green-sata-2-5-ssd#WDS100T3G0A  (*3YR)

3. https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sa510-sata-m-2-ssd#WDS100T3B0B  (*5yr)

The ones with the 5 vs. 3 year warranties seem to be my choice*, but form, fit and function….hmmm.

The laptop is really rugged, and may have a few more years in it. Some fool put in a 5000 rpm drive in it! Like buying a Caddie with cheap seats…oh, well.

Ideas?

Thanks!

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
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"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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The first 2 are different form/size than the third. If the first 2 fit, the 3rd won’t and if the third fits the first 2 won’t (unless there’s some special adapter I’m not aware of).

Can you take the back cover off the laptop and see what’s in there now? Usually 5 to 10 screws are all it takes, but keep track of which screws go in which holes as they may be different sizes.

Try to find a manual for the laptop. That will give you the drive specs and tell you what will fit. I think SATA 2.5 is pretty standard for “older” laptops.

Edit: Does this help?
https://www.kingstonmemoryshop.co.uk/laptop/dell/latitude-e-series/dell-latitude-e6330-laptop

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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My personal experience with WD SSDs isn’t a good one. I had a 1TB Blue for about two years when it suddenly slowed to a crawl. Any existing data was being read extremely slowly (although correctly) whereas newly written data would be fine. I ended up replacing it with a Samsung SSD and restoring from my backup because it was a lot faster than trying to clone the WD, which would have taken several days.

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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steeviebops wrote:

My personal experience with WD SSDs isn’t a good one.

Huh! I’m not a shill for the company, but they’ve survived almost unbelievable abuse and age with me. I started buying mine with the Caviar series in the 1990’s, and only had one fail after many years of use. The whole MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) means nothing if you got a lemon down on the wrong side of the bell curve, tho, which is what sounds like what happened. I must say that I have not had one of their SSD’s yet.

Was this a Red with a 3 year warranty??

i’m leaning toward the Blue and the 5-year warranty, I think.

Thanks for the input.

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
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"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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Never had an issue with their hard drives either, this was an SSD that was acting up for me. It was a Blue.

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The manual for your Dell Latitude E6330 can be downloaded in pdf format from…

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_latitude_laptop/latitude-e6330_owner%27s%20manual_en-us.pdf

Pages 14-16 cover how to remove/install the drive bay (2 screws in the case, 2 screws for the drive bracket) and the images indicate it’s a standard 2.5″ form factor so the WD Blue SA510 M2 you’re considering wouldn’t work without something like this StarTech M.2 SSD to 2.5in SATA III Adapter.

Your Dell E6330 is “very similar” to my Dell D830 (they actually share some of the same parts) and it’s still going strong with a 5 year old Samsung 256GB 850 Pro SSD in it (56% life left) running Win10 Pro 21H2 build 19044.2006 (i.e. current thru Sept updates.)

BTW, the SSD upgrade reduced my boot time to ~1 min.

Good luck!

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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I have a Dell Latitude E5450, a 2015 model that I purchased as a refurb. It came with Win 10 Pro pre-installed, but I selected one with a spinner HDD, as I already had a spare SSD on hand that I planned to use with it.

Any 2.5″ form factor SATA drive should fit fine. Dell made their Latitudes quite easy to service, and even provides assembly/disassembly instructions in their handy downloadable owner’s manuals.

I cloned my internal HDD to the replacement SSD using an external USB-SATA adapter cable, then swapped the SSD into the laptop. Of course, installing the new drive first and then restoring an image onto it will also work.

Good luck! You will enjoy the crazy fast boot speed and overall responsiveness compared with the HDD!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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JohnW wrote:

I cloned my internal HDD to the replacement SSD using an external USB-SATA adapter cable, then swapped the SSD into the laptop. Of course, installing the new drive first and then restoring an image onto it will also work.

Any particular cloning software? I have Macrium Reflect Free 8, but I don’t see any reference to “cloning” drives.

Thanks!

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
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"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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DrBonzo wrote:

The first 2 are different form/size than the third. If the first 2 fit, the 3rd won’t and if the third fits the first 2 won’t (unless there’s some special adapter I’m not aware of).

Hm!

I’ve done some limited disembowling of this thing ( battery, CD/DVD drive, memory addition), and I must say the manual makes the drive R&R  look easy-peasy.

But form, fit, and function? Questions:

1. SPECCY says the HDD is SATA III, but the manual specs SATA 0,1,4, and 5. ???
2. There is a mounting rack here, but the manual is cagey about dimensions.
3. 3. I DEFINITELY do NOT want to buy an adapter-more $$$.
4. BTW, what IS a M.2 SSD, and is it special? Is made with Pluto Water or something? 🙂
5. Any further insight into cloning hardware/software appreciated too.

I’m going to attach some screen dumps. John W.  below thinks ANY 2.5″ FF SSD should work, but the devil is always in the details/specs.

Things are NEVER as easy as in the sales blarney!

I just want to do this with the least hassle, which is why the groundwork; thanks for all your input, all of you, and your patience.

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
--
"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

BTW, what IS a M.2 SSD, and is it special? Is made with Pluto Water or something? 🙂

It’s basically the internal chips from a standard 2.5 SSD mounted on a circuit card without a protective case.

View of WD standard 2.5″ SSDs vs M2 SSD cards

BTW, laptops only started coming with M2 storage cards when they became super thin so, if it’s more than a few years old like the Dells mentioned in this thread, it’ll need an M2 to 2.5″ adapter like the one I linked to above if you want to upgrade it to M2.

Also, there are 2 “different” types of M2 cards, M2 SATA (6Gb/s transfer speed) and M2 PCIe (as high as 32Gb/s transfer speed — depending on the PCIe bus version), and they’re not interchangeable! You have to buy whichever one matches what the M2 slot in your PC supports.

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks, JohnW

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

JohnW wrote:

I cloned my internal HDD to the replacement SSD using an external USB-SATA adapter cable, then swapped the SSD into the laptop. Of course, installing the new drive first and then restoring an image onto it will also work.

Any particular cloning software? I have Macrium Reflect Free 8, but I don’t see any reference to “cloning” drives.

Thanks!

I have always used Samsung SSDs which come with the Samsung Data Migration Software that includes a cloning wizard. I could have used Macrium Reflect to clone the drive, but I opted for the SSD manufacturer’s version for cloning in all of my cases.

I have also used Macrium Reflect to restore an image onto a new drive instead of cloning. This is also a good solution if you already have a good image available to restore from.

Imaging and cloning basically use the same technique to move the data. But imaging creates a target image file with the contents of the source disk volume, where cloning copies the source contents directly onto a new target physical disk ready to go.

With imaging, you optionally can retain several copies of the image file on a backup drive for archival, where with cloning it is strictly 1:1, i.e., old disk => new disk.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

DrBonzo wrote:

The first 2 are different form/size than the third. If the first 2 fit, the 3rd won’t and if the third fits the first 2 won’t (unless there’s some special adapter I’m not aware of).

Hm!

I’ve done some limited disembowling of this thing ( battery, CD/DVD drive, memory addition), and I must say the manual makes the drive R&R  look easy-peasy.

But form, fit, and function? Questions:

1. SPECCY says the HDD is SATA III, but the manual specs SATA 0,1,4, and 5. ???
2. There is a mounting rack here, but the manual is cagey about dimensions.
3. 3. I DEFINITELY do NOT want to buy an adapter-more $$$.
4. BTW, what IS a M.2 SSD, and is it special? Is made with Pluto Water or something? 🙂
5. Any further insight into cloning hardware/software appreciated too.

I’m going to attach some screen dumps. John W.  below thinks ANY 2.5″ FF SSD should work, but the devil is always in the details/specs.

Things are NEVER as easy as in the sales blarney!

I just want to do this with the least hassle, which is why the groundwork; thanks for all your input, all of you, and your patience.

As far as I am aware, the 2.5″ SATA disk form factor is industry standard for most laptops. So SATA 2.5″ drives, whether they are HDD or SSD are interchangeable. They use the industry standard SATA power and data connections, and fit in the same industry standard mounting brackets or slots. The different SATA specs are backwards compatible, so the drive will work with whatever generation of SATA controller your laptop supports.

As Alejr mentioned, the M.2 form factor is newer and your older laptop is not going to have native support for that, which would require an adapter. It would be easier and more straightforward to go with a standard 2.5″ SATA SSD.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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It’s been a while since I’ve replaced an HDD with an SSD but IIRC SATA 2.5 inch SSDs come in 2 heights (thicknesses), 7 and 9 mm. I bought a SanDisk 480 GB SSD and in one old laptop it was a direct replacement. In the other there was a bracket that was too small for the SanDisk, but not using the bracket was not a problem.

The Crucial website is useful for indicating if any brackets are needed and sometimes sells bundle kits for a particular computer. I’m not recommending any particular brand, but the website is useful.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/dell/latitude-e6330

Memory displays first, scroll down for the SSDs.

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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DrBonzo wrote:

The Crucial website is useful for indicating if any brackets are needed and sometimes sells bundle kits for a particular computer. I’m not recommending any particular brand, but the website is useful. https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/dell/latitude-e6330 Memory displays first, scroll down for the SSDs.

Many, MANY thanks. Didn’t know anything about Crucial; looks like a fairly solid, straight-up biz out there in ID. When the dust settles (or maybe even before) I’ll try ’em.

Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
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"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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DrBonzo wrote:

It’s been a while since I’ve replaced an HDD with an SSD but IIRC SATA 2.5 inch SSDs come in 2 heights (thicknesses), 7 and 9 mm.

I just took a quick look at the OEM 2.5″ Seagate HDD that I pulled out of my Dell Latitude E5450 (2015) and replaced with a Samsung SSD.

This 2.5″ Seagate measures at 7mm thick. A 2.5″ Samsung 860 QVO SSD that I have on hand also measures 7mm. That was a plug and play swap in my Latitude, no adapters or brackets required.

However, an older 2.5″ Toshiba HDD on hand that was pulled from a USB enclosure measures around 9mm thick. So there does appear to be a difference in the 2.5″ HDDs.

Found this here: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-internal-ssds

“If you’re upgrading an older laptop, you’ll also want to account for the thickness of a 2.5-inch SSD. Almost all SSDs nowadays conform to a 7mm thickness, but older laptops with SATA hard drives may have drive bays with as much as 9.5mm clearance. Some SSD makers bundle a space-filling frame with their drives to keep a thinner 7mm drive from rattling around in a roomier bay. That’s less common today than in years past, though.”

So I would assume that in NTDBD’s case, a modern 2.5″ SSD will fit at 7mm. If it’s too loose due to an older Dell drive bay design, they may need to shim the excess space with something. That laptop model is only a couple of years older than mine, but the only way to know for sure is to measure it.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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JohnW wrote:

That laptop model is only a couple of years older than mine, but the only way to know for sure is to measure it.

Thanks, John! As with any project, preparation is at least 75% of the battle. The right tools, materials, and information make all the difference. (“Measure twice, cut once.”)

(I used to work in Fine Cabinetry refinishing and restoration [old school-all by hand ala’ European/French schools] as an avocation for 23 years, and the middle of a project is NOT the time to find out there’s a shortage of #0000 steel wool, pumice, rottenstone, etc. when the shellac is at coat #10 of 20! Preparation if everything!)

 

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JohnW, wavy

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I have just been informed this week that we will be moving to another city several hundred miles away a lot sooner than was hoped for, so I may have to put this project on Hold (blast!) until this monumental feat is complete (assuming I live through it). We’re on “Hot” status now, and the gears are beginning to move whereas they were frozen before. The housing situation in this area of the country is completely out of control, and one has to strike while there’s any iron at all!

I want to thank all of you here for everything you’ve contributed towards the knowledge I needed to at least get this thing “gelled” in my mind, and for the sourcing. Special thanks to JohnW for the link to Crucial, where the device I have my eye on is:

https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500/ct1000mx500ssd1/ct11475161

Comes with a 5 year warranty and an adapter for 9 to 7mm!

I may just order the part and adapter kit and stick it in my laptop bag before we split.

I’ll still be lurking here from time to time, but I don’t want to be in the middle of a “HDD-to-SSD-ectomy” when the starter cracks his pistol, so to speak.

Again, thanks to all! This site is “The Cat’s Pajamas”!

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"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty

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JohnW, geekdom

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

Special thanks to JohnW for the link to Crucial, where the device I have my eye on is: https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500/ct1000mx500ssd1/ct11475161 Comes with a 5 year warranty and an adapter for 9 to 7mm!

Thanks, but I cannot take credit for that one! It was @DrBonzo that shared that bit of advice! Looks like a good deal!

Good luck with the move, and the future laptop upgrade project! 🙂

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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DrBonzo

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Whoops!! Sorry about that, Dr.B! I can only plead multiple distractions and possible softening of the brain! (Moving… Aaargh!)

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DrBonzo

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Not a problem. Good luck with the SSD project and your move.

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

Didn’t know anything about Crucial; looks like a fairly solid, straight-up biz out there in ID.

Yep, Crucial is a division of Micron, one of the few actual memory manufacturers in the world, along with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Kioxia (the last one is used by Dell, Kingston, Seagate, and Western Digital).

Kioxia is a joint venture with Sandisk. Intel Sold its NAND flash memory and SSD businesses to SK Hynix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manufacturers

Most other brands buy memory from from one of these manufacturers to assemble their products with.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Nibbled To Death By Ducks

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