Computers & Hardware > PC Hardware
Best option for updating an old laptop
broadstairs:
I have a laptop which I find a tad sluggish and am looking for suggestions to speed it up, the issue is that it is not SATA but IDE. Now my other SATA laptop has been upgraded with an SSD and I replaced the DVD/RW drive with a carrier to take the 1TB HDD which came out of the inside. It now boots much faster but bear in mind all my stuff runs Linux not M$. The DVD/RW is now in an external case which is USB in case I need it. The laptop in question has an Intel I5 processor so it is worth speeding up if possible.
Now I could get an SATA to IDE carrier for an M2 SSD but not sure how much of a performance gain that would be as I guess the IDE I/F would throttle the SSD. In addition I have not (yet) found a carrier to replace the DVD drive as it is IDE so right now I'd be stuck with the SSD as total storage. RAM is 8GB which is fine for Linux.
Has anyone any ideas please?
Stuart
Been mulling this over and the easy way is to use a readily available SATA to IDE HDD caddy to replace the DVD drive and put a normal 2.5in SSD in the caddy and leave the HDD where it is. Still begs the question how much will the IDE I?F throttle and SSD?
neil:
--- Quote from: broadstairs on December 22, 2020, 11:30:23 AM ---I have a laptop which I find a tad sluggish and am looking for suggestions to speed it up, the issue is that it is not SATA but IDE.
Has anyone any ideas please?
Stuart
--- End quote ---
i dont know what IDE is. So, i cant comment :blush:
Ronski:
Probably a complete waste of money, unless the IDE drive you're using is much slower than the interface.
--- Quote from: https://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/sata-vs-ide.html ---Speed
The next step in IDE vs SATA is to work out the data transfer speeds. IDE (PATA) transfers data from the speeds of 5MB/sec up to 133MB/Sec (ATA100/133). SATA however data transfer speeds range from 150MB/sec to SATA II which doubles it to 300MB/sec.
--- End quote ---
Not mentioned above is Sata 3 is 600MB/sec.
Is there really any point putting a circa 500MB/sec SSD on a 133MB/Sec interface?
I've fitted SSD's to Sata 2 interfaces and haven't been able to notice much if any difference over the HDD it replaced, so the difference on IDE will probably be unnoticeable.
banger:
I've done it on a 1999 Mitac laptop. Took ages to find an IDE to SATA adapter on ebay. Enough to say I noticed booting XP was a lot faster (bearing in mind this laptop was designed for Win 98). But in general it was not as snappy as a new laptop. Unfortunately I had a water leak and the laptop was water damaged so now the keyboard was damaged. It still boots but the BIOS portion of the boot sequence is slow I presume because of keyboard damage. I tried an external keyboard but a bit clunky. Even had wifi on the laptop.
sevenlayermuddle:
No particular suggestions for improvement, but shouldn't the first step be to try and identify the specific bottlenecks, then once the bottlenecks are known, address them?
Linux 'sar' can be useful, as can 'top', if run while the system is exhibiting poor performance - might point the finger at IO, memory or CPU. Or they might identify rogue processes that are hogging CPU, or leaking memory. But I'm not much of an expert nowadays, never really was, so read the man pages to find out what sar and top can tell you.
Hopefully our Linux gurus may be able to add to that advice, or even dismiss it. :-[
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