Is this Intel SSD compatible with my motherboard?

By Cosmin
in Hardware Hangout

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Grand Master

Cosmin

Posted
Posted

Hy. I'm trying to improve my overall performance and thought an intel SSD should be a good choice.. decided on 330 series but my main worry is related to compatibility issues that could appear with my old 775 socket mobo (Asus P5ND2-SLI) which doesn't have AHCI and other stuff required.

Should I buy an SSD with this config. or wait for a new platform?

Thanks!

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

Hy. I'm trying to improve my overall performance and thought an intel SSD should be a good choice.. decided on 330 series but my main worry is related to compatibility issues that could appear with my old 775 socket mobo (Asus P5ND2-SLI) which doesn't have AHCI and other stuff required.

Should I buy an SSD with this config. or wait for a new platform?

Thanks!

Any SSD is compatible with any desktop *as long as it supports SATA* - you could add an SSD to a Socket *478* motherboard if you wanted (as long as it had an ICH5R southbridge).

The holdback will be SATA performance limits of the chipset.

That said, if the *chipsert* is the bottleneck, performance will increase as you upgrade motherboards.

Grand Master

Cosmin

Posted
  • Author
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some online-stores told me that if required features (sata3/ahci/trim) are not supported by my motherboard there's a % risk of failure :rolleyes: .. also related to their working-life.. read that it's theoretical .. limited, is it?

Grand Master

threetonesun

Posted
Posted

some online-stores told me that if required features (sata3/ahci/trim) are not supported by my motherboard there's a % risk of failure :rolleyes: .. also related to their working-life.. read that it's theoretical .. limited, is it?

Nope. It will work better if you have SATA 3 and AHCI, but they're not required, nor will they have any impact on the lifespan of the device.

Grand Master

Cosmin

Posted
  • Author
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thanks.. finally : do you recommend the 120Gb version or de 60Gb even the difference it's not used? Read that "as full as it gets so slow it will work".. :rolleyes:

In this stage.. my 75Gb C: partition is excess of space for my needs.

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Grand Master

+Fahim S. MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

I think that's also a myth and you can have TRIM even if your motherboard is in IDE mode. My motherboard is in RAID mode (although the disks aren't in RAID) and every utility I've tried tells me TRIM is enabled.

Windows 7 is the first version of Windows that supports TRIM.

Grand Master

primexx

Posted
Posted

get the largest size you can afford - one factor in performance/longevity is spare storage size due to the way SSDs work and larger drives have larger extra space AND you won't be filling up as much.

I think that's also a myth and you can have TRIM even if your motherboard is in IDE mode. My motherboard is in RAID mode (although the disks aren't in RAID) and every utility I've tried tells me TRIM is enabled.

Windows 7 is the first version of Windows that supports TRIM.

RAID only recently got TRIM support

Grand Master

+Fahim S. MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

get the largest size you can afford - one factor in performance/longevity is spare storage size due to the way SSDs work and larger drives have larger extra space AND you won't be filling up as much.

RAID only recently got TRIM support

No, what recently got TRIM support is when your RAID controller has disks in RAID and disks not in RAID, the disks not in RAID get TRIM. RAID controllers which have no disks in RAID have been TRIMming ever since I have had my SSDs which is well over a year now.

Grand Master

Shadrack

Posted
Posted
Without TRIM, the lifespan of the drive will be reduced and you could potentially lose performance once the drive starts getting full, but the drive will still work with your mobo.

Just don't constantly crank through files on it and it will be in better shape either way. Point downloads and stuff to a secondary HDD. I keep all my spreadsheets and documents on my SSD though.

Grand Master

Cosmin

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Just don't constantly crank through files on it and it will be in better shape either way. Point downloads and stuff to a secondary HDD. I keep all my spreadsheets and documents on my SSD though.

writing is the problem.. not reading from it. I still need detailed info on risks using no-ahci (no-trim) mobo's with ssd's.

I'm on a 6-year old BTX based machine. I have an Intel SSD in it...and TRIM works just fine.

your 6'year old BTX based machine could have AHCI which brings TRIM? My mobo seems to have almost the same age.. and it doesn't.

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

I'm on a 6-year old BTX based machine. I have an Intel SSD in it...and TRIM works just fine.

Trust me...it's not an issue.

SSDs work with motherboard chipsets as old as the Intel 8xx series - to put that in perspective, those were new when Windows XP was the OS du jour among Neowinians.

The issue is the controller chipset - TRIM support helps, but is not a requirement, any more than AHCI is. ICH5R supports AHCI; however, ICH7 does not. (The ICH5R southbridge was the preferred southbridge for the 865PE and 875P chipsets, while ICH7 was the default for both G31, AKA Bear Lake, and G41, AKA Eagle Lake.) However, ICH7, despite the lack of AHCI, does support TRIM in the default driver for Windows 7/8, as do *all* Intel southbridges back to even the original ICH5 - whether the southbridge supports AHCI or not.

Having both helps - however, neither is required, and one can exist without the other.

Grand Master

+Fahim S. MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

It's an nForce motherboard, so depends which drivers you use. If you use Microsoft's generic driver then yes. If you use nVidia's specific driver then no...

See http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1533919&mpage=1&print=true

Grand Master

Cosmin

Posted
  • Author
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so this driver "replacement'' won't affect working also with my current WD hdd? Seems so easy.. hope that it's real ;)

~ also.. it's recommended to have only one partition (ntfs) on ssd or simply doesn't matter?

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